American Historical Association Call for Papers

Continuing with our week of Calls for Papers, today we bring you the CFP from the American Historical Association. It's worth clicking on the link to "Lives, Places, Stories," people. Just sayin'. Oh, and NOTE that the deadline is February 15. We're going to try to remind you about a month ahead of the deadline on each of the calls we post here. Consider yourself reminded. Here's the call:

The 127th annual meeting of the American Historical Association will be held January 3–6, 2013, in New Orleans. The Program Committee welcomes proposals from all members of the Association, whatever their institutional affiliation or status, as well as from affiliated societies, historians working outside the United States, and scholars in related disciplines.

The theme for the meeting, described in greater detail in the article, is “Lives, Places, Stories.” While seeking proposals for sessions that explore facets of this broad theme, we also welcome submissions on the histories of all places and time periods, on many different topics, and on the uses of varied sources and methods. We also invite members to employ and analyze diverse strategies for representing the past, including fiction, poetry, film, music, and art. The AHA is a capacious organization, unique among learned societies in its devotion to the full range of historical scholarship and practice. We hope that our program will reflect this strength, and to this end, we will seriously consider any proposal that advances the study, teaching, and public presentation of history.

The 2013 annual meeting will also continue the discussions, to be launched at the 2012 meeting in Chicago, of the ways that historical practice is changing as a result of the ongoing digital revolution. We thus invite proposals on what it means to practice history in this digital age, especially if we hope to reach public audiences with our work. We welcome proposals that focus not only on cutting-edge "digital history,”but also on the broad implications of digital technologies for all historical practitioners.

We invite proposals for sessions in four different formats: formal sessions (paper presentations plus comment), thematic workshops, roundtable discussions, and practicums. Individuals or small groups may also propose the presentation of posters as part of a poster session, to be held on Saturday afternoon, in which historians will share their research through visual materials. Finally, members may propose "experimental”panels using forms of presentation not covered by these standard session types. Please consider choosing a session format that will most effectively achieve your intellectual goals, and will best foster lively interaction among presenters and between presenters and the audience. To assure substantial time for interaction between speakers and audience, all panels, regardless of format, are limited to a maximum of five participants serving as speakers or commentators.

Please consult the "Annual Meeting Guidelines” when preparing your proposal. Note that the Association encourages the representation of the full diversity of its membership in the annual meeting. Successful sessions will reflect to the extent possible institutional and career stage diversity as well as gender and ethnic diversity. Proposers of panels that do not include such diversity may be asked to revise and resubmit.

Proposals may only be submitted electronically. Full instructions for doing so can be found on the "Instructions for Submitting Proposals" page. With the exception of foreign scholars and scholars from other disciplines, all persons appearing on the program must be members of the AHA. Proposals must be submitted in their completed form (that is, with full information concerning all participants and their presentations) by midnight, Eastern Standard Time, on February 15, 2012. Proposals cannot be submitted after the deadline has passed; the system will be closed to submissions and will not accept them.

Questions about the content of proposals should be directed to the Program Committee co-chairs Paul Sutter (paul.sutter@colorado.edu) and John McNeill (mcneillj@georgetown.edu). Questions about policies and modes of presentation should be directed to Robert Townsend, AHA's deputy executive director. Questions about the electronic submissions process may be e-mailed to the American Historical Association with "2013 Annual Meeting”in the subject line.

For more information, click on over to the AHA's website.