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AHA 2008: Which Sessions Concern Events in the News?

This page lists the sessions at the upcoming annual convention of the American Historical Association which deal with themes in the news over the course of the last year. No session deals explicitly with Iraq.

Thursday, January 3, 3:00–5:00 P.M.
1.  Marshall Hodgson’s The Venture of Islam
Marriott, Marriott Ballroom Salon 1
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Afsaneh Najmabadi, Harvard University

Topics:

"The Orient Does Not Exist": Hodgson and Said
Edmund Burke, University of California at Santa Cruz
Hodgson’s Periodization and Terminology
Louise Marlow, Wellesley College
Persian(ate) Exceeds Iran: A Brief Analysis of How Hodgson’s Terminology Has Changed Pre-Modern Islamicate History
Bruce Lawrence, Duke University
Is There "Islam" in "Islamdom"?
Jonathan Berkey, Davidson College
Some Reflections on Hodgson and Modernity
Richard Eaton, University of Arizona
Hodgson’s Narrative Style
Chase F. Robinson, The Oriental Institute, University of Oxford

Thursday, January 3, 3:00–5:00 P.M.
Advocacy Session
Historians, Advocacy, and Public Policy
Marriott, Wilson Suite A
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Linda K. Kerber, University of Iowa and immediate past president, AHA

Part 1:

Perspectives on One Historian’s Thirty Years with the Congress
Speaker: John Lawrence, Chief of Staff, Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives

Part 2:

Effective Advocacy: Strategies and Opportunities
Panel: Jason Hall, Director of Government and Media Relations, American Association of Museums
Jessica Irons, Director, National Humanities Alliance
Lee White, Director, National History Coalition
Jamil Zainaldin, President, Georgia Humanities Alliance

Friday, January 4, 9:30–11:30 A.M.
34.  Foreign Intervention and Historical Memory in the Horn of Africa
Hilton, Georgetown East
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

David R. Smock, United States Institute of Peace Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution

Papers:

Legacies and Lessons of Foreign Intervention in Somalia, 1946–2007
Lee Cassanelli, University of Pennsylvania
The Ahistorical Interventionists: External Peacekeeping, State-Building, Mediation, and Humanitarianism in Somalia, 1988–97
Ken Menkhaus, Davidson College
"The Teeth of the Times": Revisiting Foreign Intervention and Memory
Said Sheikh Samatar, Rutgers University-Newark

Comment:

David R. Smock

Friday, January 4, 9:30–11:30 A.M.
44.  De Facto Segregation: Regional Fallacies, Racial Myths, Historical Practices
Marriott, Washington Room 3
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, School of Law, Washington University of St. Louis

Papers:

De Jure/De Facto Segregation: The Long Shadow of a National Myth
Matthew D. Lassiter, University of Michigan
From Community Education to Neighborhood Schools: Race, Region, and Jim Crow in Flint, Michigan
Andrew Robert Highsmith, University of Michigan
"The Other Side of Milliken": Metropolitan School Desegregation and the Social Construction of Law and Space
Brett V. Gadsden, Emory University

Comment:

Jennifer L. Hochschild, Harvard University

Friday, January 4, 9:30–11:30 A.M.
47.  Diplomatically Speaking: How Historians of American Foreign Relations Communicate with the American Public
Marriott, Washington Room 1
Joint session with the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Susan Ferber, Oxford University Press

Panel:

Warren Bass, Washington Post
Timothy Naftali, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
Andrew Preston, Clare College, University of Cambridge
Gideon Rose, Council on Foreign Relations
Marilyn Young, New York University

Friday, January 4, 2:30–4:30 P.M.
79.  Uneven Developments in the Memory of Martin Luther King Jr.
Marriott, Delaware Suite B
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Renee C. Romano, Wesleyan University

Papers:

Jesse Helms, Race, and the 1983 Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Controversy
Tom Packer, St. Cross College, University of Oxford
Martin Luther King Jr. and the "Stonewall" of Presuppositionalism: The Historical Imagination of the Religious Right
Patrick Jackson, Vanderbilt University
Intellectuals, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Uses and Abuses of History
Peter A. Kuryla, Vanderbilt University

Comment:

David Lincoln Chappell, University of Arkansas

Friday, January 4, 2:30–4:30 P.M.
84.  Rethinking Gender and Sexuality in American Popular Culture
Marriott, Delaware Suite A
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

David Nasaw, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Papers:

Inventing the Girl Next Door: Playboy Magazine and the Pulchritudinous Playmates
Carrie A. Pitzulo, Graduate Center, City University of New York
The American Male: Stud or Dud? Representations of Masculinity in 1950s Popular Culture
Emma Elizabeth Ruckley, The Queens College, University of Oxford
Atlas, Arnold, and Frankie Avalon: Changing Forms of Body Building in Twentieth-Century Popular Culture
John Pettegrew, Lehigh University

Comment:

Bret Carroll, California State University at Stanislaus

Saturday, January 5, 9:00–11:00 A.M.
118.  New Directions in Middle East Historiography
Marriott, South Cotillion
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Naghmeh Sohrabi, Brandeis University

Topics:

Contemporary Trends in the Historiography of Nationalism
James Gelvin, University of California at Los Angeles
Seeing Like a State: Writing the History of Modern Iran
Cyrus Schayegh, American University of Beirut
Archives and Architecture of Empire: New Directions in Ottoman Historiography
Elizabeth B. Frierson, University of Cincinnati
Islam in the Early Modern World: The Clash of "Encounters" and "Civilizations"
Giancarlo L. Casale, University of Minnesota at Twin Cities

Comment:

Afsaneh Najmabadi, Harvard University

Saturday, January 5, 11:30 A.M.–1:30 P.M.
140.  Beyond the "New Military History": New Histories of the Military, Warfare, and Society
Marriott, South Cotillion
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Richard H. Kohn, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Panel:

Michael J. Allen, North Carolina State University
Dirk Bonker, Duke University
Brian DeLay, University of Colorado at Boulder
Anna Krylova, Duke University
Jennifer Siegel, Ohio State University

Saturday, January 5, 11:30 A.M.–1:30 P.M.
141.  Illegal Immigration in Comparative Perspective
Marriott, Washington Room 1
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Linda K. Kerber, University of Iowa

Panel:

Philip Kuhn, Harvard University
Mary D. Lewis, Harvard University
Mae M. Ngai, Columbia University

Saturday, January 5, 2:30–4:30 P.M.
153.  Women’s and Gender History in a Global Perspective
Marriott, Delaware Suite B
Sponsored by the AHA Committee on Women Historians
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

James N. Green, Brown University

Topics:

Should We Rescue Gender from the Nation?
Susan Louise Mann, University of California at Davis
Women and Gender in Imperial and Soviet Russia
Barbara A. Engel, University of Colorado at Boulder
Women in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam
Nikki Keddie, University of California at Los Angeles
How to Bring a Global Perspective to Gender?
Mrinalini Sinha, Pennsylvania State University

Comment:

Alexander Joseph De Grand, North Carolina State University

Saturday, January 5, 2:30–4:30 P.M.
165.  From Colonial India to Contemporary America: Modernity, Feminism, and Immigration in Islam
Marriott, Hoover Room
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Margot Badran, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding

Papers:

Identity and Be-Longing: Immigrant Muslim Participation in the American Public Sphere, 1965–2001
Aisha Lamb Sobh, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Local and the Colonial: Muslims of Qasbah Background and Their Experiences of Colonial Modernity in India
Mohammad Raisur Rahman, University of Texas at Austin
Tradition and Modernity: American Shi’a Muslim Women and Modernity
Bridget Blomfield, Claremont Graduate University

Comment:

Margot Badran

Saturday, January 5, 2:30–4:30 P.M.
168.  Living History: Encountering the Memory of the Heirs of Slavery, Part 5: Reparations and Affirmative Actions: Africa and Brazil
Marriott, Marriott Ballroom Balcony A
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Bogumil Jewsiewicki, Université Laval

Papers:

African Heritages, Memories of Slavery and Reparation Claims in Rural Brazil
Hebe Mattos, University Federal Fluminense
Reparations to Africa for the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Rhoda Howard-Hassmann, Wilfrid Laurier University
The Brazilian Black Movement and the Women’s Participation at the Durban Conference against Racism
Francine Saillant, Université Laval
The Role of Equitable Legal Principles in the Reparations Debate
Keith Calow, Wilfrid Laurier University
This is part of a multi-session workshop. See also sessions 4, 5, 104, 135, 180, and 218.

Comment:

The Audience

Saturday, January 5, 2:30–4:30 P.M.
174.  Global Histories of the Present
Marriott, South Cotillion
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Nicholas S. M. Guyatt, University of York

Topics:

Brazil since 1989
Bryan McCann, Georgetown University
The Two Koreas since 1989
Hyung Gu Lynn, University of British Columbia
Mexico since 1989
Alexander Dawson, Simon Fraser University
China since 1989
Timothy Cheek, University of British Columbia

Saturday, January 5, 2:30–4:30 P.M.
175.  The United States, Great Britain, and the Middle East: Recent Developments in Historical Perspective
Marriott, Washington Room 2
Joint session with the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Peter L. Hahn, Ohio State University

Topics:

U.S. Approaches to the Problem of Palestine: Current Events in Historical Perspective
Salim Yaqub, University of California at Santa Barbara
The Anglo-American Experience in the Middle East: Cultural and Political Perspectives
Mary Ann Heiss, Kent State University
Nationalism: The Perennial Challenge in U.S. Policy in the Middle East
Douglas Little, Clark University

Sunday, January 6, 11:00–1:00 P.M.

209.  Historians Going Public: Taking History to Newspapers, Radio, TV, Film, Public Libraries, Web Sites, and Blogs
Marriott, Virginia Suite A
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Warren J. Goldstein, University of Hartford

Topics:

If We’re So Smart, Why Can’t We Help "Them" Get It?
Allida M. Black, George Washington University
Fit to Print? Notes and Suggestions from an Op-Ed Historian
Jonathan L. Zimmerman, New York University
Public History and the F(eminism) Word: It’s Still "Not for Ourselves Alone"
Leslie J. Lindenauer, University of Hartford
History in 1,200 Words: Dumbing Down vs. Smarting Up
David Greenberg, Rutgers University-New Brunswick
Adventures in the Blogosphere: A Pilgrim’s Progress
Warren J. Goldstein

Sunday, January 6, 11:00–1:00 P.M.

221.  Historical Approaches to Twentieth-Century Shi’ism
Hilton, Monroe West
A session of American Historical Association


Chair:

Juan R. I. Cole, University of Michigan

Papers:

The "Ashura" Debates, Publicity, and the Reconsideration of Shi’i "Tradition"
Max Weiss, Stanford University
The Rise of Political Shi’ism in Saudi Arabia
Toby Craig Jones, Swarthmore College
The Politics of Genealogy in Shi’ite Lebanon: A Biography of Shaykh Hani Fahs
Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr, Washington University in St. Louis

Comment:

Juan R. I. Cole

Related Links

  • HNN Highlights of Past AHA and OAH Conventions