Conference Theme

The World History Association’s 34th Annual Meeting will be held in Louisville, Kentucky in the United States with the theme "Protest, Prohibition, and Pugilism: Louisville and the World." The rich history of Louisville places it firmly within the interactions, migrations, and networks that have formed the modern world, and the forces that have shaped Louisville have been globally resonant throughout human history as well.  

With "Protest," we highlight race and resistance as themes in world history.  Our conference venue, the Seelbach Hotel, is located on 4th Street, the location of several key events in Louisville civil rights history.  Louisville also evokes the global history of racialized state violence, since it is the site of the 2020 police murder of Breonna Taylor and the outpouring of political action that emerged as a response. 

With "Prohibition," we evoke the global history of foods and intoxicants, their economic and cultural significance, and the attempts of states and other actors to limit or shape their consumption. We invite participants to focus on Louisville's role as a production center for bourbon, one of the city’s largest historical and contemporary exports, and the ways that  Louisville’s economy and culture have followed the booms and busts of prohibition and global commercialization of “Kentucky Nectar.”  The city’s culture grew around home distillers, corporations, and at times an active underground bootleg community.  Likewise, hemp was an important industrial product in Kentucky throughout the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. However, the shifting legal status of hemp since the 1970s has had an impact on agricultural workers. 

“Prohibition” evokes global histories of labor and regulation in other ways as well. Historically an active riverport linked to the Atlantic world, Louisville is today a global center of logistics and transportation, thanks in part to the presence of UPS Worldport.  As in every generation, workers are at the heart of trade and economic power. Many of them are immigrants, and some were historically unfree, like the enslaved peoples who once labored in homes, warehouses, factories, and riverfront docks.

With "Pugilism," we invite participants to explore global sports history and human-equine relationships as themes in world history.  The famous boxer and political figure Muhammad Ali  is a Louisville native whose skill and global activism were both forged in the city.  Louisville also produces Louisville Slugger bats, the most famous baseball equipment in the world.  Finally, it is one of the global homes of horse racing culture, with the Kentucky Derby held every year since 1875 at the Churchill Downs racetrack.

Louisville lies on the ancestral lands of the Shawandasse Tula, the Osage, the Kaskaskia, the Adena Culture, the Hopewell Culture, and the Myaamia.

Call For Proposals

Submission Deadline: 1 February, 2025

You can submit your proposal(s) on our PreTalx submission site. 

All papers which approach history from a transnational and global perspective are welcome, but Louisville offers a diverse range of topics to consider, and applicants are encouraged to center or connect their proposal to one or more of these themes. 

The World History Association encourages proposals for sessions and papers presenting original research and pedagogical techniques within the overarching themes of Protest, Prohibition, and Pugilism, as well as other topics of interest to world historians. We welcome topics involving the widest possible range of geographic locales and historical time periods.

We invite proposals from students, scholars, teachers, and activists around the world that investigate—and extend the boundaries of—the conference’s theme. Proposals may take the form of:

• Organized Panels (three to four panelists, one chair, and optionally, one discussant) - each paper should be a maximum of 20 minutes in length for three panelists; papers should be a maximum of 15 minutes in length for four panelists
• Individual Papers (not part of an Organized Panel) - each paper should be a maximum of 20 minutes in length
• Roundtable Sessions (between four to six participants) – five-minute opening statements from each participant followed by conversational dialogue with the audience
• Workshop Sessions (between one to four participants) – these are hands on sessions on specific teaching techniques or practices that often include handouts, breakout sessions and/or assignment creation/reflection
• Meet the Author Sessions - an excellent opportunity for exchanges between authors and audiences, including explanations of methods and suggestions for use
• Innovative Sessions - innovative teaching, research, or other formats not outlined above Proposals from the fields of anthropology, geography, political science, literature, art history and criticism, digital humanities, other humanities and social sciences, as well as natural or physical sciences that address global historical change are also encouraged.

Each organized session should include a 250-word panel proposal and a 250-word proposal for each paper along with a short biographical statement for introduction by the session Chair. Individual papers and all other sessions should include a 250- word abstract and a short biographical statement for introduction by the session Chair.

PLEASE NOTE: Prearranged (organized) panels/roundtables/workshops are given priority in the program and receive earlier notification of acceptance. Individual papers will also be considered and, if accepted, are arranged into suitable panels by the Program Committee. Individual papers may receive later notice of acceptance, pending appropriate placement on panels.

Contact Email: info@thewha.org