Virtual AHA’s January Session

AHA Staff | Jan 4, 2021

Virtual AHA announces the January Session, a cluster of high-profile presentations, plenary sessions, and networking events. Coinciding with the dates of our canceled annual meeting, the January Session will feature the 2021 Presidential Address by AHA president Mary Lindemann, “Slow History”; plenary sessions on “Erasing History” and “The International Implications of the US Election”; and networking events held by the Committee on Minority Historians and the Committee on LGBTQ Status in the Profession. Several webinars and workshops, including multiple webinars organized by participants, are scheduled during that time. Clear your schedule for a week of historical research and conversation.

Presidential Address: Slow History

January 6, 2021, 7 p.m. EST

Introduction: Jacqueline Jones, AHA president-elect (Univ. of Texas at Austin).

Speaker: Mary Lindemann, AHA president (Univ. of Miami).

All historians realize how much COVID-19 has interfered with our scholarship and teaching. Everything has slowed down, from preparing for classes, to doing research, to completing the simplest tasks of everyday life. Yet in the upheaval we are currently experiencing, and as we struggle to remain productive, perhaps we should also seize the opportunity to think more deeply about the “doing” of history and to isolate what really matters in research, writing, and instruction. Scholars in other disciplines have been doing so for several years and some have even issued manifestos like the one advocating “slow science.” Should we follow their lead? “Is going slow good for historians as well?”

Plenary: Erasing History

January 7, 2021, 7 p.m. EST

A series of conversations about "erasing history" in different times and places. Featuring Daniel Immerwahr on the "hiding" of the American Empire; Laura Matthew on the erasure of Maya heritage in Anglo America; Philip Nord on France and forgetting and remembering the Holocaust in the shaping of its memorials; and Shani Roper on the de-radicalization of Black radical traditions in post-Colonial Jamaica.

Chair: Annette Gordon-Reed (Harvard Univ.)

Panel: Daniel Immerwahr (Northwestern Univ.)

Laura Matthew (Marquette Univ.)

Philip Nord (Princeton Univ.)

Shani Roper (Univ. of the West Indies Museum)

Late Breaking Plenary: International Perspectives on the US Election

January 8, 2021, 2 p.m. EST

Exploring the international implications of the US presidential election, with a special emphasis on how historical thinking can bring particular insights to the table. Topics will include the environment; health; finance and economics; global politics, migration, open borders, and refugees; and human rights.

Chair: John R. McNeill (Georgetown Univ.)

Panel: Beverly Gage (Yale Univ.)

Paul Krugman (Graduate Center of the City Univ. of New York)

Ana Raquel Minian (Stanford Univ.)

Cocktails and Coffee with the Committee on Minority Historians

January 8, 2021, 5 p.m. EST

The Committee on Minority Historians cordially invites minority scholars, graduate students, and others to an online networking event. Please join the committee in a discussion of life in the discipline.

Committee on LGBTQ Status in the Profession Open Forum and Coffee

January 9, 2021, 2 p.m. EST

Members of the committee will lead a conversation about professional challenges facing LGBTQ historians, followed by an opportunity for informal conversation and networking. Conversation will focus on priorities for the committee, which is charged with addressing fair treatment and nondiscrimination.