Online submission of proposals required for meeting that will launch innovative modes of presentation

The 120th annual meeting of the American Historical Association will be held January 5–8, 2006, in Philadelphia. The Program Committee welcomes proposals from all members of the Association (academic and nonacademic), from affiliated societies, from historians working outside the United States, and from scholars in related disciplines. Proposals on all historical periods and topics and from all chronological and geographic areas of specialization are welcome. To stimulate discussion of issues essential to the practices and uses of historical scholarship, the Program Committee has chosen for the annual meeting the featured theme of "Nations, Nationalism, and National Histories." As always, papers and sessions on all topics will be welcomed and considered, regardless of their relation to the meeting theme.

In a departure from past practice, the 2006 Program Committee—following the recommendations of the AHA's Research Division—will encourage several new ways of presenting scholarship. In addition to the traditional sessions in which formal papers are presented, the 2006 meeting will offer a variety of other formats. Poster presentations, sessions in which the papers are made available electronically ahead of time, thematic workshops, roundtable discussions, and other experimental formats are all possibilities. These are discussed in some detail in the article by Roy Rosenzweig ("Should the AHA Annual Meeting Be Changed?"). The committee will therefore welcome submissions that do not follow the traditional format, and encourages presenters to consider taking advantage of the many new options that are becoming available.

An even more radical departure from past practice—but one that is designed to streamline the entire process and make it easier still for scholars to submit proposals—is the requirement that all proposals (for papers and panels in any of the formats) should be submitted online at the specified web page, which can be reached through a hyperlink at http://www.historians.org/annual/. This means that proposals cannot be submitted in any other form or through any other medium (mail, fax, or e-mail). The article by Debbie Ann Doyle, "Electronic Proposal Submission System to Be Used for 2006 Meeting," describes the new process.

Proposals must be submitted by midnight, Pacific Standard Time, on February 15, 2005. It will not be possible to submit proposals after that date. Proposals for workshops have an earlier deadline of December 15, 2004. The committee will consider only complete panels or workshops (that is, those that include all presenters), and not single-paper proposals. Individual submissions can be considered, however, for the poster sessions that will be a new feature in the 2006 meeting. While experience has shown that it is very difficult to find matches for single papers or to form panels around them, poster sessions will be eminently suited for such solo presentations. Scholars wishing to find prospective co-panelists for putting together complete panels may, of course, find the "Panel Locator" very helpful.

Please consult the "Annual Meeting Guidelines" when preparing a proposal, and carefully follow the instructions for submitting a proposal.

All persons appearing on the program must be members of the AHA, the exceptions being foreign scholars and scholars from other disciplines. Questions about the content of proposals should be directed to the Program Committee co-chairs Celia Applegate and Kären Wigen.

Questions about the electronic submissions process may be e-mailed to aha@historians.org with "2006 Annual Meeting" in the subject line. Questions about the new policies and new modes of presentation may be e-mailed to Robert Townsend, AHA assistant director for research.

—Celia Applegate (Univ. of Rochester) and Kären Wigen (Stanford Univ.) are co-chairs of the 2006 Program Committee.