Call for Papers

The 46th annual meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic will convene in Providence, Rhode Island from 17 to 20, July 2025.

As our members are well aware, 2025 marks the 250^th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. As such, the Program Committee would like to encourage papers and panels that focus on the Revolutionary and early republic periods as sites of contestation, conflict, and contingency.

The Program Committee also invites proposals for sessions and papers exploring all aspects of the history and culture of an expansive early American republic, its transnational connections, and Indigenous nations.

We particularly encourage submissions that:

• Analyze conflicts over politics, economics, race, sovereignty, gender, rights and other values in the early republic.
• Explore the contested meanings and consequences of the American Revolution.
• Feature interdisciplinary methods and wide-ranging sources.
• Examine unfamiliar historical figures and re-examine familiar ones.
• Critically interrogate the archives that form the bases of our histories.
• Reflect the diversity of the past and expand narratives of the early American republic.
• Focus on pedagogy, the historical profession, or public history, including digital humanities and other alternative methodologies.

SHEAR is committed to inclusion and diversity and encourages panels that feature members of groups who have been historically underrepresented within the organization. Potential panelists should seek gendered, racial, institutional, interpretive, and career diversity, and each panel proposal should include a statement about how the panel furthers SHEAR’s commitment to diversity. Individual proposals will be considered, but the Program Committee prioritizes proposals for complete panels including a chair and commentator. The committee will consider proposals for traditional panels (3-4 papers plus chair and comment), roundtables (4-5 presenters plus chair/moderator), or other creative formats. In select cases, the committee may choose to alter or rearrange proposed panels and participants. Refer to the guidance available at https://shear.org/annual-meeting/proposal-guidelines/ as you prepare your proposal. CONNECT with others who are submitting panels here.

All submissions should be filed as a single document (Word doc preferred), labeled with the first initial and surname of the contact person (e.g., “SmithJ2025”). All proposals must include:

• Panel title, one-paragraph description of panel topic, and one-paragraph panel diversity statement
• Email addresses and institutional affiliations (if applicable) for all participants
• Title and 100-word abstract for each paper
• One-page curriculum vitae for each participant, including chairs and commentators
• Indication of any needs for ADA accommodation
• Indication of any audio-visual requests (please request only if A/V is essential to a presentation)

The deadline for submission is December 1, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2024. Please submit your proposals by uploading your materials HERE.

Kabria Baumgartner, Northeastern University, co-chair

Peter Wirzbicki, Princeton University, co-chair

Nicole Breault, University of Texas at El Paso

Tara Bynum, University of Iowa

Erik Chaput, Western Reserve Academy

Brian DeLay, University of California, Berkeley

Tom Foster, Howard University

Jonathan Gienapp, Stanford University

Sarah Gronningsater, University of Pennsylvania

María Esther Hammack, The Ohio State University

Eric Herschthal, University of Utah

Michael Jirik, University of Missouri

Ousmane Power-Greene, Clark University

Joshua Rothman, University of Alabama

Samantha Seeley, University of Richmond

Jameson Sweet, Rutgers University, New Brunswick

Karin Wulf, John Carter Brown Library, Brown University