Report on the 1987 General Assembly, International Committee of Historical Sciences

The American Historical Association delega­tion, consisting of Karen Offen as delegate, Natalie Zemon Davis as alternate delegate, and Carl N. Degler, member of the Interna­tional Committee of Historical Sciences (ICHS) Bureau, can report successful accom­plishment of major goals at the ICHS meeting in Athens, September 23–25, 1987.

First, we can report that the ICHS formally accepted the recently founded International Federation for Research in Women’s History as an internal commission. The new group (whose interim council consists of Ida Blom and Salvi Sogner, Norway, Karen Offen, USA, and Gisela Bock, Germany, teaching in Italy) is now preparing a two-day program of the 1990 Congress in Madrid. They have also been assigned responsibility for organizing a session in the main program of the Congress on changing occupations of women since the industrial revolution. In the interim, Mary Beth Norton and Karen Offen will be draft­ing a proposal to the Rockefeller Founda­tion, in conjunction with the AHA, for an organizational meeting of the new Federation at Bellagio in 1989. An announcement of the Federation’s affiliation ap­pears on page 12.

Next we can report that Natalie Davis was selected by the delegates as a member of the ICHS nominating committee, which will pro­pose the new 1990–1995 officers and mem­bers of the Bureau. Other elected members of the nominating committee are Professors Chandra (India), Gaudemet (France), and Yuge (Japan). In addition four outgoing members of the Bureau will serve.

Finally, we can report that all of the themes for the 1990 Congress in which we had identified a strong interest among American historians were accepted. One of these, in the section on methodology, concerning new technical resources at the disposal of histori­ans (data banks, computers, and the like) was rescheduled as a round table. All the others were retained.

Major business of the meeting included the following items:

1. The dates for the Madrid congress were announced as August 26–September 2, 1990.

2. The secretary-general, H. Ahrweiler, an­nounced the deadline of late January 1988 for submission of proposals for the 1990 Congress. We are to send copies of all pro­posals for the grand themes, methodological themes, and chronological themes directly to the session organizers, with a copy to Mme. Ahrweiler in Paris. Final decisions on session contents will be made at the Bureau meeting in May 1988.

Although it was emphasized in Athens that national committees are not restricted to pro­posing their own nationals, in the case of the US, we will nevertheless focus primarily on encouraging our own people, since we have so many excellent historians whose work fits the designated topics. Our committee’s ef­forts during preceding months have succeeded in targeting those historians who might best contribute stimulating papers to the sessions. Now that the program is set, our committee will act quickly to solicit these proposals, with the hope of having most of them in hand by the time of the AHA annual meeting this month, and sending them off airmail in early January.

The external and internal commissions have been encouraged to adapt their pro­grams to parallel the grands themes of the Congress. Commissions plan their own two­ day programs (four sessions) and communi­cate their plans directly to the secretary­ general.

Round tables are designed for showcasing new work by younger scholars. Such round tables for the 1990 Congress can still be organized, subject to approval by the Bu­reau. The Congress will simply provide round tables with a room to meet.

3. The ICHS wishes to encourage purchase and dissemination of its new annual Bulletin in an effort to recover costs. The AHA could assist this effort several ways. First, a notice could be included in Perspectives concerning their availability. Perhaps the AHA could serve as a conduit for bulk orders of the Bulletin. The treasurer, A. Dubois (Lau­sanne), has been asked for a price list and order forms, which should be forthcoming.

Second, Natalie Davis and Carl Degler plan to explore with Sam Gammon and the AHA Council the possibility of incorporating the ICHS Bulletin as part of the AHA service membership for departments. This would provide significant additional diffusion among US historians in academic departments. Finally, library diffusion should also be encouraged.

4. Longtime ICHS Bureau member K. Erdmann (Kiel, West Germany) has recently published an institutional history of ICHS with Vandenhoeke, in Göttingen. Informa­tion on publishing and prices will also be forthcoming. This information could also be diffused to AHA members through a brief notice in Perspectives.

5. The inevitable resolution concerning peace in our time was debated, forestalled, revised, and finally tabled, with agreement to print the revised version in the next Bulletin with mention that it had not come to a vote. Carl Degler made a much appreciated contri­bution to debate when he proposed substitut­ing the word humankind for mankind.

After two full days of meetings, the group of delegates was taken to Cape Soumon for a third day of recreation and sight-seeing as guests of the Greek National Historical Com­mittee.

It should be mentioned in closing that this assembly of delegates included a number of women historians. But the fact that the US was represented by two women, one of whom is current president of the AHA, did not go unnoticed in Athens. Delegates were receptive to Carl Degler’s intervention on behalf of nonsexist language and to Karen Offen’s appeal to delegates to be aware of the gendered nature of many Congress themes, even when such was not explicitly stated, as they solicit proposals for the various sessions among their constituents. Natalie Davis’s contributions to discussion concerning the session proposals were extremely well re­ceived. The AHA can be proud of its delegation and their contributions to this meeting.

Instructions for submitting proposals for the 1990 ICHS conference in Madrid, Spain, August 26–September 2, are as follows:

All proposals by US scholars must be submitted in triplicate through the AHA Committee on International Historical Activ­ities. Proposals should be received by Decem­ber 15, 1987, and sent to Karen Offen, chair AHA-ICHS, Institute for Research on Wom­en and Gender, Stanford University, Stan­ford, CA 94305-8640.

Please head all proposals as follows: “Pro­ ram Proposal for the 1990 ICHS Congress, Madrid.” Give the title of the session for which the proposal is destined. Give the author(s) name(s) and title of paper. Enclose an abstract of the paper, not to exceed two pages, double-spaced; a c.v,, condensed, not to exceed one page; full address and tele­phone numbers; institutional affiliation; and (briefly) the most important qualifications and publications. The official languages for the Congress are English, French, German, Spanish, and Russian.