The 126th annual meeting of the American Historical Association will be held January 5–8, 2012, in Chicago. The Program Committee welcomes proposals from all members (academic and nonacademic) of the Association, from affiliated societies, from historians working outside the United States, and from scholars in related disciplines. The theme for the meeting, described in greater detail here, is “Communities and Networks.” While seeking proposals for sessions that explore facets of this broad topic, we also welcome submissions on the histories of all places and time periods, on many different topics, and on the uses of varied sources and methods. We also invite members to employ and to analyze diverse strategies for representing the past, including fiction, poetry, film, music, and art. The AHA is a capacious organization, unique among learned societies in its devotion to the full range of historical scholarship and practice. Our program will reflect this strength, and we will seriously consider any proposal that advances the study, teaching, and public presentation of history.

Furthermore, we wish to provide opportunities to examine new forms of digital research and publication. We welcome, therefore, proposals on technology pertinent to historical archiving, research, and teaching, and technology demonstrations, which will be part of a historical technology fair to be held at the meeting venue. We thus hope to link the proceedings at the annual meeting to the current development of the information highway and its relevance to historical research and teaching.

We are also designing sessions in which the careers of creative historians will be celebrated and the current situation of history and the humanities will be explored.

We invite proposals for sessions in five different formats: formal sessions (paper presentations plus comment), sessions devoted to precirculated papers, thematic workshops, roundtable discussions, and practicums. Individuals or small groups may also propose the presentation of posters as part of a poster session, to be held on Saturday afternoon, in which historians will share their research through visual materials. Finally, members may propose “experimental” panels using forms of presentation not covered by these standard session types. Please consider which session format best suits your intellectual goals, and will best foster lively interaction among presenters and between presenters and the audience. To assure substantial time for interaction between speakers and audience, all panels, regardless of format, are limited to a maximum of five participants serving as speakers or commentators.

Please consult the “Annual Meeting Guidelines” (online at www.historians.org/annual/guidelines.cfm) when preparing your proposal. Note that the Association encourages the representation of the full diversity of its membership in the annual meeting. Successful sessions will reflect to the extent possible institutional and career stage diversity as well as gender and ethnic diversity. Proposers of panels that do not include gender and ethnic diversity may be asked to revise and resubmit.

Proposals may only be submitted electronically. Full instructions for doing so can be found on the “Instructions for Submitting Proposals” page at www.historians.org/annual/proposalFAQ.cfm. With the exception of foreign scholars and scholars from other disciplines, all persons appearing on the program must be members of the AHA. Proposals must be submitted in their completed form (that is, with full information concerning all participants and their presentations) by midnight, Eastern Standard Time, on February 15, 2011. Proposals cannot be submitted after the deadline has passed; the system will be closed to submissions and will not accept them.

Questions about the content of proposals should be directed to the Program Committee co-chairs Jacob Soll and Jennifer Siegel. Questions about policies and modes of presentation should be directed to Robert Townsend, AHA’s assistant director for research. Questions about the electronic submissions process may be e-mailed to the American Historical Association with “2012 Annual Meeting” in the subject line.

Jacob Soll (Rutgers Univ. at Camden) is the chair and Jennifer Siegel (Ohio State Univ.) is the co-chair of the 2012 Program Committee.

The 2012 AHA Annual Meeting Program Committee:

• Jacob Soll (Rutgers Univ.-Camden), chair
• Jennifer Siegel (Ohio State Univ.), co-chair
• Beverly Bossler (Univ. of California, Davis)
• Daniel Cohen (George Mason Univ. and Center for History & New Media)
• Thavolia Glymph (Duke Univ.)
• Linda Gordon (NYU)
• Nile Green (UCLA)
• Cynthia Koch (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum)
• Paul E. Lovejoy (York Univ.)
• Alan Lucibello (Montville School District/Seton Hall)
• Kenneth Mills (Univ. of Toronto)
• Francesca Trivellato (Yale Univ.)