The 127th annual meeting of the American Historical Association
Lives, Places, Stories
The 127th annual meeting of the American Historical Association convenes January 3–6, 2013, in New Orleans, which has one of the most unusual natural and cultural histories of any city in the United States. Our theme for this conference, "Lives, Places, Stories," is meant to encourage proposals from scholars who explore the roles of environment and geography in all aspects of human history. But we also intend this theme to be broad enough that any scholar working on any topic with any approach in any place at any time will feel fully welcome to propose papers or sessions that meet its capacious spirit.
"Lives" invites conference participants to consider the extraordinary range of lived experiences that must be studied and appreciated if we hope to understand the human past. ]
"Places" is our way of gesturing at the role geography necessarily plays in all historical topics, whether or not we explicitly recognize that role.
Finally, our invocation of "Stories" encourages conference participants to reflect on the ways people make sense of past lives and places by articulating their meanings in the narrative, causal, meaning-making frameworks of human storytelling.
The Program Committee also welcomes and will seriously consider proposals that do not fall under the scope of our chosen theme, as our overarching goal is to make the AHA annual meeting a showplace for the very best in historical practice.