#AAIHS2024

The African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS)’s Ninth Annual Conference

March 8-9, 2024

Conference Theme:

Reparations: Past, Present, and Future

Hosted by The Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies

University of Virginia

Reparations—as an idea, a practice, and a demand—spans the entire course of Black history.  From indigenous African notions of uBuntu and kima, to the activism of Belinda Sutton, Callie House, Queen Mother Moore, the Republic of New Afrika, N’COBRA, CARICOM, and Black Lives Matter, reparations abide as a powerful global current in Black life.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, academia has been slow to take up its study. Reparations are frequently dismissed by mainstream scholars as a relatively new fringe idea that is more performative than substantive.  Even Black Studies itself—which initially coalesced around the struggle against Jim Crow—has not yet similarly rallied around reparations as a collective post-Civil Right meta-project.  This relative indifference appears even more striking as local grassroots movements around the world are demanding reparations on an unprecedented scale and at an exponential rate.  U.S. cities as diverse as Evanston, Asheville, San Francisco, St. Louis, Boston, and many others have all passed legislation and are in the very preliminary stages of developing a reparations praxis.  Yet as the willingness of civil society to embrace reparations gains steam (largely in response to Black Lives Matter), the threat of elite capture and the wrestling of reparations away from its radical historical origins has emerged as an urgent problem. The reparations movement needs us all.

We, therefore, call for papers and panels from scholars, activists, educators, and artists whose work can be (re)conceptualized in some way through the prism of reparations and reparative justice. For panels on reparations: How does your work inform, challenge, complicate, historicize, or speak to the discursive and organizational practice of reparations? How do our narratives detailing the many harms of slavery, Jim Crow, and systemic racism illuminate (or at times obfuscate) the reparative process? What might reparations look like international, nationally, in your city, at your university, or in your neighborhood?

We welcome proposals on various aspects of reparations, but will also accept strong proposals on a variety of topics that center the histories, cultures, and experiences of people of African descent in the United States and across the globe.

All panel sessions will run for 75 minutes with at least 15 minutes devoted to audience participation. All paper proposals (300 words or less) should sketch out the content of a 10–15-minute talk and include the paper’s title, description, speaker contact information, and a brief biographical paragraph. Full panel proposals should include all the above information for each individual panelist as well as an overall abstract (less than 300 words) articulating the key questions and themes of the papers collectively and how the totality of the papers relate to the conference theme.  We would like to actively encourage experimental formats, workshops, art displays, film screenings, roundtables, musical performances, and any other presentations beyond traditional academic papers and panels.

Deadline for Submissions: September 1, 2023

You may submit a proposal by visiting us at https://www.aaihs.org/conference-2024/submit-proposals

Feel free to reach out to us at conference@aaihs.org for more information about this event.

---

Conference Committee:

• Chair: Robert Greene II, Claflin University
• Cherisse Jones-Branch, Arkansas State University
• Paula Austin, Boston University
• Celeste D. Moore, Hamilton College

For more information write us at: conference@aaihs.org

Note: The goal is to have an in-person conference, but this is subject to change given the current pandemic. Hybrid options may be available as we are an organization that does take seriously inclusivity of all interested in participating in this timely event. Masks are strongly recommended. Proof of vaccination and/or a negative COVID test (24 hours before attending) may become required, to be determined per CDC guidelines around the time of the event.