AHA members are welcome to attend the AHA’s Business meeting at 4:45 p.m. this evening, to hear reports from members of the AHA’s Council, divisions, and committees. Also going on tonight is a free screening of The Conspirator (just register to attend), followed by a panel discussion with the film’s consulting historians, as well as a reception. Read on for more about today’s sessions, films, and receptions.

Locations and Times

• Registration, Cafeteria Room of the Hynes Convention Center , open 8:30 a.m.- 4:00 p.m.
• Job Center, Ballroom A of the Hynes Convention Center, open from 9:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.
• Exhibit Hall, Hall A of the Hynes Convention Center, open from 9:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.
• Local Arrangements & Press Office, Room 107 of the Hynes Convention Center, open from  8:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.

AHA Business Meeting
AHA members are invited to attend the AHA’s annual business meeting, 4:45 p.m. today in room 207 of the Hynes Convention Center. The AHA Council, divisions, and committees will report to the Association and other business will be discussed.

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

• History and Fiction: Creative Intersections
  11:30 a.m. -1:30 p.m.
  Exeter Room (Marriott Boston Copley Place)
• The Public Uses of History and the Global War on Terror
  11:30 a.m. -1:30 p.m.
  Room 207 (Hynes Convention Center)
• Poster Session
  2:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.
  Ballroom C (Hynes Convention Center)
• Valuing the Environment
  2:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m.
  Room 207 (Hynes Convention Center)

Film Festival
This year’s film festival concludes today with four films, each showing in room 210 of the Hynes Convention Center, except for the sponsored screening of The Conspirator which will take place in the Marriott’s Grand Ballroom Salon G :

• Banaras Muharram and the Coals of Karbala (12:00-2:00 p.m.)
• Wings of Defeat (2:30-4:30 p.m.)
• Tecumseh’s Vision from We Shall Remain: America through Native Eyes  (5:00-7:00 p.m.)
• The American Film Company: Sponsored Film Screening: The Conspirator (7:00-9:00 p.m.)

Receptions

• Public History Reception
• Committee on Minority Historians’ Reception
• Part-time and Adjunct Reception

The Conspirator Screening
7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m.
Grand Ballroom Salon G (Marriott Boston Copley Place)
The American Film Company presents an exclusive free screening of their debut film, The Conspirator, directed by Robert Redford, written by James Solomon, and starring Robin Wright, James McAvoy, Kevin Kline, and Tom Wilkinson. In the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, seven men and one woman are arrested and charged with conspiring to kill the president, the vice president, and the secretary of state. The lone woman charged, Mary Surratt, 42, owns a boarding house where John Wilkes Booth and others met and planned the simultaneous attacks. Against the ominous backdrop of post-Civil War Washington, newly minted lawyer, Frederick Aiken, a 28-year-old Union war hero, reluctantly agrees to defend Surratt before a military tribunal. As the trial unfolds, Aiken realizes his client may be innocent and that she is being used as bait and hostage in order to capture the only conspirator to have escaped a massive manhunt, her own son.

Immediately following the screening, we invite AHA members to take part in a panel discussion of the film with consulting historians Frederic L. Borch III (Regimental Historian and Archives, U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps), Kate Clifford Larson (Simmons College), and Thomas R. Turner (Bridgewater State College).

The American Film Company will also host a reception in the Marriott’s Ballroom F starting at 10 p.m. after the panel discussion.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.