I am in the beginning stages of organizing a conference with colleagues in the fields of political science as well as history. Our working title for the conference is "Constructions of Global Civic Identities, 1780 to Present." The purpose of this conference will be to explore three inter-related themes: the development among Europeans and European-Americans of a sense of their national identity and "Western-ness" as dependent upon their position as global caretakers of colonized peoples; the development of the notion of the "civic" as both a domestic and international political and cultural space wherein civilization is forged or "advanced"; the use of global identities by colonized or de-colonized peoples to forge alliances and resistant policies. The recent spate of conferences and publications which combine cultural studies theories and methods with post-colonial perspectives, and the outlook of global history is testimony to the importance now placed on the cultural aspects of identity formation as it relates to nation-building and international relations. I think we need an interdisciplinary space in which scholars can talk across disciplinary boundaries in order to get a better grasp on the broad outline of the development of the "global community" that we hear of today. It is my hope that the University of Akron will host this conference and, with the help of outside sources of funding, I anticipate the conference occurring in 2002.