The American Historical Association announces Virtual AHA, a series of online opportunities to bring together communities of historians, build professional relationships, discuss scholarship, and engage in professional and career development. A service to our members as they navigate the current emergency, Virtual AHA provides a forum for discussing common issues, building research networks, and broadening and maintaining our professional community in dire circumstances. It also provides resources for online teaching and other professional and career development. We are creating various kinds of content to help historians connect, while helping us learn more about what our members want and need.

Virtual AHA

Virtual AHA will run through June 2021. Virtual AHA incorporates the AHA Colloquium, our name for content drawn from the canceled 2021 annual meeting. It also includes an online teaching forum, career development workshops, a series of History Behind the Headlines webinars, National History Center programming, and more. These programs are free, and AHA membership is not required to register. Many of the webinars will be available for later viewing on the AHA’s YouTube channel.

See historians.org/VirtualAHA for details. Download the Virtual AHA app at guidebook.com/g/virtualaha for the latest schedule updates and links.

Virtual Exhibit Hall

The AHA Virtual Exhibit Hall will be available online through June 2021. The Virtual Exhibit Hall provides an opportunity to learn about the latest historical scholarship, take advantage of publisher discounts, and network with editors and press staff. If you normally look forward to the exhibits at the annual meeting, the Virtual Exhibit Hall offers a similar experience from the comfort of your home. Best of all, no name badge is necessary: the Exhibit Hall is free and open to the public. Check it out at historians.org/ExhibitHall.

Programming Content Streams

• AHA Colloquium: Bringing together communities of historians who ordinarily meet face-to-face at our annual meeting through web-based programming.
• History Behind the Headlines: Featuring prominent historians discussing the histories behind current events and the importance of history and historical thinking to public policy and culture.
• Online Teaching Forum: Helping historians plan for teaching in online and hybrid environments.
• Virtual Career Development: Emphasizing career exploration and skill development for graduate students and early career historians.
• Virtual Seminars for Department Chairs: Supporting department chairs through the transitions and uncertainties resulting from COVID-19. Webinars will be small-group discussions (capped at 10 participants) and facilitated by an experienced department chair.
• National History Center Congressional Briefings: Briefings by leading historians on past events and policies that shape the issues facing Congress today.
• Washington History Seminar: Facilitating understanding of contemporary affairs in light of historical knowledge from a variety of perspectives. A joint venture of the National History Center of the AHA and the History and Public Policy Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Upcoming Events

Visit historians.org/VirtualAHA for details on these and other events.

• November 2—Washington History Seminar:The Woman’s Fight: The Civil War’s Battles for Home, Freedom, and Nation
• November 9—Washington History Seminar: Post Wall, Post Square: Rebuilding the World after 1989
• November 12—Washington History Seminar: Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal after World War II
• November 16—Washington History Seminar: Making the Woman Worker: Precarious Labor and the Fight for Global Standards, 1919–2019
• November 17—Virtual Career Development: Insight into Meaningful Work: A Professional Development Workshop with Chris Golde
• November 19—Online Teaching Forum: Deep Thoughts: Metacognition and Teaching History
• November 23—Washington History Seminar: Ruling the Savage Periphery: Frontier Governance and the Making of the Modern State
• November 30—Washington History Seminar: What Remains: Bringing America’s Missing Home from the Vietnam War

In Case You Missed It

The following recordings are available on the AHA’s YouTube channel:

Online Teaching Forum

• Teaching World History in the New World with Trevor Getz, Steve Harris, Xiaolin Duan, and Andrew Hardy
• Middle Ages for Educators: Online Resources and Strategies for Teaching the Pre-Modern with Merle Eisenberg, Sara McDougall, and Laura Morreale
• Engaging Students Online: Using Digital Sources and Assignments in Virtual Classrooms with Steven Mintz and Laura McEnaney
• From High School Social Studies to the College Survey: A Conversation with Teachers and Students
• Teaching History This Fall: Strategies and Tools for Learning and Equity
• Dual and Concurrent Enrollment in History: Strengthening Programs and Learning
• History Gateways: “Many Thousands Failed” in 2020: A Conversation with Drew Koch

Career Development

• What Is Grad School Really Like?
• Careers for Historians in the Tech Industry
• Making the Most of Your Postdoc

History Behind the Headlines

• Presidential Debates in Historical Perspective

Texas Conference on Introductory History Courses

• Texas Higher Education and COVID-19 Response and Recovery with Harrison Keller, Commissioner of Higher Education for the State of Texas
• Teaching History in This of All Years: Uncertainty Revisited with Anne Hyde

Washington History Seminar

• Recordings are available on the National History Center’s YouTube channel.

Further Information about the AHA Colloquium for Those Accepted for the 2021 Program

People originally scheduled to be on the 2021 program will have a variety of options for sharing their work. We are looking forward to working with participants on creative new ways to share their work. Keep an eye on historians.org/VirtualAHA for regular updates. 

A PDF program, documenting all sessions accepted by the AHA Program Committee and the affiliated societies, will be posted on the AHA website in early November so that participants can validate their expected participation for their CVs. Anyone who was expecting to deliver a prepared presentation will have the opportunity to post written remarks on the AHA website.