#AAIHS2027
The African American Intellectual History Society’s
12th Annual Conference
March 5-6, 2027
Boston, MA
Conference Theme:
Black Worldmaking
Call for Papers
Submission Deadline: September 30, 2026
Black intellectual history encompasses both incisive critiques of existing realities and imaginative visions of worlds free from domination and discrimination. Across generations, Black worldmaking has been undertaken by activists, artists, cultural workers, scholars, and ordinary people who recognized that the world as it existed was inadequate to Black flourishing. In North Carolina, Floyd McKissack sought to build Soul City, a planned community centered on Black self-determination and economic opportunity. June Jordan, working with R. Buckminster Fuller, envisioned “New Harlem” as a bold response to displacement and Black removal. Zora Neale Hurston dreamed of acquiring one hundred acres of land in Florida to establish a “cemetery for the illustrious Negro dead” that would also serve as a gathering place for Black communities. Through fiction, Octavia Butler engaged in a different form of worldmaking, imagining alternative futures whose insights continue to resonate with contemporary readers, particularly in her prescient novel Parable of the Sower. Together, these examples reveal the long tradition of Black people envisioning and creating spaces, institutions, and futures beyond the constraints of the present.
To that end, the 2027 AAIHS Planning Committee invites individual and panel proposals for short presentations (12–15 minutes) that explore how African-descended peoples across time and space have confronted dehumanizing systems by imagining and creating alternative possibilities for being in the world. How have these visions challenged, transformed, or at times drawn upon dominant structures such as white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, empire, and the Anthropocene? In what ways does the concept of Black worldmaking reframe our understanding of the intimate, the local, the global, and the relationships among these scales? Finally, how might dystopian imaginaries complicate, enrich, or even coexist with the emancipatory possibilities often associated with Black worldmaking?
The 2027 AAIHS conference committee welcomes researchers across the humanities and social sciences addressing these and related inquiries from a wide range of topical and temporal perspectives. AAIHS is similarly eager to receive submissions exploring the conference theme in art, popular culture, and literature. Papers that explore the global historical context and international dimensions of the theme are also encouraged.
All panel sessions will run for 75 minutes with 15 minutes devoted to audience participation. All paper proposals should include a title and an abstract of approximately 300 words. The proposal should clearly explain the paper’s argument; methods and methodologies; interventions; and engagement with the conference theme (if applicable). Submissions should also include a short CV (1-2 pages in length), highlighting previous publications and presentations, if applicable. Full panel proposals with a chair and up to 4 presenters 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 strongly encourage experimental formats, workshops, art displays, film screenings, roundtables, musical performances, and any other presentations beyond traditional academic papers and panels.
Proposals will be considered for inclusion in one of the featured conference sessions, which will be held IN-PERSON at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. AAIHS invites scholars at various ranks and affiliations (from graduate students to senior faculty and independent scholars) to submit proposals for consideration.
Submit a Proposal
Conference Committee:
- Chair: Derrais Carter, University of Massachusetts, Boston
- Mickell Carter, Brown University
- Chelsea McNutt, Grambling State University
- Tacuma Peters, Hunter College. CUNY
- Alexander Hyres, University of Utah
- Hettie V. Williams, Monmouth University
**To communicate with the conference committee or obtain more information, contact us.