Friday Overview – 124th Annual Meeting

There’s a lot do today at the 124th Annual Meeting, from receptions, to open forums, to perusing affiliated society displays.  Stop by sessions that tackle how to interview in the history job market, use digital tools (blogs, wikis, text mining, and more) in the classroom, and get an edge in finding grant funding. Discover the wide array of sessions going on today that are a part of the Historical Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage miniconference.  Finally, end the day with the AHA’s General Meeting to hear Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s presidential address and see AHA award winners receive their prizes. Read on for more information.

Locations and Times

• Registration for the meeting is located in Douglas Pavilion A on the ground level of the Hyatt and will be open today from 8:00 am–6:00 pm.
• The Job Center is located in the Marriott’s Marriott Hall on the lobby level and is open today from 9:00 am–6:00 pm. (Admission to the Job Center requires an AHA registration badge).
• The Exhibit Hall is located in the Hyatt’s Douglas Pavilion and will be open today from 9:00 am–6:00 pm. (Admission to the Exhibit Hall requires an AHA registration badge)

Receptions

• Committee on Minority Historians Mentoring Breakfast
  7:30-9:00 am, Windsor B (Hyatt)
• Luncheons: Conference on Latin American History, American Society of Church History, Conference on Asian History, Organization of History Teachers
• Receptions: Two-Year Faculty and Graduate Students

Sessions
Here are just a few of the sessions taking place today. See a list of all of today’s sessions on the online Program.

• Interviewing in the Job Market in the Twenty-First Century
  9:30-11:30 am, San Diego Ballroom Salon B (Marriott)
• Humanities in the Digital Age
  • Part 1: Digital Poster Session
    9:30-11:30 am, Marina Ballroom Salon G (Marriott)
    This session will provide participants with an overview of different digital tools and services and how historians are using them for research, teaching, and collaboration.  Learn about blogging, text mining, Omeka, Zotero, Web 2.0 (Flickr, YouTube/Video, Google Maps, Wikis), and other teaching tools.
  • Part 2: A Hands-On Workshop
    2:30-4:30 pm, Marina Ballroom Salon G (Marriott)
    This will be a hands-on workshop where participants can learn to use some of the specific tools displayed at the morning session, for example, setting up a blog, creating a course web site, doing some basic text mining, or creating a model student web site.
• History and the Roaming Genome
  9:30-11:30 am, Elizabeth Ballroom C (Hyatt)
• What Has Obama Learned from History? A Roundtable on Politics, Economy, and Society
  9:30-11:30 am, San Diego Ballroom Salon C (Marriott)
• Grants and Fellowships: Want an Edge to Funding Your Opportunities?
  2:30-4:30 pm, San Diego Ballroom Salon C (Marriott)

Open Forums

• Meet the Editors and Staff of the American Historical Review
  1:00-2:00 pm, Elizabeth Ballroom A (Hyatt)
  What do you want from the flagship journal of the American Historical Association? The editors and staff of the AHR invite members to attend an informal, open session to express their views on the journal.
• Graduate and Early Career Committee Open Forum
  5:30-6:30 pm, Elizabeth Ballroom B (Hyatt)
  The AHA Graduate and Early Career Committee invites graduate students and early-career professionals to a forum to discuss issues of common interest.

Events of the AHA Working Group for Historical Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage
Today’s sessions from “Historical Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage” miniconference include:

• Marriage, Race and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
  9:30–11:30 am, Manchester Ballroom G (Hyatt)
• Roundtable in Celebration of Blanche Wiesen Cook
  9:30–11:30 am, Elizabeth Ballroom D (Hyatt)
• Gay Marriage and Proposition 8: Reflections
  2:30–4:30 pm, Elizabeth Ballroom D (Hyatt)
• The Politics of Marriage in Comparative Perspective: Imperial Legacies in Early America and Colonial India
  2:30–4:30 pm, Manchester Ballroom C (Hyatt)
• Screening of An Island Calling
  4:30–6:30 pm, Randle Ballroom D (Hyatt)

Film Festival

• 2009 John O’Connor Film Award Winner: Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness
  12:00-2:00 pm, Randle Ballroom D (Hyatt)
  Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness is a thought-provoking documentary about Melville J. Herskovits’s foundational contributions to anthropology, African American history, and cultural studies as well as the continuing intellectual relevance of his work.
• Screening of An Island Calling
  4:30-6:30 pm, Randle Ballroom D (Hyatt)
  On July 1, 2001, prominent couple John Scott and his partner Greg Scrivener were murdered in their Suva, Fiji home. This film traces the extraordinary and colorful story of the Scott family, the political crises that have marked Fiji’s recent history, the killings and their aftermath, and the complex mix of tribal authority, ethnicity, Christianity, and democracy that exist in the postcolonial Pacific.

Affiliates
From 11:30 am to 2:30 pm today, visit the Elizabeth Foyer on the Hyatt’s second level where affiliated societies of the AHA will be displaying materials and meeting with members of the profession.

General Meeting
The General Meeting will take place tonight in the Elizabeth Ballroom F of the Hyatt at 8:30 pm. AHA President Laurel Thatcher Ulrich will deliver her presidential address, “An American Album, 1857,” which will be followed by the presentation of awards to recipients of AHA prizes.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.