Call for Papers
The 116th Annual Meeting of the
Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association
Reconstruction in History: Reimagining Democracy
August 9-11, 2023
California State University, Northridge Northridge, CA
The 2023 Program Committee invites proposals for panels, roundtables, and individual papers on any subject, but particularly those addressing the conference theme, “Reconstruction in History: Reimagining Democracy.” Reconstruction in the United States represents nothing less than a second American Founding. The Reconstruction Amendments 13-15 (the end of racial slavery, birthright citizenship, and Black voting rights) offered a revolutionary transformational paradigm for Black citizenship and dignity that continues to reverberate to this day in the U.S. and abroad. The struggle between reconstructionist supporters of multiracial democracy and redemptionist advocates of white supremacy represent the fundament democratic challenge of the past, present, and future—and Reconstruction has a variety of international meanings as well. The idea of Reconstruction has taken on new dimensions in the context of a global health pandemic, the heightened concerns about democracy at home and abroad, and the amplification of domestic racial divisions in the aftermath of the 2016 elections and the racial and political reckonings of 2020. We are interested in Reconstruction in the U.S. and abroad in broad and specific ways. We welcome papers, panels, and roundtables related to America’s three periods of Reconstruction (the first decades after the Civil War; the civil rights movement as a Second Reconstruction; and the period from 2008-present as a Third Reconstruction).
What are or have been comparable examples throughout the world? How have Americans remade fundamental parts of our society and democratic institutions in the past, and how have other peoples around the world remade their society in similar and different ways? What have been successful models of Reconstruction that continue into the present? How can we use global, domestic, regional, and local comparative frameworks to aid contemporary Reconstruction efforts? Why do the politics of racial backlash continue to permeate Reconstructionist dreams of freedom?
