Tag: NCPH

CFP: The Work of Revolution, First Joint Conference of NCPH and AASLH

The National Council on Public History (NCPH) and American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) are excited to announce that the Call for Proposals for our first joint conference is now live, with final proposals due December 1, 2025. 

“The Work of Revolution”

Revolution is at the center of every remarkable societal change. Through formal politics, grassroots organizing, boycott, protest, litigation, war, and a wide range of other mass and individual actions, behind every revolutionary moment are the people working to bring revolutionary ideas into reality. In the face of rapid cultural, social, political, and technological change, history’s importance as a guide for our future has become clearer than ever. Documenting during crises, archiving our collective past, supporting researchers and revolutionaries alike, public historians are part of the landscape of revolution. We bring history to the public because it matters.
Read the full theme statement here. We hope you’ll join NCPH and AASLH in this semiquincentennial year in Providence, Rhode Island—a host city where the ongoing work of revolution is front and center, with revolutionary roots and legacies embedded in self-determination and self-rule—as we reflect on the work of revolutions past and the work that lies ahead as we take stock of our field and consider how we can strengthen and protect it for the future. 

Topic Proposals 

As we do for our standalone conferences, NCPH invites people looking to connect with co-presenters or seeking feedback on a draft proposal to submit an optional Topic Proposal by October 15, 2025. We’ll post the Topic Proposals we receive to the NCPH website for a period of feedback from the public history community to help you craft the strongest possible proposal. Then, you’ll resubmit your proposal on AASLH’s Submittable platform for official consideration for the program. 

Submitting Your Final Proposal

Your session, working group, and workshop proposals are due December 1, 2025. This year, proposal submissions will be hosted by AASLH on Submittable. Here you can also find explanations of our session formats (combined and streamlined from NCPH’s and AASLH’s formats) and see the review criteria that the Program Committee will use to evaluate proposals. 

General questions or topic proposal questions? Email Program Manager Meghan Hillman. Questions about the Submittable platform? Email AASLH Chief of Operations Bethany Hawkins.

CFP: 2025 NCPH Annual Meeting

SOLIDARITY | SOLIDARITÉ (PDF) 

NATIONAL COUNCIL ON PUBLIC HISTORY ANNUAL MEETING
MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC, CANADA | MARCH 26-29, 2025
PROPOSAL DEADLINE: JULY 15, 2024 

Solidarity (from the French solidarité) is a word for shared responsibilities and mutual obligations. It conveys a sense of interconnectedness with our world and interdependence upon each other. Long present in France’s code civile, to be in solidarity is to assume shared debts and claim shared successes, so that when we rise, we rise together.

As 21st century public historians, we work through multiple lenses, share diverse stories, and often interpret and make relatable to the public complex histories that sometimes counter long-held ‘truths.’ As a result, our work beckons for unity, togetherness, and collective purpose to support achieving common ground across the field and “put history to work in the world.”

The 2025 NCPH Annual Meeting will center around the theme Solidarity. Pondering the question—What does Solidarity mean in the field of public history?—leads us to consider what we collectively value in the field and how we progress together as public history workers. Amplifying voices, building connections, unifying our audiences, advocating for and revealing authentic histories, fostering and promoting safe spaces, and mirroring these values internally within our organizations are a few examples of how we realize Solidarity across the field.

While submissions on all topics are welcome, in exploring Solidarity, the Joint 2025 Program and Local Arrangements Committee co-chairs particularly encourage you to consider a few of the examples below:

  • Sessions related to public history labor and public historians as workers, including efforts to improve compensation and working conditions in the field and in our institutions;
  • Sessions which model collaboration between public historians and relevant stakeholders, especially community members and grassroots organizers;
  • Sessions which demonstrate solidarity between public historians and activist movements or protests;
  • Sessions which display international cooperation and collaboration across borders;
  • Sessions which explicitly consider our shared responsibilities as public historians: to each other, to the communities we serve, to the pasts, people, and places we interpret, and to the world we live in;
  • Sessions which ask us to evaluate the past work of public history to consider the shared debts we must pay;
  • Sessions which consider public history work as a projet de société—in Québec, a societal project.

PRESENTATION FORMATS MAY INCLUDE:

ROUNDTABLE (90 mins): Roundtables are typically about half presentation and half discussion among presenters and the audience. Presenters should bring targeted questions to pose to others at the table in order to learn from and with each other.
STRUCTURED CONVERSATION (90 mins): These facilitated, participant-driven discussions are designed to prioritize audience dialogue and may contain little or no formal presentation component.
TRADITIONAL PANEL (90 mins): At least three presenters, a chair, and optional commentator. While this is the most traditional format, we still highly discourage the reading of papers.
COMMUNITY VIEWPOINTS (90 mins): A showcase that features a variety of stakeholder and collaborator perspectives across stages of the project’s development, with a particular focus on community participants and grassroots collaborators.
INDIVIDUAL (~30 mins): While individual proposals are welcome, individual presentations will either be shorter than a full session or will be combined with similar proposals to make a full session. These should be presentations of your work and, like all other sessions, not a reading of a paper.
WORKING GROUP (2 hrs): Facilitators and up to 12 discussants grapple with a shared concern. Before and during the meeting, working groups articulate a purpose they are working toward or a problem they are actively trying to solve and aim to create an end product. Proposals are submitted by facilitators, who will seek discussants after acceptance. Note that this format is submitted via a special form.
WORKSHOP (4 or 8 hrs): A half- or full-day workshop is a more intensive and skills-based deep-dive into a topic that includes concrete practical tools and lessons for a smaller group of attendees (recommended 15- 30 people). Note that this format is submitted via a special form.

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

OPTIONAL EARLY TOPIC PROPOSALS: Consider submitting an optional early topic proposal by June 15, 2024 to gather suggestions on your topic, seek collaborators or co-presenters, and get feedback from the 2025 Program Committee and members of the NCPH community. Respondents will contact the original submitter directly with their ideas or offers, and the submitter may choose to select additional participants, refine the proposal, and complete a full proposal form online by the July deadline.

FINAL PROPOSALS: Submit your fully formed session, working group, or workshop proposal online by July 15, 2024 via the forms in the dropdown menu at right. (Please note that working group and workshop proposal forms are separate from the main session proposal form. Individual presentations–not papers–can be proposed through the session proposal form.)

When filling out your proposal, please let us know if your session will be in English or in French, as we are planning for a track of sessions in French with simultaneous translation.

While individuals are not prohibited from presenting in consecutive years at the meeting, session proposals that include new voices will receive preference. Additionally, participants may be presenting members of only one session, but may also be discussants in Working Groups or serve as chair/facilitator on a second session.

QUESTIONS? PLEASE EMAIL PROGRAM MANAGER MEGHAN HILLMAN AT MEGHILLM@IU.EDU. THE CALL FOR POSTERS AND CALL FOR WORKING GROUP DISCUSSANTS WILL COME IN SUMMER 2024.

SOLIDARITY | SOLIDARITÉ (PDF EN FRANÇAIS)

RÉUNION ANNUELLE DU CONSEIL NATIONAL DE L’HISTOIRE PUBLIQUE À MONTRÉAL, CANADA
26 AU 29 MARS 2025

Solidarity (du français solidarité) est un terme qui désigne les responsabilités partagées et les obligations mutuelles. Il transmet un sentiment d’interconnexion avec notre monde et d’interdépendance les uns avec les autres. Longtemps présent dans le code civil de la France, être solidaire est d’assumer des dettes communes et de revendiquer des succès communs, de sorte que lorsque nous nous élevons, nous le faisons ensemble.

En tant qu’historiens publics du 21e siècle, nous travaillons sous des angles multiples, partageons des histoires diverses, interprétons et vulgarisons des histoires complexes qui vont parfois à l’encontre de « vérités » de longue date. En conséquence, notre travail appelle à un sens de l’objectif collectif pour soutenir la recherche d’un terrain d’entente dans le domaine et « mettre l’histoire au travail dans le monde ».

La réunion annuelle du CNHP de 2025 sera centrée sur le thème de la solidarité. Penser à ce que signifie Solidarité dans le domaine de l’histoire publique, nous amène à considérer ce que nous valorisons collectivement dans le domaine et comment nous progressons ensemble en tant que travailleurs pour l’histoire publique. Faire entendre les voix, créer des liens, unifier nos publics, défendre et révéler des histoires authentiques, favoriser et promouvoir des espaces sûrs et refléter ces valeurs en interne au sein de nos organisations sont quelques exemples de la manière dont nous réalisons notre mission en solidarité dans le domaine.

Bien que les soumissions sur tous les sujets soient les bienvenues, dans l’exploration de la solidarité, les coprésidents du Comité conjoint du programme 2025 et des arrangements locaux vous encouragent particulièrement à considérer quelques-uns des exemples ci-dessous:

  • Sessions liées au travail d’histoire publique et aux historiens publics en tant que travailleurs, y compris les efforts pour améliorer la rémunération et les conditions de travail sur le terrain et dans nos institutions;
  • Sessions qui modélisent la collaboration entre les historiens publics et les parties prenantes concernées, en particulier les membres de la communauté et les organisateurs locaux;
  • Sessions qui font preuve de solidarité entre les historiens publics et les mouvements ou manifestations militants;
  • Sessions qui démontrent de la coopération et de la collaboration internationale au-delà des frontières;
  • Sessions qui considèrent explicitement nos responsabilités partagées en tant qu’historiens publics: les uns envers les autres, envers les communautés que nous servons, envers le passé, les personnes et les lieux que nous interprétons, et envers le monde dans lequel nous vivons;
  • Sessions qui nous amènent à évaluer le travail passé et présent de l’histoire publique pour considérer les dettes partagées que nous devons payer;
  • Sessions qui considèrent le travail d’histoire publique comme un projet de société, ainsi nommé au Québec.

LES TYPES DE PRÉSENTATION PEUVENT ÊTRE :

TABLE RONDE (90 minutes) : les tables rondes sont généralement composées d’une moitié de présentation et d’une moitié de discussion entre les présentateurs et le public. Les présentateurs doivent apporter des questions ciblées à poser aux autres participants afin d’apprendre les uns des autres.

CONVERSATION STRUCTURÉE (90 minutes) : ces discussions facilitées et dirigées par les participants sont conçues pour donner la priorité au dialogue avec le public et peuvent ne contenir que peu ou pas de composante de présentation formelle.

PANEL TRADITIONNEL (90 minutes) : au moins trois présentateurs, un animateur et un commentateur optionnel. Bien qu’il s’agisse du format le plus traditionnel, nous décourageons toujours fortement la lecture de documents.

Points de VUE de la COMMUNAUTÉ (90 minutes) : une vitrine qui présente une variété de points de vue des parties prenantes et des collaborateurs à travers les étapes du développement du projet, avec un accent particulier sur les participants de la communauté et les collaborateurs locaux.

INDIVIDUEL (~30 minutes) : Bien que les propositions individuelles soient les bienvenues, elles seront soit plus courtes qu’une session complète, soit combinées avec des propositions similaires pour former une session complète. Il devrait s’agir de présentations de votre travail et, comme toutes les autres sessions, pas d’une lecture d’un document.

GROUPE DE TRAVAIL (2 heures) : les animateurs et jusqu’à 12 participants se penchent sur une question commune. Avant et pendant la réunion, les groupes de travail définissent un objectif qu’ils poursuivent ou un problème qu’ils tentent activement de résoudre et visent à créer un résultat final. Les propositions sont soumises par les animateurs, qui rechercheront des participants après validation.

ATELIER (4 ou 8 heures) : Un atelier d’une demi-journée ou d’une journée est une immersion plus intensive et axée sur les compétences dans un domaine, qui comprend des outils pratiques concrets et des leçons pour un groupe plus restreint de participants (de 15 à 30 personnes).

DIRECTIVES POUR LES SOUMISSIONS DE PROPOSITIONS

PROPOSITIONS DE SUJETS PRÉLIMINAIRES FALCULTATIVE : envisagez de soumettre une proposition de sujet préliminaire facultative d’ici le 15 juin 2024 pour recueillir des suggestions sur votre sujet, rechercher des collaborateurs ou des coprésentateurs et obtenir des commentaires du Comité du programme 2025 et des membres de la communauté CNHP. Les répondants contacteront directement l’auteur de la proposition initiale pour lui faire part de leurs idées ou de leurs offres, et l’auteur de la proposition pourra choisir de sélectionner d’autres participants, d’affiner la proposition et de remplir un formulaire de proposition complet en ligne avant la date limite du mois de juillet.

PROPOSITIONS FINALES : soumettez votre proposition complète de session, de groupe de travail ou d’atelier en ligne d’ici le 15 juillet 2024 via https://ncph.org/conference/2025-annual-meeting/cfps/. (Veuillez noter que les formulaires de proposition de groupe de travail et d’atelier sont distincts du formulaire de proposition de session principale.)

Lorsque vous remplissez votre proposition, veuillez nous indiquer si votre session sera en anglais ou en français, car nous prévoyons une série de sessions en français avec traduction simultanée.

Bien qu’il ne soit pas interdit aux individus de présenter une session plusieurs années de suite, les propositions de sessions qui incluent de nouvelles personnes seront privilégiées. En outre, les participants peuvent être membres présentateurs d’une seule session, mais peuvent également être participants aux discussions dans les groupes de travail ou être présentateur/facilitateur lors d’une autre session.

DES QUESTIONS? VEUILLEZ ENVOYER UN COURRIEL À LA RESPONSABLE DU PROGRAMME, MEGHAN HILLMAN, À MEGHILLM@IU.EDU. L‘APPEL POUR LES PRÉSENTATIONS ET L’APPEL POUR LES PARTICIPANTS AUX DISCUSSIONS DES GROUPES DE TRAVAIL SERONT LANCÉS AU PRINTEMPS 2024.

SUBMISSION FORMS

Submit an optional early topic proposal by June 15 for feedback: https://ncph.org/conference/2025-annual-meeting/cfps/topic-proposal-form/
Submit a session proposal (including individual presentations) by July 15, 2024: https://ncph.org/conference/2025-annual-meeting/cfps/session-proposal-form/
Submit a working group proposal by July 15, 2024: https://ncph.org/conference/2025-annual-meeting/cfps/working-group-proposal-form/
Submit a workshop proposal by July 15, 2024: https://ncph.org/conference/2025-annual-meeting/cfps/workshop-proposal-form/

Call for Nominations: NCPH Book Award

2024 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

The National Council on Public History invites nominations for its annual award for the best published book in public history. The Council seeks works about or growing out of public history theory, study, or practice, or that have compelling implications for the same. Books “growing out of” public history include, but are not limited to, exhibition catalogs, policy studies, and monographs that have a clear public dimension. Whether about or growing out of public history, successful contenders will clearly display the public aspects of their conception, development, and execution, and how they illuminate issues and concerns significant to audiences beyond the academy.

The NCPH Book Award consists of a $1,000 cash prize and a certificate, both presented at the NCPH Annual Meeting (to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2024). The award winner receives complimentary registration for the awards breakfast.

ELIGIBILITY

To be eligible for consideration, a book must have been published within the previous two calendar years (2022 and 2023). Entries may be monographs, edited collections of articles or essays, or any other published work of comparable scope. Singly and jointly authored/edited works are welcome, as are international topics.

AWARD CRITERIA

Criteria for selection include:

  1. Excellence and thoroughness of research
  2. Style and appropriateness of presentation
  3. Suitability and rigor of methodology
  4. Contribution to advancing the field of public history

(These four criterion receive equal weight in the book award committee’s discussions.)

SUBMISSION PROCESS

Fill out this form with the nominee’s information. The form includes a file upload for each author’s CV or resume. The completed form will be sent to each of the Book Award Committee members and to the NCPH executive office.

At the bottom of the form, in the “Shipping Information” section, please indicate when you will be sending the book and the shipping method you’ll be using. Send a copy of the book* to each of the Book Award Committee members and one to the NCPH executive office at:

NCPH Book Award
127 Cavanaugh Hall – IUPUI
425 University Blvd.
Indianapolis, IN 46202-5148

Submissions must be received (not postmarked) no later than November 1, 2023.
*Please note that materials will not be returned.

Questions?  ncph@iupui.edu; (317) 274-2716

A challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities makes possible our expanding awards program and other uses of earned income on the NCPH endowment. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

CFP-Archives Month Call for History@Work COVID-19 Crisis Response Pitches

12 JUNE 2020 – 

, , , 

As part of American Archives Month, for the second year in a row, History@Work will be running an October series dedicated to publicly-engaged work by archivists and librarians in the U.S. and abroad. This year, we are recruiting pitches related to the COVID-19 crisis. Do you want to share your thoughts and experiences with us about archives and public history as it relates to the work you have been doing surrounding the COVID-19 crisis?

Archivists are important advocates of public history. However, public historians who specialize in different areas may not be familiar with archivists’ efforts to decolonize archives, assist community members interested in maintaining their own collections, and other areas of critical practice. As such, this series will focus on archival and library practice and labor as well as archives and libraries as public history. Because the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted new challenges surrounding the use and maintenance of archives, we also welcome pitches from users of archives. We see this series as an opportunity to share information and forge connections among and between archivists, their publics, and other practicing public historians.

Original blog post pitches are welcomed on a range of topics as it relates to the COVID-19 crisis, including (but not limited to):

  • Using, accessing, and providing access to archives during a pandemic
  • Community-engaged archival practice in an era of social distancing
  • Archives, digital technology, equity, and outreach during a pandemic
  • Archival work as public history (including “how-to’s”)
  • Archives as vehicles for activism
  • Archives, diversity, and inclusion
  • Archival practices, policies, and procedures during a pandemic
  • Archival work to document COVID-19
  • Behind-the-scenes posts on archival labor and how it has changed (or not) during a pandemic
  • Reflections or connections to archives-related articles published in History@Work and The Public Historian

History@Work posts are between 800 and 1200 words. Post should be written in accessible language and avoid jargon; we prefer hyperlinks and citations integrated into the text over footnotes. We strongly prefer posts that include images. You can read more about our typical editorial process and style here: https://ncph.org/history-at-work/guidelines/. You can read the 2019 Archives Month posts here.

A sample of past History@Work posts that have featured archives include:

In addition, prospective authors may choose to respond to, or get inspiration from, this sample of articles about archives from The Public Historian:

Pitches for original posts, which should be between three and five sentences long and may include images, are due by Friday, July 10, 2020. First drafts for accepted pitches are due by Monday, August 10, 2020. All posts go through peer editing. Questions and pitches can be directed to guest editor and archivist Krista McCracken at krista.mccracken@gmail.com.

View the Word and PDF versions of this Call for Pitches, and please help us by circulating widely!

~Krista McCracken is a public historian and archivist at the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, as well as a member of the NCPH Board of Directors.

~Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan is a public historian and scholar of early American social history at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where she directs the undergraduate Public History Program.

~Nicole Belolan is the Co-Editor of The Public Historian and the Digital Media Editor for the National Council on Public History and is based at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers in Camden, NJ.

CFP: “The Presence and Persistence of Stories,” National Council on Public History

“The Presence and Persistence of Stories”

Stories are the cornerstones of our relationship to each other and to the land. With each telling and re-telling, we reinforce relationships, we bridge past and present, and we lay foundations for the future. A single place might have many histories, it might have vibrant pasts distinct from our own, but through our stories, our memories, and our experiences, we become inextricably connected to that place. This conference celebrates stories and histories, and explicitly grounds them in the land of their telling.

At the dawn of NCPH’s fifth decade, this conference invites sessions that illuminate the ways stories of the past bring meaning to the present and that consider how narratives form and re-form through the ongoing nature of their interpretation. While the theme is particularly focused on Indigenous storytelling, the telling of under-told stories, and what it means to speak stories to future generations, we also hope to engage histories that reveal the dynamism and complexities of all communities, known and less-known.

View the full Call for Proposals, and see below for submission details.

Update, plus Archivaria and The Public Historian are open access

Greetings to all-

As I’m sure it has been for many of you, the past couple of weeks have consisted of planning work-from-home projects. I hope to get back to regular posts soon.

In the meantime, Archivaria and The Public Historian have temporarily opened all their content for free access. If you hear of more, send me a message and I’ll share!

Thanks,
Cheryl

Archivaria

Temporary removal of embargo

In response to the public health crisis of COVID-19, we’re pleased to announce that we’ll be making the eight most recent issues of Archivaria freely available to all through this site and on Project Muse. Content from the last four years will now be available free for all until June 30th 2020. As always, all other previous issues are available in the Back Issues section of this site for your reading pleasure during these challenging times!

Posted: 2020-03-23

The Public Historian

Looking for free, unlocked access to The Public Historian
(University of California Press) at this time? As part of the Press’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Press has made arrangements for all of its journal content (including that of The Public Historian) to be made freely available through the end of June. This is to assist the community of libraries, faculty, students, and scholars with access during a time when their usual access is likely disrupted or challenged due to library closures, remote working arrangements, etc. Let us know how this access changes the way you use The Public Historian during this time! https://tph.ucpress.edu

 

Call for pitches and manuscripts: Commemoration and Public History

Read the full post from NCPH

We invite reports from the field by public historians about the challenges of commemoration at museums and archives, online, or in your community at large. Submissions might address upcoming and recent national and international anniversaries (such as the American Revolution, 9/11, the 19th Amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Stonewall uprising, and World War I).

But we also want to hear about local or regional site-specific commemorations of less widely known people, places, or events. All submissions should engage with the historiography of commemoration and what or whom is being commemorated and should provide readers with portable lessons or best practices for doing public history.  As always, we welcome and encourage international perspectives.

Successful submissions will address one or more of the following questions:

  • What can we learn about the practice of public history from commemorations of people, places, or events?
  • What counts as commemoration?
  • In what new ways are public historians remembering local or regional history?
  • Who are the stakeholders and collaborators for these projects?
  • What forms does commemoration take, and what are public historians getting right and wrong?
  • Who is included in commemoration, and who is left out?
  • What role does material culture play in how we commemorate the past?
  • What purpose does commemoration serve, and how does it change over time?

CFP: National Council on Public History, Archives Month call for blog post pitches

I am deviating from the focus on scholarly publishing to share this call from NCPH. What a great opportunity to share with public historians the intricacies of our work!

_________________________________

As part of American Archives Month, History@Work will be running an October series dedicated to the publicly-engaged work done by archivists in the U.S. and abroad. Do you want to share your thoughts and experiences with us about archives and public history?

Archivists are important advocates of public history, and public historians who specialize in different areas may not be familiar with archivists’ efforts to decolonize archives, assist community members interested in maintaining their own collections, and other areas of critical practice. As such, this series will focus on archival practice, archival labor, and archives as public history. We see this series as an opportunity to share information and forge connections among and between archivists and other practicing public historians.

Read the full call

Webinar: Writing for History Publications

Archivists have appeared in these publications, and if you’re looking to reach beyond archival professional publications, this is a great opportunity.

_____________________________

NCPH is partnering with the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) on a “Writing for History Publications” webinar. NCPH members can get a code for a discounted rate by emailing ncph@iupui.edu. 

Every project has a story, and the field wants to hear yours! Public history publications offer a way to share your research and experiences with others, gather feedback from across the field, and make connections for future partnerships. But how do you get started? Join editors from AASLH, NCPH, and Nursing Clio to learn about sharing your work through magazines, journals, and blogs. We’ll cover the basics of submitting work to History News, the AASLH blog, The Public Historian, History@Work, and the Nursing Clio blog, with tips on choosing your platform and focus.

DATE: May 30, 2019

TIME: 3:00 – 4:15 pm EASTERN (Remember to adjust for your time zone!)

COST: $40 Members of AASLH and NCPH (NCPH members email ncph@iupui.edu for a discount code) / $65 Nonmembers

For a full description and to register visit https://aaslh.org/event/webinar-writing-for-history-publications/ .