American Society for Ethnohistory

The 2024 organizing committee of the American Society for Ethnohistory invites submissions for the annual meeting to take place Sept. 18-22, 2024, in Fargo, North Dakota.

The committee welcomes presentations that privilege Indigenous perspectives from across the Americas on any topic, but we are especially interested in receiving proposals related to this year’s theme, Colonial (dis)Entanglements. The area that is now Fargo-Moorhead has long been a site of cross-cultural contact and exchange—between diverse Indigenous groups in the precontact past, in French and English colonial encounters, and in the more recent experiences of Native nations with US federal and state governments—and presentations might consider the entanglements that have resulted from encounters across the Americas or other world regions, the effects of these entanglements, or efforts to disentangle. The organizers especially seek to feature programming that engages in collaboration and dialogue with Indigenous nations and communities of the present-day Dakotas/Minnesota, the Midwest, or the Americas more broadly.

We will consider proposals for a variety of session types, including panels, workshops, and roundtables. Panels should consist of three to four papers and an optional commentator/discussant, while workshops and roundtables can be more loosely formatted. All should include a designated chair and adhere to the session’s 90-minute time slot. We will consider individual paper proposals, but strongly encourage individuals to consider posting to H-AmIndian, H-LatAm, H-Borderlands, or similar listservs to find others who are interested in presenting related papers.

The 2024 meeting can ONLY accommodate in-person sessions. Hybrid sessions and remote participation WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE due to the high costs and technical challenges associated with video conferencing in public settings.

Complete sessions should include:

• Chair (required) and commentator (optional)
• Session title and format (panel, workshop, roundtable)
• Session abstract (up to 150 words)
• Names, email addresses, institutional/tribal affiliations of each participant, chair, and commentator
• Title of each presentation (for formal papers)
• Abstract for each presentation (up to 150 words)
• Brief bio for each presenter, chair, and commentator (up to 100 words)

Individual paper proposals should include:

• Name, email address, institutional/tribal affiliation of participant
• Title of presentation
• Abstract of presentation (up to 150 words)
• Brief presenter bio (up to 100 words)

Please submit proposals NO LATER THAN APRIL 1, 2024, using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/A3xDo6rhgv21neJF8.

Direct questions to program committee chairs Dana Velasco Murillo (dvmurillo@ucsd) or Bradley Benton (bradley.benton@ndsu.edu).

When making travel arrangements, be aware that sessions will be held beginning Thursday morning, Sept. 19, and ending Saturday evening, Sept. 21. A welcome reception will be held at the conference hotel on Wednesday night, Sept. 18, and the banquet and presidential address will take place Saturday night. Please plan to join us for the entire conference. More information, when available, will be posted to the 2024 conference website: https://www.ndsu.edu/conferences/ethnohistory_conference/

To encourage and enable wide participation, the American Society for Ethnohistory will make available some funding, based on need, to help offset the costs of conference travel for graduate students lacking sufficient institutional support and/or scholars of Indigenous background who are unaffiliated with a university or sponsoring institution. For more information, please see the ASE website here: https://ethnohistory.org/awards-support/conference-travel-aid/.

Please make plans for the 2024 annual meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory.

Date: September 18-22, 2024
Location: Fargo, North Dakota
Venue: Radisson Blu Hotel, 201 5th St. N., Fargo, ND 58102

The conference theme and call for proposals will be released in early 2024. For more information, contact conference organizer Dr. Bradley Benton, bradley.benton@ndsu.edu

The program committee of the 2022 ASE conference invites submissions for its annual meeting to take place on September 7-10, 2022 in Lawrence, Kansas. The deadline for proposals is May 1, 2022.

We invite paper and panel proposals on any topic related to ethnohistory, especially those that touch on this year’s theme: Connecting Communities: Reclaiming Indigenous Knowledge. We welcome thematic panels and panels that include perspectives drawn from across the Americas, and beyond. We encourage panels to consider various ways in which Indigenous communities forged and maintained connections to other communities, Indigenous or not, across time and space. How have issues of colonialism and issues of power structured these relationships? How have Indigenous communities used such connections to subvert colonial or hegemonic forces? How have various forms of Indigenous knowledge featured into connections between, within, and across communities? How has/can a greater awareness of Indigenous knowledge, and its various forms, enhance the practice and findings of ethnohistory?

We welcome proposals for panels of various formats, research presentations, roundtables, public workshops, and posters. Research panels should consist of 3-4 papers and may include a commentator. Roundtables and workshops can be more loosely structured, although the proposal should include a designated chair and a list of participants. In keeping with our theme, the organizers would like the conference to feature programming that can engage in greater collaboration and dialogue with Indigenous communities of Kansas and Missouri, as well as those across the Americas.

For more detailed information about the conference, including lodging options and instructions for submitting proposals, please go to the main conference website here: https://clacs.ku.edu/american-society-ethnohistory

Dear Chancellor Girod,

I am writing as President of the American Society for Ethnohistory (ASE), an international and multi-disciplinary academic organization, whose members focus their scholarship on the history of Native peoples of the Americas. Since several of our members are affiliated with the University of Kansas (as well as other higher education institutions in your state), we are quite alarmed at the recent development by the Kansas Board of Regents to suspend the institutional due process policies regarding suspension and termination of faculty and staff, including tenured professors.

Additionally, the ASE is currently planning for our 2022 meeting to be held at the University of Kansas, and we look forward to visiting your beautiful campus and learning more about KU. Obviously, such long-term planning requires us to have some sense of stability regarding the host institution, and, unfortunately. these recent events have brought KU’s stability into conversation.

Therefore, we urge you to follow the example of some of your fellow Kansas colleges and universities and decline to pursue the Board of Regents’ new policy on suspension, termination, and dismissal and to recommit to KU’s existing policies pertaining to such.

Sincerely,
Robbie Ethridge, President
American Society for Ethnohistory

The global coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has dramatically affected academic research and publication. As many professional ethnohistorians struggle to meet the challenges of online teaching and face severely limited research opportunities, the editors of Ethnohistory recognize that traditional submissions to the journal may not be possible for many of our colleagues. Yet, it is our hope that we can still use Ethnohistory as a forum for sharing research materials that may be useful to our profession, students, and public audiences.

To further that goal, Ethnohistory welcomes submissions of primary documents useful for ethnohistorical study. These may be transcriptions/translations of archival materials, interview transcripts, photographs, and other previously unpublished materials. Ideally, submissions should include a contextualizing introduction and/or editorial annotations to aid readers. We will prioritize submissions of sources useful for understanding the experiences, identities, and histories of Indigenous, disasporic and minority peoples of the Americas. We recognize that such submissions may vary greatly in length. Submissions of any length up to 9000 words are welcome. All submissions will be reviewed internally by our editorial team prior to publication. Submissions or queries may be sent to the co-editors, Katie Labelle kcl576@campus.usask.ca and Rob Schwaller schwallr@ku.edu. We will be accepting submissions for the foreseeable future.

We hope that despite the disruptions to research and publication Ethnohistory can continue to be a forum for disseminating research materials vital for our mission as scholars, educators, and advocates.

The American Society for Ethnohistory wishes to recognize and congratulate the 2020 winners of its annual awards.

• Brianna Theobald (Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Book Award) and Maurice Crandall (Honorable Mention).
• Rachel Wheeler and Sarah Eyerly (Robert F. Heizer Article Award), Elena FitzPatrick Sifford (Honorable Mention), and Bianca Premo and Yanna Yannakakis (Honorable Mention).
• Stuart Marshall (First Prize, Student Digital History Award) and Nizhoni Tallas (Second Prize).

For detailed information, including titles and descriptions of the winning scholarship and links to the digital projects, see the individual awards pages linked above, or go here.

The Coronavirus (COVID) global pandemic has had far reaching effects on human societies and has certainly left its mark on many aspects of life. It has shaped cultural, political, and economic experiences around the world.

Indigenous people are well-aware of the catastrophic results, and at times, creative responses to disease and community crisis. Scholars have taken note on the many ways the spread of diseases such as the Coronavirus have influenced Indigenous traditions, worldviews, international relations, kinship etc.

Ethnohistory is pleased to welcome abstracts of articles for a special issue that explores Indigenous perspectives on disease within the North American and Latin American contexts. The proposed essays should focus on topics that address new sources, methodologies and interpretations concerning Indigenous-centred experiences.  Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to submit full article manuscripts for double-blind peer review.

Those interested should send a 250-300 word abstract by 30 January 2021 to the attention of co-editors Katie Labelle (Kathryn.labelle@usask.ca) and Rob Schwaller (asejournal@gmail.com). Invited authors will be asked to submit a full article (7000-9000 word) manuscript for peer review by 1 August 2021.

The American Society for Ethnohistory released a statement regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and its consequences for Native and Indigenous communities. Please read the presidents’ joint statement here.

• ASE members’ list of Covid response orgs (PDF)