Our knowledge of the world — imagined, experienced, or learned — is constantly in flux. As humans, we change, adapt, and mould the environments around us, the knowledge systems we use and the items we create. Adaptation can be forced through the presentation of an obstacle, or it can occur symbiotically within a group.

Our 2020 conference has been delayed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021 Limina: The Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies, the Perth Medieval and Renaissance Group (PMRG), and Medieval and Early Modern Studies at The University of Western Australia are joining forces to provide a forum for the presentation of the myriad of ‘adaptations’ worlds, individuals, languages, ideas, and peoples, real or otherwise, experience.

The conference is now scheduled to run from 30th September 2021 to 2nd October 2021. Our call for papers will remain open until April 12 2021, and we will accept submissions for our conference special issue until 31 October 2020, to be released at the conference.

For more information, please visit the 2020 conference page.

The 14th annual Limina conference explored the visceral, corporeal, and ephemeral dimensions of being human.

We live in a climate of debates about bodily autonomy, population growth, artificial intelligence, and genetic modification. Our bodies are marked by sex, race, age, and health, all of which are contentiously invested with social and political significance. At the same time, discoveries about our past and emerging technologies challenge fixed ideas of what it means to be human. In this way, the lines between our bodies and our humanity are being drawn and re-drawn. Extending beyond the physical, then, how do we understand and express what it means to be human? 

For more information, please visit the 2019 conference page.

The 2018 Limina conference 'Home: Belonging and Displacement' was held on 26 and 27 July, 2018. Speakers from Perth, interstate and overseas produced a wide array of presentations and discussions on the complexities of home, as both a place and a spatial imaginary.

On Thursday, the conference was opened with a welcome address by Prof Philip Hancock, Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning), Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Education.

The keynote address, Owning Home: Transformations in the Australian Housing System, was delivered by Professor Rachel Ong ViforJ, School of Economics and Finance, Curtin University.

An evening public panel discussion was held in collaboration with the UWA Institute of Advanced Studies. The event was facilitated by Fadzi Whande, and the panelists – Associate Professor Caroline Fleay, Sara Shengeb, and Bella Ndayikeze – drew from their perspectives as community leaders, researchers, and individuals with lived experiences as refugees.

At the closing of the conference on Friday, The Editorial Collective launched Volume 23.2, assembled from papers presented at Limina Conference 2017, Memory: Myth and Modernity.

For more information, please visit the 2018 conference page. 

The conference program and abstracts booklet is available to download below.

Conference Program 2018 [pdf 2.4mb]

The 12th annual Limina conference was held on Thursday 27th and Friday 28th of July, at St Catherine’s College. Presenters delivered papers exploring the different facets of memory from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives.

Thursday 27 July 

The conference was opened with a welcome address by Dr Brenda McGivern, FABLE Associate Dean (Community and Engagement).

Professor Susan Broomhall delivered the keynote presentation on the way emotions and memory interact to shape the narratives of powerful women in history, like Catherine de Medici (“Emotions and Memory: Catherine de Medici and the Myth of Modernity”).

Estelle Blackburn OAM gave a public lecture on her role as an investigative journalist in exonerating two men wrongfully convicted for murders committed by Eric Cooke (“Challenging justice – changing lives”). The lecture was organised in collaboration with the UWA Institute of Advanced Studies.

Friday 28 July

The Editorial Collective launched a Special Edition of Limina Journal, assembled from papers presented at the 2016 inaugural Griffith University PhD History Symposium.

Post-conference Information

Conference presenters are encouraged to submit their papers to Limina Journal to be considered for the upcoming conference-themed issue. The article submission deadline is September 29th, 2017. Further information on submissions and style guide are available here.

Selected photos of the conference can be viewed on Facebook.

For more information on the conference please visit the 2017 Conference Page.

You can download the Limina Conference Programme 2017 as a PDF.

Conference Program 2017 [pdf 9.2mb]