Calls for Papers from PAHA and PIASA - Proposals Due in the Spring 2019

Saswat Nanda's photo of Manhattan from Staten Island Ferry. Wikimedia Commons.

Two Polish American scholarly organizations issued calls for papers for their annual conferences, the Polish American Historical Association, due by 15 April 2019 and the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences, due by March 15, 2019.

The previous issue of this blog contained detailed Call for Papers for PAHA's 77th Annual Meeting in New York, held  as part of the 134th yearly meeting of the American Historical Association from January 3–6, 2020. Abstracts for papers and panel proposals are now being accepted and should be submitted to Anna Muller at anmuller@umich.edu.

http://pahanews.blogspot.com/2019/02/call-for-papers-for-pahas-77th-annual.html

Gdansk, Dlugie Pobrzeze, from Wikipedia.org

PIASA CALL FOR PAPERS FOR JUNE 2019, GDANSK, POLAND

The Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America is pleased to invite proposals for the Seventh World Congress on Polish Studies to be held at the University of Gdańsk, Poland, June 14-16, 2019.

Proposals are solicited for complete sessions or individual papers in any of the disciplines in the liberal arts, sciences, or business/economics. The general theme of the conference is “Anniversaries,” which, because 2019 lends itself to the remembrance of so many varied historical moments, should be interpreted as any formative event. Papers do not necessarily have to address the conference theme. Since the Institute values comparative sessions that place the Polish and East Central European experience in context, individual papers need not focus specifically on Poland or the Polish diaspora, but may include papers on a central topic that focus on other national or regional experiences. Similarly, sessions including presenters from more than one country are encouraged.

Each session is scheduled for 90 minutes to accommodate three papers or 20 minutes per paper. The conference language is English, although complete sessions in Polish will also be accepted (sessions must contain either all English or all Polish presentations). All conference rooms will be equipped with AV for the use of PowerPoint and CD/DVD presentations. Presenters are invited to submit their conference papers for possible publication in The Polish Review subsequent to the conference.

To submit a paper or complete session, please send the name, e-mail address, institutional affiliation, a tentative paper title and a brief one-paragraph abstract for all presenters to program chair James Pula at jpula@pnw.edu. The deadline for proposals is March 15, 2019. All participants are expected to pay the conference registration fee.

The University of Gdańsk is located along the sandy shores of the Baltic Sea. Its eleven faculties, with almost 28,000 students, are concentrated in the three cities of Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot that boast an efficient transportation system, an international airport, fast train connections to Warsaw and Kraków, and ferry connections to Scandinavia.

The Tri-City area is one of the most beautiful places in Poland. The charming location on the coast, as well as its many outstanding theatres, concert halls and restaurants constitute an attractive asset for conference participants. The attractions of historic Gdańsk include numerous museums of the city’s fascinating past (muzeumgdansk.pl)—Maritime Museum, National Museum, World War II Museum, Westerplatte where the first shots of the Second World War in Europe were fired, as well as the European Solidarity Center located on the grounds of the former Lenin shipyard where the workers’ strike of 1980 initiated a process that led to the crumbling of Communism in East Central Europe.

The attractions of the modern city of Gdynia—“the city of sea and dreams”—includes the new Emigration Museum as well as museums of the Polish Navy and of the city itself. All of them are located on the shores of the bay. Sopot, the pearl of the Baltic Sea on the very coast itself, each year draws thousands of tourists to its charming beaches and cafes. Less than an hour away from Gdańsk, in Malbork, there is the 13th century Teutonic Knights castle, a world renowned UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Call for Papers for PAHA's 77th Annual Meeting in New York, Due by 15 April 2019

PAHA’s 77th Annual Meeting will be held in New York as part of the 134th yearly meeting of the American Historical Association from January 3–6, 2020.


This year AHA announced no theme for the incoming conference. As explained in the general CFP:


Next year, as every year, the program committee will welcome all proposals and not consider relevance to a theme. For the first time since 2003, no historian will needlessly try to package a proposal to appear to fit a theme. Let a hundred flowers bloom.


https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/october-2018/no-theme-for-the-2020-annual-meeting


Having in mind this encouragement to let a hundred flowers bloom as an invitation to embrace the richness of ideas and proposals that may come from our colleagues, we would like to nevertheless suggest that the incoming PAHA conference reflect on the three most recent anniversaries, the 100th anniversary of Poland regaining independence, the centennial of Polish women gaining voting rights, and PAHA’s 75th anniversary.

We celebrated all three anniversaries only last year, and, we hope, that all three can keep pushing us to reflect on our past, the past failures and accomplishments, but also the path that we may embark upon in the future. We hence propose that the conference offers a chance to reflect on what it means to be Polish and Polish-American and how the past can guide our discussions on these question in the changing landscape of the 21st century.


We invite scholars who study the Polish-American communities or the greater Polish diaspora as well as those who deal with migration, ethnic, and regional studies and would like to join discussions related (but not limited) to the following topics:


• Polish-Americans and the restoration of Poland’s independence, 1918
• Polish-Americans and their contribution to the civic, institutional, and political life of the U.S.
• Intersections of ethnicity, class, gender, and race
• The changing understanding of the ethnic heritage
• Identity politics and the role of migrations in the past and contemporary world
• Immigration to the USA and state building in Poland and in the United States
• Transatlantic migrations to the Americas and state building in Poland and migrant communities in North and South America
• Heritage, legacy, and a new understanding of the role that ethnicities play in the modern world
• Polish Americans vs. other ethnic groups in a comparative perspective on both American continents and in Europe
• Responses to Polish transatlantic migrations in Europe, also in a comparative perspective


We invite proposals for sessions as well as individual papers related to all aspects of the Polish-American experience (in history, sociology, literature, art, music, etc.) on both American continents. We are committed to putting together well-researched and argued proposals in panels consisting of 3 participants. For the first time, PAHA is trying to implement commentators for each (or almost each) session.


Individual participants should include the following information when submitting a proposal:
- Paper title(s) and short abstracts (of no more than 300 words)
- Biographical paragraph (up to 250 words)
- Please indicate if you are willing to serve as a chair and/or a discussant for a session
- Also, note if you need A/V.


Session organizers should include the following information when submitting a panel proposal and session organizers:
- Paper/Session abstract(s) (up to 300/500 words)
- E-mail address for each participant
- Biographical paragraph (up to 250 words) for each participant
- Chair and commentator for the session
- Also, note if you need A/V.


Please be advised that it is not always possible for PAHA to provide A/V equipment for all sessions due to the high mandatory rental fee from AHA. Most likely we will try to gather all presentations that require A/V equipment in one day. It is therefore important for the presenters to indicate their need for A/V when submitting their proposal.


All presenters are encouraged to consider submission of their papers for publication in PAHA's peer-reviewed journal, Polish American Studies:
http://polishamericanstudies.org/text/13/polish-american-studies.html.


The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2019. Abstracts for papers and panel proposals are now being accepted and should be submitted to Anna Muller at anmuller@umich.edu.