It’s time for another mailbag! The mailbag is where readers submit questions about the wherefores and what-have-yous of history and we try to answer them. If you like our mailbag articles, please share them and submit questions for future articles. We’re happy to receive questions from students or non-historians wanting to know more about what historians do and why.
Read to the end because there’s a sequence in a recent movie that I want to discuss. And no, it’s not from The Rise of Skywalker.
Why do historians go to conferences?
Last week hundreds of historians arrived in New York City. They reached the city by planes, trains, and any other form of transportation possible. What called historians to New York was the annual meeting of the American Historical Association (AHA).1 At the meeting, historians of all period converged to attend panels, present papers, and meet up with colleagues and friends. The AHA is a large conference, but it is by no means the only important history conference that historians attend during the year. More than that, the AHA is one of the hundreds of history conferences that happen every year.
Before we dive into the weeds, let’s lay out some foundational information about history conferences. For starters, it seems like history conferences are held at a lot of hotels and college campuses. That’s because conferences choose locations with plenty of rooms for presenters to deliver papers. A small to midsize conference might select a nearby college campus with lots of classrooms, but for a national conferences, the location is typically a hotel offering dozens of conference rooms with audio-visual capabilities.2
Next, there are different types of history conferences. There are national ones like the AHA and the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians (OAH), to be held April 2-5, 2020 in Washington, D.C. There are state-based conferences, as well as regional and international ones. There are multidisciplinary conferences where historians are among the invited. Plus historians, if their paper or panel is accepted, present at other disciplines’ meetings too, like conferences attended by English scholars or Political Scientists.
UC Berkeley’s Teaching History in the 21st Century conference, May 2017. Photo credit Samantha (Wiki Ed) [CC BY-SA]
One of the main reasons a historian attends a conference is to present a paper based on their research. A historian might be working on a new subject and seeking helpful feedback from colleagues and peers who are also knowledgeable on the subject they plan to discuss. Or maybe a presenter is trying to narrow down ideas in a large project and wants to hear what a new audience of historians, unfamiliar with their research, might find the most interesting or thought-provoking. Whatever the reasons they are presenting, a historian produced a work of scholarship and is in search of useful comments and questions to push the project further along.
There are lots of ways though that historians end up presenting at conferences. The process can begin when a scholar finds a call for papers, commonly abbreviated as a CFP in advertisements. Maybe a friend forwards a CFP to a colleague or a scholar sees it posted on Twitter or in a Facebook group about upcoming conferences. A history department chair or director of graduate studies might email their department’s graduate students about local or not too far away conference possibilities. Besides keeping your eyes open or folks sending CFPs your way, the longer you work in a particular field of study, you learn when certain conferences will be held and what it takes to attend it.3
After you have found a conference you want to present at, the next step is applying for acceptance to the conference. What this means is a historian submits a paper or panel proposal, although more and more conferences are moving away from accepting individual paper proposals. For larger conferences, the organizers want panel proposals submitted. A panel should focus on a particular historical subject, but also be broad enough that non-specialists would also want to attend it. If a historian is permitted to submit an individual paper proposal, the actual proposal, or paper abstract, is a hundred or few hundred words explaining the topic and argument of your paper. A panel proposal is similar, in about as many words, and offers a concise overview of the panel’s focus and what all the papers that comprise the panel are about.4
Conference panels typically have three presenters speaking, although one can find panels with two or four speakers. When there are three presenters, a history conference paper should be around 15 minutes long. Let me say that again: papers should be around 15 minutes long. If you can present in less than 15 minutes, that’s fine, even encouraged. If you speak longer than 15 minutes, it might mean you are eating into a fellow presenters’ time for their paper or that the time for audience questions will be shorter. A paper is read aloud by the presenter, often word for word, but it is becoming more common to see a paper presentation shaped more like a classroom lecture, where the presenter uses an outline of ideas and key points to structure their presentation and speak extemporaneously than from a tight script.
Besides the presenters, a panel usually has a chair and a commentator. The chair introduces each speaker and if provided by each speaker, will read a brief biography before their paper. The commentator speaks after all the presenters have spoken and explains what all the papers have, or do not have in common, and which ideas and scholars the papers are engaging with in their particular field of study. Sometimes the chair and commentator are the same person. There’s no rule that every conference panel has a commentator, that’s a decision made by the conference organizers. When there is a commentator though, they can structure their comments however they want. One hopes they see the big picture of the papers and the panel, and highlight something positive about each paper. But I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t seen, or heard from friends and colleagues, of commentators who missed the point of the papers, spoke about their own work instead of the presenters, or used the occasion to attack one of the papers they disagreed with. A good commentator should share their thoughts, in a constructive manner, but also offer questions for the scholar to consider and recommend sources and ideas that might be of use to the presenting scholars. Once the commentator finishes, then the panel concludes with questions and answers from the audience. The commentator’s thoughts should also prime the audience for its own questions and comments. They set the tone for what type of conversation will happen next. A combative commentator practically ensures a combative audience reception.
Standing/sitting room only at an American Catholic Historical Association panel at the 2020 AHA. Photo credit Erin Bartram.
Even if you’re not presenting a paper, there is so much for scholars to do at history conferences. If you’re presenting, there is so much focus on the presentation aspect that you can forget you’re also there as an audience member, someone looking for interesting panels to attend. To learn more beyond a subject or era, I try to attend as many panels on teaching as possible. I’ve attended great ones centered on introducing digital resources in the classroom and how to incorporate graphic novels into history discussions. A history conference panel on teaching was where I first learned about flipped classrooms and how to use social media platforms, like Twitter and Instagram, as part of classroom participation. Attending a panel on teaching is a great opportunity to listen and ask questions of fellow educators who are trying something different in the classroom. In addition to panels on teaching, history conferences often hold seminars on improving your research skills or receiving feedback on a work-in-a-progress, like a journal article or manuscript. Some conferences hold crash courses and bootcamps where scholars are introduced to and learn the basics of a new technology or program. Few scholars leave the conference as certified experts, but a day or two at a history conference can give them a starting point for learning something new and exciting.
When you arrive at a conference, do yourself a favor and walk around the main exhibition area. There you might find a book fair where different publishing houses, mostly academic presses, have copies of their latest books as well as advanced copies of future releases. For a historian, this is a wonderful way to keep up on the latest literature in your field and introduce yourself to a press you might want to work with in the future. Plus, book sellers at these events are aiming to leave the conference with fewer books, so always keep an eye out for great bargains and reduced book prices towards the end of the conference. As one explores a conference, you can find smaller events, like meet ups of different historical societies and associations. A large conference can be daunting with so many people, so find smaller events where there are dozens of people instead of hundreds. Plus it’s easier to meet folks at functions like this and these places are good for refueling, in that after a long day of attending panels, you’ll need a cup of tea or coffee and maybe something sweet before dinner.
When you are not presenting a paper or panel-hopping, a conference is simply a great place to meet people. A large conference attracts hundreds of scholars who study many different things. A conference might be the only place where your two paths might cross. In the past, I’ve used conferences as a way to reach out to scholars who I wanted to meet and whose work means a lot to me. Even if we’re meeting briefly for coffee, or the circumstances permit a longer conversation, this is a great way for a scholar to introduce themselves, explain their work, and make a connection. You never know, you may want to put together a future conference panel with that scholar or maybe they have a student who would be a good collaborator for you.
For all the great possibilities a conference provides, there are perils, and here are several that I’ll highlight. For starters, history conferences are becoming more and more expensive to attend. Even if the hotel offers a discount conference rate, lodging at the conference hotel is still expensive.5 When attendance starts to dip at conferences, fees go up, starting with registration fees. For graduate students, adjunct instructors, and other contingent scholars, registration fees could equal a day or two’s amount of what they had planned to spend on food.6 Plus there is the cost of eating out for many meals and if you are away from the conference hotel, there is the cost of local transportation. These costs add up fast and are pricing out lots of historians who would otherwise attend. It is possible to have financial support to attend conferences, maybe from a history department or university. Also some larger historical associations do offer travel grants. But scholars have to apply for those on top of applying to the conference, and associations receive more requests than they can award. Even if you win a travel grant, it often works as a reimbursement after the conference. A scholar has to put up hundreds or even thousands of dollars to attend a conference, and a slow reimbursement process can take weeks or months—and that’s if reimbursement is even available.
In addition to the costs, there is the environmental consequence of conference travel. Traveling to a conference might involve hundreds of miles or flying or driving. As climate change worsens and people think about what role the individual can play, more conferences should offer carbon offsets or encourage far-away participants to appear via Skype or some other form of teleconferencing. For scholars who are parents, especially with young children, a conference needs to offer child-care for participants, not as a benefit but a necessity. Conference organizers need to better consider diversity as a requirement for conference admission. All-male conference panels, aka “manels” are still common. Some history associations offer grants to boost the participation of scholars of color, yet more work remains to bring in a greater diversity of scholars, especially on topics involving people of color, and make their participation an inclusive and meaningful one. Lastly, every conference should have a clear and easy to understand policies on sexual harassment and assault. If you are a witness or are the victim, there must be a way to report it to the conference organizers.
Even with these problems, history conferences still matter. They are a place where historians gather to discuss ideas and the latest works on a particular subject. A conference is where scholars, particularly younger ones, develop the skills of public speaking and communicating historical findings to a wider audience. Some in the audience might be familiar with your topic, but others might be mostly unaware and if you can hook the uninitiated, carry that experience over the next time you are teaching or performing a public lecture. Lastly, remember when you are presenting, the room is yours for 15 minutes. Use that precious time to not just share your latest research topic or findings, but make the case for why your subject matters, why your way of history is worthwhile and merits further research and discussion. The room is yours, now make the most of it.
Because Contingent Magazine likes hearing about different conferences experiences, if you are attending a history conference in winter or spring 2020, consider pitching us a conference postcard. It’s one thing to write about why historians go to conferences, it’s another matter to have photos and first hand accounts from other historians about what they experienced and what they did at their conference. We want postcards from all types of history conferences, from the very big to the very small, of all types of historical topics. Like everything we publish, we pay for conference postcards ($25) so if you are going to a conference, whether as presenter or not, pitch us. I hope this mailbag starts a discussion about the pros and cons of attending conferences. If Contingent receives enough replies, we’ll put together a list of reasons of why historians should go to conferences and how to make them a better experience, especially for emerging scholars or folks without much conference experience. We’ll also welcome reasons why conferences are challenging, so share your complaints too. Even the best conference is not without its own problems.
As promised, the movie sequence that is still on my mind.
Over a week ago, I saw director Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. I greatly enjoyed the movie and remain fascinated by the film’s final sequence. In a movie of standout sequences, the film’s final moments are an incredible montage of precise editing, story resolution, and composer Alexander Desplat’s incandescent score. I never thought I would find a sequence of book-binding so gripping (shame on me), but consider me blown away. I recommend the movie, but also suggest rewatching the final sequence repeatedly, to witness how a filmmaker makes her final point, without relying on dialogue, but the other languages of film. Just thinking about it now makes me want to head back to the theater.
- The location of the AHA’s annual meeting varies from year to year, but is usually held in early January when many universities are still on winter break. Also, hotel rooms at the conference hotel, where many if not all of the conference’s events will occur tend to be at their lowest prices during this time of the year. The conference is held in a large city. In 2018 it was Washington, D.C. and last year it was Chicago. Next year it will be Seattle.
- Conference presenters might use a PowerPoint or Google Slide presentation when delivering their paper. Usually when applying for a conference, a possible presenters should state whether they will need audio-visual equipment for their presentation. Having a visual component to your presentation is not mandatory but it can be useful if your presentation involves any visuals aids or a short video clip or a piece of music to accompany the text.
- As a historian of U.S. foreign relations history, the premier conference for my field is the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (or SHAFR). The SHAFR conference is held every June, usually towards the end of the month. As someone familiar with the process of applying to and presenting at SHAFR, I know how the schedule works: the call for papers will be posted in the early fall, proposals to present at the conference are due by end of November/early December, applicants learn whether or not their proposals were accepted by the programming committee by the end of January or early February and if selected, you have until June to write or revise the paper you pitched.
- Larger outfits, like the AHA, typically have a programming committee handling conference business. Your average programming committee makes many big decisions from the more immediate concerns of which people will be presenting at the conference to the more logistical matters like how long will the breaks between panels and are vegetarian, non-vegetarian, and vegan food options available at conference meals. At regional or state history conferences, the programming committee might be only a handful of people. At a local conference, it is not uncommon for one or two history professors to be the conference’s point people, but a lot, if not all, of the logistic work is done by graduate students. Picking up presenters from the airport and making sure food is delivered, as well as setting and cleaning up the space might all be done due to the labor of graduate students.
- Editor Erin Bartram reports that she paid $178 a night for her hotel at the 2020 AHA.
- Erin spoke at the 2020 AHA and paid $168 to register for the conference. You can see all of the AHA’s registration fees here. She also presented at another history conference held simultaneously, a few blocks up the street, that was not itself part of AHA, for which she paid a separate registration fee.
