Peace History Society

PHS 2021: Peace History Society Virtual Conference

Struggling for justice, struggling for peace: peace history engages with visions and movements around racial, climate, gender, and social justice.

Atlanta, Georgia
October 21-23, 2021

Conference Highlights | Registration | Program | Books and Museums | Call for Papers

Call For Proposals

Struggling for justice, struggling for peace: peace history engages with visions and movements around racial, climate, gender, and social justice.

In 1967-68, the last year of his life, Atlanta’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke against “poverty, racism, and militarism” and envisioned a “world house” in which all people could enjoy peace and freedom. He understood that the civil rights movement in the South was part of a global, not just a national, “revolution of values.” His stand is but one of many historical examples of Black, indigenous, and other people of color taking part in and giving leadership to broad efforts against war and other forms of state and structural violence as well as linking visions of peace and justice in their struggles for equality, sovereignty, and self-determination. Crucially, Black and other women of color developed an intersectional approach to race, gender, and class that continues to resonate in visions and movements for peace and justice. Five and a half decades later, our world house is on fire due to accelerating climate change. Once again, indigenous people and people of color are leading the way in intertwining peace and environmental and climate justice so that life can flourish around the planet. Enriching our knowledge of this meaningful past and finding new ways of researching, teaching, and presenting a peace history for our times is an urgent responsibility.

The Peace History Society (peacehistorysociety.org) invites proposals for our biennial conference in October 2021, especially proposals engaging in many possible ways with our theme of “Struggling for Justice, Struggling for Peace.” We welcome proposals for traditional papers and paper panels, roundtables, workshops, posters, and guided navigations of digital history exhibits, maps, websites, etc. We encourage proposals focused on teaching and public history as well as research. We hope that the organizers of panel, roundtable, or other group proposals will use the opportunity to initiate or advance conversations with scholars, students, and peace and justice advocates/activists who may not (yet) be members of PHS. We look forward to receiving proposals that bring together diverse and gender-balanced sets of participants and, where appropriate, feature intergenerational collaboration and dialogue.

Our theme encompasses the historical and contemporary interplay of peace and justice in ...

• Black, indigenous, and people of color activism and thought worldwide
• protest, advocacy, and policy from local communities to transnational networks to global institutions
• creative work by artists and writers in all media and genres
• agenda setting, coalition building, and “coming to terms with the past” among social movements
• cross-cultural, ecumenical, and international dialogues
• teaching diverse and inclusive peace histories
• recovering and presenting relevant peace histories for communities and publics

Proposals that address other themes and topics will also be considered.

Hosted by Kennesaw State University in metro Atlanta, Georgia, the PHS 2021 conference will be virtual. This format will enable more people in more places to participate in this exploration of peace history. It will unfold across four weeks in October 2021. Each week will offer a range of programming. In addition to traditional panels, each week may include a keynote speaker and plenary session, an online film screening, a roundtable, a poster session, and/or a teaching or public history workshop. There will be cultural performances, virtual introductions to historic Atlanta and Southeast peace and justice sites, and social events. The conference will include an awards presentation and PHS business meeting.

Please include the following information in proposals. For those submitting an individual proposal: your name, affiliation, time zone, email address, and a title and approximately 200-word description of the paper, poster, or other contribution. For those submitting a group proposal: your name (as the organizer), affiliation, time zone, email address, and a title and approximately 250-word description of the panel, roundtable, workshop, or other configuration. Please also supply for each participant: name, affiliation, time zone, email address, role (presenter, moderator, discussant, etc.), and, if a presenter, a title and approximately 50-100-word description of the paper or other contribution.

The due date for proposals is Sunday, 18 April 2021. Please submit proposals as a Word document attachment to phs2021@peacehistorysociety.org. The PHS 2021 planning and program committee expects to make decisions on proposals by the end of May. Additional information about this virtual conference and its technical aspects will be forthcoming. Please also send inquiries to phs2021@peacehistorysociety.org.