Call for Papers, deadline – 1 May 2026

The BIHG Committee invites you to contribute a paper to its 34nd annual conference. We accept both individual papers (of 20 minutes) and complete panel submissions (consisting of three 20 minute papers). As in previous years, we encourage proposals for papers from a wide range of subjects from any approach or period in international history. These include: 

Researchers at Columbia University’s History Lab are looking to recruit SHAFR members to participate in an IARPA-funded research project. We are developing AI systems designed to evaluate the risk of revealing national security secrets from aggregating large collections of less sensitive information. Whereas some argue this possibility may require radically reducing the availability of such information, our project aims to ensure government classification policies and procedures are based on rigorous peer-reviewed research. In this first stage of the project, we are organizing a workshop in which historians will evaluate whether and how AI can create a “mosaic” that reveals information that should be protected.

Participation will take place through a structured online workshop. It will include training in new AI-augmented research methods, such as discussion of prior work on the mosaic effect and demonstrations of research tools, like the FOIArchive search platform. No technical background is required, but participants need to have experience analyzing declassified documents, and some familiarity with U.S. foreign relations in the 1970s. Most of the time will be spent evaluating examples of AI-generated reconstructions of previously classified information from this period. Participants will be compensated and may have the opportunity to participate in future workshops.  

William Appleman Williams Emerging Scholar Grants

Ashley Everson’s project, “Voices of the Valley: Black Women, Radical Politics, and Internationalism in the Tennessee Valley, 1931–1950” offers new perspectives on the history of Black internationalism by shifting our focus from the urban north to the rural south. Based on an interdisciplinary methodology and impressive array of national and international organizations, “Voices of the Valley” illustrates how working-class and poor Black women articulated a radical vision of democracy that was both local and global. Everson is an assistant professor in the Department of African American and Africana Studies at the University of Maryland. She received her Ph.D. in Africana Studies from Brown University in 2025.

Assistant Professor, Department of History in Tuen Mun, for Lingnan University

SHAFR, in partnership with McGill-Queen’s University Press (MQUP), is pleased to announce the launch of the William Burr Prize, an annual award for the best PhD dissertation in nuclear history, broadly defined.

The prize is open to all nationalities and institutions and welcomes dissertations on any aspect of nuclear history, anywhere in the world. Eligible dissertations must have been submitted in final form between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2025. Self-nominations and supervisor nominations are welcome.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute has opened its application for its postdoctoral fellowships for the 2026-2027 year.

The fellowship welcomes applications from those with terminal degrees in history, political science, economics, sociology, American studies, law, and related fields. Past fellows have specialized in political history, intellectual history, history of U.S. foreign relations, empirical methods, the American presidency, etc.

In Memoriam: Bill Burr

SHAFR members are invited to apply for our June 2026 awards including the Bernath and Dissertation Prizes.  The deadline is 1 February.  Visit https://www.shafr.org/prizes to apply.

SHAFR wrote to the leadership of the University of Nottingham strongly encourage it to reverse its decision to close all the degree programs in the Department of American and Canadian Studies.

Letter of Support for Department of American and Canadian Studies.pdf

Ernest May Fellowship in History and Policy

The Ernest May Fellowships honor Ernest May, Charles Warren Professor of American History, a member of the Belfer Center's board of directors, and a faculty affiliate of the Center's International Security Program, who passed away in June 2009.

The Ernest May Fellows are housed with the International Security Program fellows and participate in the activities of the Center as part of the International Security Program. They will have access to most Harvard University libraries and facilities. Fredrik Logevall, Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs, and Niall Ferguson, Belfer Center Senior Faculty Fellow, serve as the points of contact and mentors for the fellows.

Call for Abstracts

Peace in the Age of Forever Wars

SHAFR UK-Ireland Network CfP

Following the success of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) UK-Ireland online seminar, we would like to capitalise on the collaboration and collegiality of the network members and host a one-day work in progress workshop at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford.

SHAFR
JANUARY AWARDS
Deadline: 15 October

Applicants MUST be members of SHAFR to be eligible for awards. Visit https://www.shafr.org/awards
to apply.

Cologne Center for Advanced Studies in International History and Law (CHL)

PhD position (f/m/x) - Rethinking Global Governance 

Call for Papers for the SHAFR 2026 Annual Meeting

2026 Conference of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations

The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, June 25–27, 2026

The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) invites proposals for its 2026
annual conference. The deadline for proposals is December 1, 2025.

CFP: SHAFR Summer Institute on “Strategic Cultures” at The Ohio State University-Mershon Center for International Security Studies (June 20-24, 2026)

Historically, international relations has fluctuated between periods of crisis and periods of relative stability. Some refer to our current age as one of sustained “polycrisis,” unleashed by what Chinese President Xi Jinping calls the “great changes unseen in a century.” Of course there has hardly been much peace or stability in the past 150 years, but the last time the world was in such a state of multipolar instability and insecurity was probably the 1930s. We are now at another threshold moment in which America’s place in the world may well be in the process of being transformed as well as reimagined. If history is any guide, some of this new thinking will endure; most of it will become obsolete.