Call for Papers
2004 OAH Annual Meeting
Boston
25-28 March 2004
Boston Marriot Copley Place

American Revolutions

The 2004 Organization of American Historians convention program will be organized around the theme of American Revolutions. That choice is informed both by the location of the meeting in Boston, the epicenter of the movement for American independence; and by its occurrence on the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The use of the plural "Revolutions" in the conference theme is intentional. The incoming president, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, and the program cochairs expect the program to explore a wide variety of political, social, cultural, intellectual, economic, diplomatic, military, technological, and environmental transformations in American history--as well as movements that sought and failed to bring about such transformations. We also expect the program to examine counterrevolutions and antiradical backlash and to include sessions and papers that emphasize continuity, challenging the "revolutionary" character of particular moments, movements, or trends in American history. Finally, we welcome sessions that explore the relationship of the United States to various sorts of revolutions in the rest of the world, as well as those that examine revolutions in the interpretation of American history. In this spirit, the committee invites proposals for panels, workshops, roundtables, and performances, onsite and offsite.

In addition to proposals that explore the conference theme, we welcome submissions that explore other issues and themes in American history.

Although we encourage proposals for entire sessions, the program committee will accept proposals for individual papers and make every effort to place those papers on the program.

By OAH policy, the program committee actively seeks to avoid gender-segregated sessions; the committee urges proposers of sessions to include members of both sexes whenever possible.

The committee likewise will work to follow the OAH policy and guidelines of having the program as a whole, and individual sessions to the extent possible, represent the full diversity of OAH membership. We urge proposers of sessions to include as presenters, wherever possible, members of ethnic and racial minorities, independent scholars, public historians, and American historians from outside the U.S. We also encourage panels that include a mix of junior scholars, senior academics, and graduate students; as well as a mix of teachers at 4-year institutions, community college instructors, K-12 teachers, and independent scholars. The OAH executive board has set aside a small sum of money to subsidize travel to the annual meeting for minority graduate students appearing on the program.

Complete session proposals must include a chair, participants, and, if applicable, one or two commentators. All proposals must include five collated copies of the following information: (1) a cover sheet, including a complete mailing address, email, phone number, and affiliation for each participant; (2) an abstract of no more than 500 words for the session as a whole; (3) a prospectus of no more than 250 words for each paper or presentation; and (4) a single-page vita for each participant. Proposals sent with fewer than five collated copies will be returned. No e-mail or faxed proposals will be accepted.

We also welcome volunteers to act as chairs or commentators to be assigned by the program committee.

All proposals must be postmarked no later than 15 January 2003 and sent to:

Participation in Consecutive Annual Meetings

The Program Committee discourages participation as a paper presenter in consecutive annual meetings. The Program Committee will try to avoid placing a presenter from the 2003 Annual Meeting program as a presenter on the 2004 program. A person may serve as a chair or commentator in one year and a presenter in the other.

Membership Requirements

All participants must register for the meeting. Participants who specialize in American history and support themselves as American historians are also required to be members of the OAH (by 12 October 2003). Participants representing other disciplines do not have to be members.

2004 Program Committee

Peter Coclanis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Adrienne Davis, University of North Carolina School of Law
John D’Emilio, University of Illinois, Chicago
Sarah Deutsch, University of Arizona (cochair)
Matt Garcia, University of Oregon
Julie Greene, University of Colorado
Nadine Hata, El Camino Community College
Reeve Huston, University of Arizona (cochair)
Marla Miller, University of Massachusetts, Amherst