Call for Proposals "(In)Equalities"
For centuries now, questions of “equality” and “inequality” have informed American politics and culture, and also appeared repeatedly in the histories we write, exhibit, and teach. How have the meanings of equality and inequality changed over time? How have equality and inequality, as ideas and practice, shaped–and been shaped by– the state and its institutions, international relations and transnational circulations, economic distributions and relations of (re)production, social hierarchies and social movements, science and religion, and vernacular geographies and the micro-interactions of everyday embodied life? As keywords in historians’ lexicon, how do equality and inequality expand and limit our studies of the past? In a critical election year, how do the histories of equality and inequality help us understand the United States and its place in the world today? The 2020 OAH Annual Meeting will address the theme of (In)Equalities in our past and present.
The Program Committee welcomes proposals from all areas and eras of early American and U.S. history, broadly conceived. While (in)equalities might characterize virtually every subject that historians study and teach, the committee does not expect all papers and sessions to adhere to the conference theme. The OAH meeting is a site for wide-ranging conversation, a place to talk across subfields, to experiment with methods, topics, and presentation, and especially to learn from one another. The committee encourages proposals for panels, workshops, and roundtables that employ new media and methodologies, transcend traditional disciplinary and geographic boundaries, and showcase work that reaches out to a broader public. We welcome teaching sessions, particularly those that involve the audience as active participants.
The program will reflect the full diversity of the OAH membership in the United States and abroad. We aim to include public historians, archivists, and independent scholars as well as those teaching at universities, colleges, community colleges, and secondary schools. Whenever possible, proposals should include presenters of different genders, different racial and ethnic backgrounds, and different levels of seniority in the profession. We prefer to receive proposals for complete sessions but will consider individual paper proposals as well.