The Oral History Association (OHA) invites proposals by December 31, 2002, for papers and presentations at its 2003 annual meeting to be held at October 8–12, 2003 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Bethesda, Maryland. The meeting theme is "Creating Communities: Cultures, Neighborhoods, Institutions" and the aim is to take up the challenge of how oral history can illuminate the ways in which people weave the cultural mosaic of our society by creating communities in diverse setting and locales.

Paper topics may deal with the diversity of community life, the forces that affect the creation and continuity of community, and the forms in which individuals have created communities.

The program committee invites proposals from oral history practitioners in a wide variety of disciplines and settings and encourages them to think about "community" in its largest sense. The committee is interested in grass-roots history that gives voice to and empowers communities; folklore and folklife projects that preserve and enhance cultural continuity; explorations of racial and ethnic communities that consider both internal formation and engagement with American polity and society; political and diplomatic history that locates its subjects within communities; labor and business studies that trace the communities in these arenas; and oral history of the military that considers the social life of this institution.

The program committee encourages submissions from a academic as well as community scholars and seeks contributions from museums, historical societies, archives and libraries, community groups, teachers, media/technology professionals, and independent consultants.

Details about the annual meeting and proposal submissions can be obtained from the association's web site, http://www.dickinson.edu/oha/, or from the 2003 program chair, Roger Horowitz, who can be reached by e-mail addressed to rh@UDel.edu.