Learning Why "Everything Has A History" at AHA23

A foggy first night at AHA 2023. Photo by Kelan Amme

Every year, the American Historical Association invites historians, professors, students, and history enthusiasts to a major U.S. city for their annual meeting. This year, Philadelphia was the host city, and given my proximity to Pennsylvania, I decided to register. I was initially skeptical about going when I first saw the ad in a Fall 2022 edition of Perspectives magazine, but I wanted to take the opportunity while it was in front of me. So, I decided to mark it in my calendar just in case. After about a week, I remember I was on a phone call with my parents talking about school, and I decided to throw out the idea of going to the conference, not knowing anything about how I would get there, where I would stay, or how much it would cost to attend and travel. I was still unsure if I wanted to be home for Winter break or be away from my family and friends in Philly right before returning to school. Eventually, I did decide to register and started asking around to see if any of my friends from school would want to come with me. After bringing it up with a few of my fellow majors, my friend Nick told me that he would be attending the American Society of Church History conference that was being held at the same time. He had been interning with one of our professors, Dr. Devin Manzullo-Thomas, who was presenting a paper at ASCH. As the Fall semester rolled on, Nick and I spoke with Dr. Manzullo-Thomas about how to register for our separate conferences and find a place to stay. This led to both of us writing professional development grants offered by our school that allow students to attend meetings or events relevant to their careers. As of this week (1/11/23), we are still waiting for our grants to be processed.

The 136th annual meeting took place from January 5th-8th in Center City, Philadelphia, at the Marriot, Loews, and Notary hotels, where hundreds of presentations and events were put on by a wide range of historians, students, scholars, and others. Thankfully, the AHA created an app that allowed attendees to select the sessions they wanted to attend to create a virtual schedule that sent reminders about the time, showed us what room to go to, and gave us general information about the session and the presenters that we were going to see. I arrived at the Marriot Downtown close to 3 P.M. and navigated through the waves of red lanyards to the fifth floor, where the registration tables were set up.

After checking in, I received my name tag, grabbed a free bag, and made my way to the Loews for my first event, an orientation for undergraduate students. It was recommended that any students who had never been to an AHA conference should attend this meeting so they could get a rundown on the basics. When I first walked into the room, I almost felt out of place, but I continued to reassure myself that I was not the only one there for the first time. Once the meeting was over, I moved to an undergraduate reception, where I got to meet and network with other students from around the country and the world.

Coming from a smaller university, I was intrigued to hear many students discussing how they could attend this conference. Many of them said that their school/department was able to send them as a form of professional development or that they were sponsored by one of their professors. These conversations reminded me why it is essential for smaller universities to start/continue to place value on academic conferences as it may provide students with the connections they need to get a step up after graduating.

- 1: The hall where I had my first meeting. 2: A view of the undergrad reception. 3: Some of the food that they gave us!

After this event, I navigated to the opening reception, where students and professionals gathered under one roof over food and drink. Here, I met with other students and shared more about my work while also listening in on the research they have worked on. I often found myself "nerding out" over our conversations. It was great to see what inspires other people my age to study history and how they interpret it into some paper, project, presentation, etc. I was also fortunate to meet with the Interim Executive Director of the Urban History Association. I had a terrific talk about the work* I have done with the Digital Harrisburg Initiative, and I hope to connect further with the UHA as well as one of my professors, Dr. David Pettegrew, to find a way to build a relationship between Digital Harrisburg and a professional organization like the UHA.

(* to access my blog posts on Digital Harrisburg, click here).

The last session for the day took place in one of the main halls at the Loews Hotel and was entitled "Plenary: The Past, the Present, and the Work of Historians." This roundtable discussion featured Earl Lewis (University of Michigan), Rashauna Johnson (University of Chicago), Carol Symes (the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Jane Kamensky (Harvard University), and Herman C. Bennett (City University of New York) discussing how the year 2020 has impacted history, with much of the focus being around the historical discipline and history education. Many fascinating points were shared, with the speakers asking the audience, "why now?" as in why are these issues of inequality and social justice so prevalent to historians today and how historians can be activists for change, but they still have to be wary of how "good activism can produce bad history."

- Earl Lewis (center) gives the opening remarks to a packed audience at AHA 23 (Photo by Kelan Amme).

Over the next two days, I attended sessions entitled:

• Playing with the Past: Historical Engagement with Video Games

Presenters: Timothy J. Burke (Swarthmore College), Joshua Fitzgerald (Cambridge University), Thomas Lecaque (Grand View University), Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwal (California State University, San Marcos).

• Difficult Decisions: New Perspectives on Citizenship, Civil Liberties, and Military Service

Presenters: Andrew Huebner (the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa), Sarah Myers (Messiah University), Jorden Pitt (Texas Christian University), John Worsencroft (Louisiana Tech University).

• Museum Decolonization, Anti-Black racism, and the Restitution of African Cultural Heritage

Presenters: Sarah Van Beurden (Ohio State University), Foreman Bandama (Field Museum of Natural History), Ndubuisi Ezeluomba (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts), Amanda Maples (North Carolina Museum of Art), Cresa Pugh (The New School).

• COVID-19 in Context

Presenters: Lisa Clark Diller (Southern Adventist University), Johnathan Riddle (Pepperdine University), Aishah Scott (Providence College), Andrew M. Werhman (Central Michigan University).

• Russia's War against Ukraine in Historical Perspective

Presenters: Benjamin Nathans (University of Pennsylvania), Olesya Kromeychuk (Ukrainian Institute London), Victoria Smolkin (Wesleyan University), Elizabeth A. Wood (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Attending such an expansive set of interdisciplinary sessions with different presentation styles helped to improve my first experience at an AHA conference. When I first discussed the event before the end of the fall semester, I was often told not to overschedule. While I did choose to book myself pretty heavily, I felt that I gained better knowledge as an undergraduate who has yet to find his primary field of study/interest. When I wasn't attending a session, I did make time to walk around Philadelphia with my dad and visit museums like The Rosenbach (which I will write about and attach here) to give myself a brain break and get as much out of the trip as possible. I also made sure to connect with my advisor, Dr. Sarah Myers, during her session, and with Dr. Manzullo-Thomas, over lunch at Reading Terminal Market. This conference provided me with resources and information about working as a professional academic historian, museum curator, or independent researcher. It is also proved how vital it is for students to attend events like this as it not only helps them learn in new ways, but it gives them opportunities to make connections/network, listen to what others are doing in the field, and experience their discipline in new ways that they might not see at the institution they attend.