CULTIVATING THE “NEXT” AGRICULTURAL HISTORY

Annual Meeting of the Agricultural History Society

Iowa State University

Ames, Iowa

June 21-23, 2007

Sponsored by the History Department, Agricultural History and Rural Studies Program, and Center for Agricultural History, Iowa State University

Deadline for Submissions: October 15, 2006

In recent years, scholars seemed to have paused, looked around, and decided, however consciously, to expand and redefine the field of agricultural history. For many among us, this may provoke a sense of déjà vu. Beginning in the late 1970s scholars, dissatisfied with the traditional (or “old”) emphasis on production, distribution, technology, and policy, increasingly turned their attentions to social and cultural themes—among them, farm communities, women’s lives and roles, the immigrant experience, rural culture in the South, and market (vs. agrarian) consciousness and behavior. While the “new” rural history, as it came to be called, continues to thrive, historians and scholars from a variety of related disciplines are transforming and reinvigorating the field once again. The result—what might be called the “next” agricultural history—embraces both “old” and “new” interpretations of previous generations, but focuses most intently on interdisciplinary and global issues. The “next” agricultural history not only “puts the culture back into agriculture,” as outgoing AHS president Hal Barron once put it, but the environment, geography, economy, science and technology, politics, consumption—indeed, a whole range of scholarly perspectives and methodologies.

The program committee for the 2007 meeting of the Agricultural History Society invites submissions from scholars at all levels and in all disciplines to help cultivate the “next” agricultural history. We extend a special welcome to graduate students. Historians, economists, geographers, sociologists, and other scholars in related fields are encouraged to submit proposals of all types and formats, from the traditional papers/commentary format, to more informal discussion panels focused on specific themes, to roundtables on recent noteworthy books. The program committee will also do its best to organize individual or “orphan” submissions into panels.

Submission Procedures:

Complete session proposals should include a chair, participants, and, if applicable, a commentator. Please include the following information:

An abstract of no more than 200 words for the session as a whole; A prospectus of no more than 250 words for each presentation; A mailing address, email, phone number, and affiliation for each participant; and A CV of no more than a page for each participant.

Individual submissions should include all the above except a session abstract.

Please send submissions, in PDF format, to d-vaught@tamu.edu . While we much prefer electronic submissions, applicants may, if they choose, mail five hard copies of their proposals to:

David Vaught

2007 AHS Annual Meeting

Department of History

MS 4236

Texas A&M University

College Station, TX 77843-4236

Should you have further questions, please contact any member of the program committee:

David Vaught, chair, Texas A&M University, d-vaught@tamu.edu Monica Gisolfi, Columbia University, mg249@columbia.edu Douglas Helms, Natural Resources Conservation Service, USDA, douglas.helms@wdc.usda.gov Debra Reid, Eastern Illinois University, dareid@eiu.edu Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Iowa State University, prinkeh@iastate.edu