2019 OAH Annual Meeting, Philadelphia---Call for Proposals

Hajni Selby Announcement
Location
Pennsylvania, United States
Subject Fields
American History / Studies, African American History / Studies, Chicana/o History / Studies, Immigration & Migration History / Studies, Women's & Gender History / Studies

2019 OAH Annual Meeting, Philadelphia
Call for Proposals "The Work of Freedom"

Submissions will be accepted between November 27, 2017 and January 12, 2018

NEW: Use the OAH Annual Meeting Crossroads  to find collaborators or contribute to a proposal for the 2019 OAH Annual Meeting!

From the historical profession's beginnings in the late 19th and early 20th century, freedom has been a dominant theme in research, writing, and public debates on the shape, content, and character of the American experience. Over a century of scholarship and popular discussions have illuminated topics such as the diverse struggles for freedom, the denial of freedom, the limits of freedom, the prospects of freedom, the sources of freedom, the obligations of freedom, the value of freedom, the geographies of freedom, and the meaning of freedom, to name several. Marking the 400th Anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in British North America, the theme of this program shifts the lens to the "Work of Freedom." It aims to capture the labor(s) involved in identifying and securing freedom, from the colonial era and founding of the Republic through the recent election of Donald J. Trump President of the United States.

The program committee encourages proposals focusing on research, teaching, and public education that address our theme as creatively and as broadly as possible. Our theme opens up opportunities for scholars working across a variety of temporal, geographical, thematic, and topical areas in colonial North American and U.S. history. We are interested in proposals that probe the theme within the traditional fields of economic, political, diplomatic, intellectual, and cultural history; the established fields of urban, race, ethnic, labor, and women's/gender history as well as southern, Appalachian, and western history; and the rapidly expanding fields of sexuality, LBGT, and queer history; environmental and public history; carceral state studies; and transnational and global studies across all fields, topics, and thematic emphases.

Moreover, we hope to take advantage of our meeting in Philadelphia, an iconic setting for struggles and debates over the question of freedom, to encourage proposals that explore the interplay of freedom's work on behalf of African Americans, the poor, workers, and other disfranchised and structurally marginalized groups since people from Africa embarked upon their journey in Jamestown four centuries ago. The committee also welcomes panels, workshops, and roundtables that employ new methodologies, particularly digital humanities technology, that transcend traditional disciplinary and geographic boundaries. Finally, the 2019 Program Committee will reinforce the OAH's ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion along myriad lines of difference and historic inequality, including ethnic/racial, gender/sexuality, and institutional affiliation, research/teaching, among others.

Important Notes about Submitting
Frequently Asked Questions

* Upon review of the submissions, the Program Committee will only announce a "pending acceptance" or a "rejection." If you receive a pending acceptance it is the proposal submitter's responsibility to ensure that each session participant, regardless of role, completes their speaker agreement within the requested deadline (typically July 1). Once all agreements have been completed, only then will the session be officially accepted. If the agreements are not received by the deadline, the pending acceptance is void.

Registration and Membership Requirements
All participants are required to register for the Annual Meeting. Participants who specialize in American history and support themselves as American historians are also required to be members of the OAH. Participants representing other disciplines are not required to be members of the OAH.

Repeat Participation
OAH policy prohibits individuals from participating in two consecutive annual meetings in the same role and limits individuals to appearing only once on the program in a given year. If you have questions about this policy, e-mail the OAH meetings department.

Diversity of Session Participants
At its fall 2014 meeting, the OAH Executive Board adopted the following Program Committee Directives on Gender, Racial, Ethnic, Sexual, Religious, (Dis)ability, and LGBTQ Diversity: 1) The Program Committee will actively promote the full inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities, religious minorities, people with disabilities, women, and LGBTQ people on the Annual Meeting program. 2) While not all sessions can reflect the entire diversity of the profession, the Program Committee will encourage proposers of sessions to include diverse sets of participants, addressing gender diversity, racial and ethnic diversity, sexual diversity, religious diversity, disability-based diversity, and/or LGBTQ diversity. 3) The Program Committee will encourage session proposers to consider the benefits of including on their panels historians in various career paths and of various ranks (i.e., senior scholars, public historians, graduate students, independent historians, etc.) within their organizations/institutions. 

There are no bars against inviting doctoral students to participate, but sessions in which all the participants are graduate students should be avoided and senior scholars should be asked to do more than just chair or comment. Most sessions should include a range of scholars representing different age, generational, and career cohorts. 

Scheduling
The conference takes place from Thursday through Saturday*. Though OAH committee and affiliate conflicts will be taken into consideration during the scheduling process, you must be available to present during this three day period.

*The 2019 Annual Meeting will conclude on the evening of Saturday, April 6.

Submission Procedure
Complete session proposals include a chair, participants, and, if applicable, a commentator (chairs may double as commentators, and commentators may be omitted if the audience is to serve in that role). The Program Committee encourages alternative formats that maximize audience participation, such as sessions with no formal comment.
All proposals must include the following information:
• a complete mailing address, e-mail address, phone number, and affiliation for each participant
• an abstract of no more than 500 words for the session as a whole
• a prospectus of no more than 250 words for each paper presentation - this only applies to paper sessions
• a biography of no more than 500 words for each participant

 

Contact Information

Organization of American Historians 
112 N. Bryan Avenue
Bloomington, Indiana 47408-4141
Telephone: 812-855-7311 

Contact Email
meetings@oah.org