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2027 CONFERENCE: SAN FRANCISCO! |
The WHA 2027 Conference will be held at the Hilton Union Square in San Francisco!
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2027 PRESIDENT: ARI KELMAN
| Ari Kelman is Chancellor’s Leadership Professor of History at the University of California, Davis. He is the author, most recently, of Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War (Hill and Wang, 2015), as well as A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of Sand Creek (Harvard University Press, 2013), recipient of several national awards and honors, including the Bancroft Prize, and A River and Its City: The Nature of Landscape in New Orleans (University of California Press, 2003), which won the Abbott Lowell Cummings Prize. Kelman’s essays and articles have appeared in Slate, The New York Times, The Nation, The Times Literary Supplement, The Journal of American History, The Journal of Urban History, and many other publications. Kelman has contributed to outreach endeavors aimed at K-12 educators, and to public history projects, including documentary films for the History Channel and PBS’s American Experience series. He has received many grants and fellowships, including from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Huntington Library, and the National Endowment for the Humanities; won four prizes in recognition of his commitment to teaching and mentoring; served on a variety of editorial boards and program and prize committees; and held several administrative posts. He is now working on three books—For Liberty and Empire: How the Civil War Bled into the Indian Wars, A Very Short Introduction to the Indian Wars, and "A Bloodless Revolution": How the Civil War Sesquicentennial Helped Recast Collective Memory—and editing the journal Reviews in American History. Kelman has played many roles within the Western History Association, including serving on Council, book prize committees, the Western Historical Quarterly’s editorial board, as an inaugural member of the Sub-Committee for forming the Accessibility Committee, and as Co-Chair of the Program Committee for the 2024 Conference in Kansas City. Kelman is deeply honored to be asked to help lead a vibrant community that has been his professional home for nearly three decades. |
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2027 CALL FOR PAPERS
67th Annual Conference Call for Papers
October 20-23, 2027
Hilton Union Square
San Francisco, California
Resistant, Rebellious, and Radical Wests
In so many ways, San Francisco exemplifies the radical possibilities of the American West. It has been an LGBTQ+ sanctuary; a destination for immigrants from around the world; a haven for cultural, artistic, and political expression; a birthplace for leftist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, hemispheric, and pan-Indigenous movements; and a symbol of sexual freedom. Yet, in other ways, San Francisco also typifies a more mainstream American West: a site of unbridled capitalism that has generated great wealth and great poverty; a realm of nearly obscene beauty punctuated by brutal disasters; a place of extralegal political violence directed at people of color, including Chicanx and Asian American communities; and, though it remains a Native homeland where tribal peoples still survive, a location marked by dispossession and genocide.
As we prepare for the 2027 WHA meeting in San Francisco, the Program Committee calls for papers, panels, roundtables, and workshops that engage the theme “Resistant, Rebellious, and Radical Wests.” Here, we emphasize the plurality and dynamism of the West—its varied and contested meanings, the extreme and the quotidian, its possibilities and perils, and the region’s many contradictions. And, though “the West” holds significance for scholarly and popular audiences alike, we also recognize that descriptor as a colonial construct. The Program Committee therefore welcomes submissions from scholars who may not primarily identify as western historians, but whose work engages key themes in our field, including colonialism, diasporas, the built and natural environment, gender (including fluidity), immigration and migration, Indigenous studies, law, labor, politics, sexuality, and many others.
We are eager to see submissions from established and emerging scholars, as well as public historians, K-12 educators, and community members. Travel scholarships, support, and prizes for students and public historians are awarded annually by the WHA. For more information and submission guidelines, visit westernhistory.org/2027. Submit proposals via the Western History Association website by Dec. 5, 2026.
Policy: Diversity of Program Participants Statement
1) The Program Committee will actively promote the full and equitable inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities, diverse Indigeneities, religious minorities, people with disabilities, women, LGBTQ+ people, and people with various ranks and career paths on the Annual Meeting program.
2) Although not all sessions can reflect the entire diversity of the profession, the Program Committee will encourage proposers of sessions to include diverse sets of participants, addressing gender diversity, racial and ethnic diversity, sexual diversity, religious diversity, disability-based diversity, and/or LGBTQ+ diversity.
3) The Program Committee will encourage session proposers to consider the benefits of including on their panels historians in various career paths and of various ranks (i.e., senior scholars, public historians, graduate students, independent historians, etc.) within their organizations/institutions.
2027 Program Committee Co-Chairs
Erika Pérez, University of Arizona, Co-Chair
Christina Snyder, The Pennsylvania State University, Co-Chair
2027 WHA President
Ari Kelman, University of California, Davis
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
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The CFP deadline is December 5, 2026. Guidelines for submitting full sessions (preferred) will be available at https://westernhistory.org/2027/proposals when the paper and panel submission process opens on September 1, 2026. If you have questions, please contact the 2027 Co-Chairs listed above. You can also contact the WHA office: wha@westernhistory.org SUBMIT YOUR WORK HERE--Link opens September 1, 2026! If your work is accepted for the conference program, you must become a WHA member and pay a registration fee for the conference. The WHA Policy on Conference Participants requires all conference program participants, regardless of professional status, to register for the conference if your work is accepted. |
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