Publication Date

March 16, 2015

Perspectives Section

AHA Activities, Perspectives Daily

Every year in the February and March issues of Perspectives on History AHA staff reflect on our annual meeting, which is held in the beginning of January. Exhilarated by the experience of once again reuniting with the community of historians, we came back to DC a-flutter with the ideas we discussed together in New York.

AHA 2014 K-12 #1

Emily Swafford, AHA programs manager, and Elaine Carey, vice-president of the AHA Teaching Division, chat at a reception.

James Grossman, executive director of the AHA, reported on this year’s business meeting and explains our procedures for considering resolutions in his column “The Business of the AHA.” Emily Swafford reflected on the success of sessions and events related to Career Diversity for Historians, while our associate editor of web and social media Stephanie Kingsley covered digital history sessions in “Harnessing the Expanding Past.” Others, like Perspectives on History interim editor Shatha Almutawa, considered themes shared by multiple sessions such as “Capitalism, Global Business, and Inequality” and “Experiencing Revolutions” in “The Historian and Social Justice.”

Web and social media editor Stephanie Kingsley takes a moment to work on a blog post, surrounded by screens and app billboards.

Web and social media editor Stephanie Kingsley takes a moment to refine a blog post, surrounded by screens and app billboards.

Some of us also took a closer look at specific sessions. In “History and Historians in the Ukraine Crisis(February) and “Understanding Ferguson” (March), contributing editor Sarah Fenton demonstrated the importance of historical context to understanding current events. Meanwhile, Debbie Ann Doyle considered the Committee on Women Historians breakfast in “Historians, Activism, and Gender,” as well as the brainstorming and mentoring session that followed Jacqueline Jones’s lecture, “Women and Social Justice: What’s History Got to Do with It?”

If you ever wondered about the work that goes into running the annual meeting, then check out “Behind the Scenes  at the Annual Meeting” (February), in which Jeanne Gardner Gutierrez and Nora Slonimsky, two graduate students who led student workers at the meeting, reflect on their experiences.

Finally, reminisce on wandering through the meeting hotels, engaging in discussion in sessions, and chatting with fellow historians at receptions and other events by browsing the photo essay, selected from images taken by Marc Monaghan, our official photographer.

See you next year in Atlanta!

This post first appeared on AHA Today.

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