Publication Date

September 1, 2012

The 128th annual meeting of the American Historical Association will be held January 2–5, 2014, in Washington, D.C. The Program Committee welcomes proposals from all members of the Association, whatever their institutional affiliation or status, as well as from affiliated societies, historians working outside the United States, and scholars in related disciplines. The theme for the meeting is "Disagreement, Debate, Discussion.” While seeking proposals for sessions that explore facets of this broad theme, we also welcome submissions on the histories of all places and periods, on many different topics, on the uses of varied sources and methods, and on theory and the uses of history itself. We also invite members to employ and 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. We hope that our program will reflect this strength, and to this end, we will seriously consider any proposal that advances the study, teaching, and public presentation of history.

The 2014 annual meeting will also continue the discussions, launched at the 2012 meeting in Chicago, of the ways that historical practice is changing as a result of the ongoing digital revolution. We thus invite proposals on what it means to practice history in this digital age, and what new technologies imply for how we do research, how we present our findings, and how we interact with a variety of current and potential audiences. We welcome proposals that focus not only on cutting-edge "digital history," but also on the broader implications of digital technologies for all historical practitioners.

We invite proposals for sessions in four different formats: formal sessions (paper presentations plus comment), practicums, roundtable discussions, and thematic workshops. 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 choosing a session format that will most effectively achieve your intellectual goals, and will best foster lively interaction among presenters and between presenters and the audience. We also offer 90-minute sessions as well as the usual two-hour slots. 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; ninety-minute sessions should have fewer speakers.

Please consult the "Annual Meeting Guidelines” 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 such diversity may be asked to revise and resubmit. Please note also that proposals for single, individual presentations can be submitted only for the poster sessions, and will not be considered for any other type of session (see guideline 4.2.E.).

Proposals may be submitted only electronically. Full instructions for doing so can be found on the "Instructions for Submitting Proposals” page. 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, Pacific Standard Time, on February 15, 2013. 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 Anne McCants (amcants@mit.edu) and Peter Perdue. Questions about policies, modes of presentation, and the electronic submissions process should be directed to cfp2014@historians.org.

2014 AHA Program Committee

Anne McCants (MIT), chair
Peter Perdue (Yale Univ.), co-chair
Julia Clancy-Smith (Univ. of Arizona)
Sarah Cline (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara)
Peter A. Coclanis (Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Joshua H. Cole (Univ. of Michigan)
Rex Ellis (National Museum of African American History and Culture)
James Harris (St. Margaret’s Episcopal School)
David M. Kalivas (Middlesex Community Coll.)
Kathleen A. Kennedy (Missouri State Univ.)
Maria E. Montoya (New York Univ.)
Eric Tagliacozzo (Cornell Univ.)
James Grossman, ex officio

Anne McCants (MIT) is the chair and Peter Perdue (Yale Univ.) is the co-chair of the 2014 Program Committee.

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