The Society for Military History

The intellectual home for military historians worldwide

This page was last updated 30 July.

Do you have Call for Papers to be listed on this page? Email Kurt Hackemer at khackeme@usd.edu.

Calls for Papers and Panels

CALL FOR PAPERS
The 9th International Conference on Military Geosciences: Desert Warfare – Past Lessons and Modern Challenges

Military activities – past, present, and future – will always be tied to a wide spectrum of geosciences. Throughout history, the decisive outcomes of numerous battles on land have been dictated in large part by the terrain and environmental conditions. Modern military operations rely on a range of land-, air-, and space-borne intelligence supplemented with expert knowledge of variable terrain processes and conditions.

The modern study of environmental sciences is critical for both evaluation of how terrain and landsurface conditions may impact military equipment and operations as well as development of sustainable management practices for military reservations and installations. Further, potential increases in geopolitical instability, driven in part by decreasing natural resources and environmental impacts related to global climate change, will be a factor in determining the future and fate of global military conflicts.
The 9th International Conference on Military Geosciences (ICMG) will provide a venue for military personnel, academics, and practitioners from government service and commercial enterprises to explore a wide range of military geosciences.

We invite papers for this five day conference to take place in Las Vegas, Nevada (USA) from June 20 to June 24, 2011. The event will be hosted by DRI (part of the Nevada System of Higher Education) in cooperation with the US Army Research Office.

For further details, please go to http://www.dri.edu/icmg.

CALL FOR PAPERS
The 54th Annual Missouri Valley History Conference will be held March 3-5, 2011 in Omaha, Nebraska. The Society for Military History sponsors a full slate of sessions at the MVHC and also will again be sponsoring a “huddle” for Society for Military History participants. Individual proposals and session proposals are welcome. For individuals, send a one page proposal and short c.v. (only c.v. if volunteering to chair/comment). For sessions, send one-page session proposal, one-page proposal for each paper, and short c.v.s for all participants. Please include e-mail address. Deadline for proposals is October 31, 2010. Send proposals, c.v.s and inquiries for contest rules to: Connie K. Harris, PO Box, Grasston, MN 55030 or send by e-mail to ckharris1@juno.com. The Society for Military History and the First Division Museum Cantigny sponsors the Kevin J. Carroll award for the best graduate student paper in Military History. This prize is valued at $400 dollars. In addition, the Society for Military History and the First Division Museum Cantigny sponsors a paper prize for the Best Undergraduate Student paper in any area of History which is valued at $200. For information on this prize please send inquiries to Charles King at cwking@mail.unomaha.edu.

CALL FOR PAPERS
1961/1981: Key Moments in Human Spaceflight

The NASA History Division and the National Air and Space Museum’s Division of Space History invite proposals for presentations to be held at its joint symposium, “1961/1981: Key Moments in Human Spaceflight,” at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., on 26-27 April 2011. This symposium reflects on 50 years of human spaceflight using these two key dates in time as an entrée for broader investigation and insight. The symposium coincides with four significant anniversaries in the history of human spaceflight: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s inaugural human orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961; the U.S.’s first human spaceflight with American astronaut Alan Shepard on 5 May 1961; the announcement on 25 May 1961 of the U.S. decision to go to the Moon by the end of the decade; and the Space Shuttle’s first flight into orbit on 12 April 1981. All four events resulted from a unique set of ideas, circumstances, and geopolitics which established a trajectory for future human operations in space. Although there will be a few invited speakers, most presentations will result from responses to the call for papers.

Accordingly, scholars from all disciplines, fields, and subject areas are invited to propose individual papers on aspects of the 1961/1981 theme. We especially invite graduate students and scholars newly entering the study of the history of spaceflight. The symposium will focus on new analytical insights and fresh scholarly analyses from a variety of social science and humanistic perspectives. Individual presentations will be scheduled for 20 minutes each and grouped by the conference organizers into thematically coherent panels that leave ample time for audience discussion.

Key questions of special interest to the symposium’s organizers include the following:

• What were the political, economic, social, and cultural factors that help explain the situation concerning human spaceflight in 1961? In 1981?
• What did it mean to be an astronaut or a cosmonaut in 1961, in 1981, and how has this changed over time from social, cultural, transnational, and institutional perspectives?
• What geopolitical factors have affected the manner in which various nations have approached the issue of human spaceflight?
• What does it mean for nations to be part of an elite “club” of human spacefarers?
• What goals in human spaceflight existed at various moments in the history of the space age? Have these changed over time and why?
• How might transnational historical themes, rather than nationalist perspectives, be deployed to understand these moments in time?
• What cultural influences (such as fiction, advertising, literature, art, music, labor movements, and globalism) help to explain these experiences?
• What technological developments drove the seizing of the two moments in 1961 and 1981to take human spaceflight in directions not achievable before?
• How have national approaches been different from each other in terms of their treatment of launch vehicles, human factors in space, selection and training of astronauts, cultural treatment of astronauts, and the like?
• What are the social, cultural, and political ramifications of these 1961/1981 moments in time and the place of fifty years of human spaceflight?
• What is the legacy of human spaceflight?
• What new insights might we explore about the different approaches that the U.S., the U.S.S.R./Russia, and China have taken to human spaceflight?
• What have we learned about national space agencies versus transnational consortia such as the European Space Agency versus private sector investment in human spaceflight capabilities?

Proposals may address any area of human spaceflight history related to the 1961/1981 theme. Proposals should be relatively brief (1-2 page abstracts would be fine) and should include a c.v. Proposals are due by 15 October 2010, with a decision made about selection for presentation by 31 December 2010.

Please send proposals to:

Roger D. Launius
launiusr@si.edu

Steve Garber
stephen.j.garber@nasa.gov

CALL FOR PAPERS
2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War and the first bloodshed of that War on the streets of Baltimore. Maryland Historical Magazine is seeking article submissions about the Civil War for a special anniversary issue. All topics that relate to Civil War in Maryland or the Chesapeake will be considered, but of special interest are those that examine the social and cultural history of the War and the lived experience of people. Reaching over 3,000 subscribers, Maryland Historical Magazine publishes articles on Maryland history, the Chesapeake, and the broader Atlantic. The deadline for submissions is October 1, 2010. Please send submissions to: Editors, Maryland Historical Magazine, 201 W. Monument St., Baltimore, MD 21201. For questions please email Matt Hetrick, Associate Editor, mhetrick@mdhs.org.

CALL FOR PAPERS
Baltic Defence College workshop on Small State Security

On 7-8 October 2010 the Baltic Defence College in Tartu, Estonia, will host a two day academic workshop on the subject of Small State Security. We are organizing several panels for presentations that will cover a variety of small state security issues to include: the small state security environment, European security issues and small states, security threats to small states, small states in alliances, small state forces and multinational deployments, defence industries and small states and other subjects. If you are interested in attending or proposing a panel please contact Dr.Ilias Iliopoulos ilias.iliopoulos@bdcol.ee or Mr. Didzis Nimants -- didzis.nimants@bdcol.ee. If you wish to present a paper send proposal and abstract to Dr. Iliapolous before 25 August 2010. Those wishing to attend should contact the above named people by 15 September 2010.

CALL FOR PAPERS
The Brock Review is seeking scholarly essays and creative pieces for an upcoming issue on the theme of "Contest for Continents: The Seven Years’ War in Global Perspective" (Vol. 12 No. 2). With nearly one million battlefield deaths and fighting on four continents and in three oceans, the Great War for Empire stands as the first world war. Focusing on the conflict as one that transcended the national and imperial categories that have traditionally been used to evaluate it, this issue aims to study the war both globally, involving North America, South Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, West Africa, and the Philippines, and in transnational perspective, by examining the conflict’s military, diplomatic, political, cultural, economic, and social aspects.

This issue is thematically linked to the “Contest for Continents” conference which was jointly hosted by Brock University and Niagara University in October 2009.

Possible topics for this issue might include:
• Military histories analyzing the campaigns in various theaters
• The effect of the colonial context on the conduct of operations
• The role of “natives,” including indigenous North-, Anglo-, and Franco-Americans and the peoples of the South Asian Indian states
• Economic questions such as trade interests (or the lack thereof) and resource mobilization
• Political histories examining Parliament in Great Britain and the courts of other states
• The parts played by individuals (such as Frederick the Great or William Pitt)
• The long-term effects of the war on North America, South Asia, and Europe
• Empire building and the European balance of power
• Representations of the overseas “other”
• The war’s effect on popular memory as seen in literature, material objects, and commemorative ceremonies

The Brock Review is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal published by the Humanities Research Institute at Brock University. Scholarly essays submitted to The Brock Review should not exceed 25 double-spaced pages in length. Essays should adhere to the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and include endnotes (where necessary) and a bibliography.

Manuscripts should be original works and should not be published (or under consideration for publication) in another format. Manuscripts should be submitted via the journal website (www.brocku.ca/brockreview) by the 15th of September, 2010. Each submission must be accompanied by a 100 word abstract, and a brief biography of the author. It is the sole responsibility of the author to obtain any necessary copyright permissions for images accompanying an essay. If your essay is accepted for publication, you must provide copies of these permissions before your essay can be published.

Creative work (i.e.: video clips, paintings, photographs, poetry, short fiction or other types of work suitable to the online format of the journal) will also be considered for publication and should be submitted in an electronic format by the 15th of September, 2010. In the event that your submission is too large of a file to send submit online, CDs or DVDs can be sent to the address below. Creative work must be accompanied by a statement indicating the creator(s) of the piece have given consent to have it included in The Brock Review.

Dr. Keri Cronin
Editor, The Brock Review
c/o Department of Visual Arts
Brock University
500 Glenridge Ave.
St. Catharines, ON L2N 4C2
CANADA
keri.cronin@brocku.ca

CALL FOR PAPERS
2011 Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 1750-1850
Tallahassee, FL
March 3-5, 2011

The Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 1750-1850 (CRE) provides a venue for the presentation of original research on not only the history of Europe during the age of revolution, but also the Atlantic world and beyond. We welcome proposals from allied disciplines and comparative studies; in short, we offer a platform for research into the revolutionary era broadly defined.

The 2011 conference will be held March 3-5 at the Doubletree Hotel in Tallahassee, Florida, located in the historic center of the state capital.

Featured Speakers:
• Donald D. Horward, Ben Weider Eminent Scholar (emeritus) and founder of the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution at Florida State University.
• Marie-Jeanne Rossignol, Professor of American History, Université Paris VII.
• David Geggus, Professor of Caribbean History, University of Florida

Panel and Paper Proposals:
The program committee prefers proposals for complete sessions (three papers, plus chair and a commentator). However, we will accept proposals for incomplete sessions, and individual paper proposals. Session proposals should include name of presenter, title of paper, and brief abstract (no more than one page) for each paper; and brief CVs (no more than 2 pages) for each participant. The deadline for proposals is October 15, 2010. We welcome traditional presentations of new research as well as roundtable discussions and pedagogical panels. Proposals from doctoral students are welcome. Electronic submissions should be sent in Word format to Rafe Blaufarb at rblaufarb@fsu.edu.

Reservations should be made at the Doubletree Hotel, located at 101 S. Adams St., Tallahassee, FL 32301, which will serve as the conference hotel. To make your reservation and to obtain the group rate discount, call 1-800-222-8733 and state that you are with the block of rooms reserved for the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era. The deadline for reserving a room is January 1, 2011. The room rate for CRE participants is $99.00 per night, plus tax. Tallahassee Regional Airport is served by American, Delta, US Airways.

Though not yet updated with information for the 2011 Conference, the Consortium’s website will contain details shortly. The address is: www.revolutionaryera.org. Any questions may be addressed to Rafe Blaufarb: rblaufarb@fsu.edu.

CALL FOR PAPERS
Mutiny and Maritime Radicalism during the Age of Revolution: A Global Survey. We announce a conference to be held June 17-18, 2011 at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam (NL). The conference will explore the transnational dimensions of mutiny and maritime radicalism during the great cycle of war and revolution beginning in the mid-1750s, progressing through the eras of the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions, into the period of the South American Wars for Liberation, and concluding with the revolutionary movements of the 1830s-40s. Full details can be found at http://www.iisg.nl/research/mutinies.php.

SYMPOSIUM ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS
The National Security Agency’s Center for Cryptologic History sponsors the Cryptologic History Symposium every two years. The next one will be held 6-7 October 2011. Historians from the Center, the Intelligence Community, the defense establishment, and the military services, as well as distinguished scholars from American and foreign academic institutions, veterans of the profession, and the interested public all will gather for two days of reflection and debate on topics from the cryptologic past.

The theme for the upcoming conference will be: “Cryptology in War and Peace: Crisis Points in History.” This topical approach is especially relevant as the year 2011 is an important anniversary marking the start of many seminal events in our nation’s military history. The events that can be commemorated are many.

Such historical episodes include the 1861 outbreak of the fratricidal Civil War between North and South. Nineteen forty-one saw a surprise attack wrench America into the Second World War. The year 1951 began with the fall of Seoul to Chinese Communist forces with United Nations troops retreating in the Korean War. In 1961, the United States began a commitment of advisory troops in Southeast Asia that would eventually escalate into the Vietnam War; that year also marked the height of the Cold War as epitomized by the physical division of Berlin. Twenty years later, a nascent democratic movement was suppressed by a declaration of martial law in Poland; bipolar confrontation would markedly resurge for much of the 1980s. In 1991, the United States intervened in the Persian Gulf to reverse Saddam Hussein’s aggression, all while the Soviet Union suffered through the throes of its final collapse. And in 2001, the nation came under siege by radical terrorism.

Participants will delve into the roles of signals intelligence and information assurance, and not just as these capabilities supported military operations. More cogently, observers will examine how these factors affected and shaped military tactics, operations, strategy, planning, and command and control throughout history. The role of cryptology in preventing conflict and supporting peaceful pursuits will also be examined. The panels will include presentations in a range of technological, operational, organizational, counterintelligence, policy, and international themes.

Past symposia have featured scholarship that set out new ways to consider out cryptologic heritage, and this one will be no exception. The mix of practitioners, scholars, and the public precipitates a lively debate that promotes an enhanced appreciation for the context of past events. Researchers on traditional and technological cryptologic topics, those whose work in any aspect touches upon the historical aspects of cryptology as defined in its broadest sense, as well as foreign scholars working in this field, are especially encouraged to participate.

The Symposium will be held at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory’s Kossiakoff Center, in Laurel, Maryland, a location central to the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas. As has been the case with previous symposia, the conference will provide unparalleled opportunities for interaction with leading historians and distinguished experts. So please make plans to join us for either one or both days of this intellectually stimulating conference.

Interested persons are invited to submit proposals for a potential presentation or even for a full panel. While the topics can relate to this year’s theme, all serious work on any aspect of cryptologic history will be considered. Proposals should include an abstract for each paper and/or a statement of session purpose for each panel, as well as biographical sketches for each presenter. To submit proposals or for more information on this conference, contact Dr. Kent Sieg, the Center’s Symposium Executive Director, at 301-688-2336 or via email at kgsieg@nsa.gov.

CALL FOR PAPERS
The 54th Annual Missouri Valley History Conference will be held March 3-5, 2011 in Omaha, Nebraska. The Society for Military History sponsors a full slate of sessions at the MVHC and also will again be sponsoring a “huddle” for Society for Military History participants. Individual proposals and session proposals are welcome. For individuals, send a one page proposal and short c.v. (only c.v. if volunteering to chair/comment). For sessions, send one-page session proposal, one-page proposal for each paper, and short c.v.’s for all participants. The Society for Military History and the First Division Museum Cantigny sponsors the Kevin J. Carroll Award for the best graduate student paper in Military History. Please include e-mail address. Deadline for proposals is October 31, 2010. Send proposals and c.v. to: Connie K. Harris, PO Box 121, Grasston, MN 55030 or send by e-mail to ckharris1@juno.com.