CBBS Annual Conference

Every fall the Center for Big Bend Studies hosts a two-day conference in the Morgan University Center on the campus of Sul Ross State University. The 17th Annual Conference is set for November 12-13, 2010.

The conference brings together historians, archeologists, folklorists and other researchers studying the past and present of the Big Bend region and northern Mexico.

Attending the Conference

Conference attendees are also invited to renew old acquaintances and meet new friends at the complimentary Friday night social, followed by our annual
banquet. This year's banquet speaker was John Hart, who presented "The
Quest for Silver in the Sierra Madre."

Center for Big Bend Studies members will receive a registration form in the mail several weeks before the conference that offers a discount for CBBS members and a discounted price for early registration.

Non-members may request a registration form by calling (432) 837-8179, faxing (432) 837-8381, e-mailing cbbs@sulross.edu or by downloading a form (PDF).The 2010 program will be posted when it becomes available.

Submitting Papers and Instructions for Presenters

Presentations are allotted 30 minutes, and we recommend that the presentation itself last no more than 20 minutes, to leave time for questions. If you would like to present, please complete the Call for Papers form and send materials to the Center for Big Bend Studies. For detailed instructions for presenters, click here (PDF download).

Presentations should focus on prehistoric, historic and modern cultures of the Borderlands Region of the United States and Mexico, with emphasis on the area encompassed by Trans-Pecos Texas and North-Central Mexico. Please prepare a Powerpoint slideshow to accompany your talk.

All presenters are encouraged to write up their presentation as a formal paper after the conference and submit it for consideration in the next fall's Journal of Big Bend Studies. Selected papers will be edited and published. It is not required that journal papers be presented at the conference, but all conference presenters may then write a paper on their or another topic and submit it to the journal.

All papers are required to follow a specific format which can be referenced here (PDF download).

2009 Banquet Speaker - Dr. John Mason Hart

We are pleased to welcome Dr. John Mason Hart as this year’s banquet speaker. One of the nation’s foremost authorities on Mexican history, Dr. Hart is the John and Rebecca Moores Professor of History and Department Chair at the University of Houston. Hart’s research specialties include the Mexican Revolution, the campesinos, the industrial working class, and the influence of the United States in Mexico. He has authored six books and fifty-five articles, and won numerous awards for his writing. His most recent work is The Silver of the Sierra Madre.

Professor Hart will discuss the engagement of the people of the Big Bend-El Paso area with Chihuahua from 1860 to 1920, including miners, railroaders, ranchers and revolutionaries. Among the early visitors John Robinson of Wells Fargo visited the mines in the Big Bend before heading off to the Copper Canyon. Later, the Swift interests bought 1,400,000 acres along the Rio Grande between Presidio and El Paso; and finally, gun runners and revolutionaries became omnipresent before and during the Mexican Revolution (1906–1920).