Call for Applications:
“Writing the History of U.S. Foreign Relations in an Age of Crisis”

2025 SHAFR Summer Institute, June 21-25, 2025, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

SHAFR's Nominating Committee is soliciting nominations for elected positions. The 2024 elections will fill the following positions:

The Committee for Women in SHAFR welcomes applications for an online Second Book Workshop to be held on Friday 17 January 2025, 9:00 am-12:00 pm and 3:00-5:00 pm EST). This initiative is aimed at scholars who are researching/writing their second book and who would like to have a productive environment in which to receive feedback on their work. Twelve participants will be part of a group of peers; they will give comments to others and receive feedback themselves from experienced editors and scholars.  They would be asked to attend both sessions. Past participants gave enthusiastic feedback (“a masterclass in intellectual camaraderie,” one called it). You can read about in a piece by Nicole Anslover on the January 2023 issue of Passport (pp. 38–39).

Participants are asked to submit a curriculum vitae, a one-page project summary, and a one-page explanation of why this experience would be helpful/what they expect to achieve through it by 2 September 2024 to [email protected]. Acceptance notifications will go out on 2 October 2024. Full drafts of a polished chapter or book proposal will be due by 15 December 2024.

Position Announcement: Passport Editor

The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) seeks to appoint a new editor for Passport: The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Review. This position will officially begin on September 1, 2024, with a 4-month transition period to follow, during which time the person appointed will work alongside the current editor until January 1, 2025. The term of appointment is five years with the possibility of renewal, and a stipend is provided as compensation. Additional information about Passport, including copies of previous issues, can be found at: https://www.shafr.org/passport.

- Please post & circulate - 

The Smith Richardson Foundation is pleased to announce its annual Strategy and Policy Fellows grant competition to support young scholars and policy thinkers on American foreign policy, international relations, international security, military policy, and diplomatic and military history.  Applicants must have a Ph.D to apply. 

Dreams of Peace and Realities of War: The Friend-Enemy Polarization
Seminars – 27-29 May 2024 // Conference – 30 May-1 June 2024
(Dublin, Ireland)

For Kant, "perpetual peace" was a satirical inscription on a tavern sign accompanied by a drawing of a cemetery. Yet the theme of the desire for peace permeates all human traditions since the Axial Age. The event will explore the possibilities of building it by analyzing the roots of violence and for conflict resolution through reason and institutional structures, such as the Franco-German and U.S.-Japanese reconciliations after the wars, along with the development of supranational institutions such as the United Nations and the European Union. We will also focus on polarization at the level of national politics and possible democratic risks, as in the case of the United States. Finally, we will focus on the pursuit of peace in different traditions, including Chinese, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, and Christian views.

We are looking for academics, students and researchers to be involved in the event: the first part (May 27-29) is planned in the form of seminars, with lectures and workshops also held by the Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme in Paris, and the second part as a conference (May 30-June 1).

Participation is entirely free and there is an opportunity to apply for a grant.

For further information, please see the attached flyer and https://www.resetdoc.org/event/dublin-2024-dreams-peace-realities-war-friend-enemy-polarization/

Alternatively, you may email [email protected] or [email protected].

Organizing Partners
Reset Dialogues on Civilizations, the Clough Center for Constitutional Democracy at Boston College and Boston College – Ireland  

Hello NCH colleagues,

I wanted to share with all of you a recent update to CoSA's popular "Importance of State Archives" advocacy booklet. Our advocacy committee condensed this tool into a tri-fold brochure to encourage greater use and distribution for advocacy efforts:

https://epej.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_1001/job/360880/?utm_medium=jobshare#msdynttrid=uoQlqpDWKt5rx-9ad9STiFQ1gYbjsm-flQm1XFhFzcg

Digital Inventory Specialist 1

SHAFR is happy to recognize the achievements of the following members who received fellowships and awards at the beginning of this new year.  We will also congratulate them in person at the June conference’s Saturday luncheon ahead of the Stuart L. Bernath Lecture.

SHAFR Fellowships and Awards [PDF]

The Department of History at Bowling Green State University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in the history of "US and the World" with a start date of August 2024. For a complete job description & instructions on how to apply for this position visit https://www.schooljobs.com/careers/bgsu. Deadline to apply is December 31, 2023. Background check required for employment. BGSU is an AA/EEO/Vet employer. We encourage applications from women, minorities, veterans, and persons with disabilities regardless of age, gender identity, genetic information, religion, or sexual orientation.

SHAFR Mentorship Program: Manuscript Workshops for Contingent Faculty 

For a second year, SHAFR will support manuscript workshops for contingent faculty who are members of SHAFR.  These workshops will be familiar to those who have benefited from them, including two members sponsored by SHAFR last year: established scholars read the work of another, usually a junior scholar, then meet with the author to discuss the work, with an eye toward preparing a manuscript for publication.  All future workshops will be held virtually, by Zoom, providing an opportunity for all contingent faculty to participate without having to attend the annual meeting.

Call for Papers: Culture & International History VII
Uncertain Boundaries in International History
14-16 December 2024, Freie Universität Berlin

The conference Culture and International History VII will be dedicated to the topic of “Uncertain Boundaries.” Boundaries have received increasing attention in public, political, and scholarly debates in recent years, much inspired by scholars such as Nira Yuval-Davies (2020) and others. In contrast to physical borders (frontiers, national, imperial, natural borders, property lines) boundaries, as a concept, highlight the interplay of territorial, physical borders with their attendant sociopolitical and cultural consequences. At the same time, they also draw attention to mental dimensions: nature and culture, them and us, male and female, and their material implications. The creation, crossing, collapse, and contestation of borders often stand in direct correlation to the drawing, blurring, and cracking of boundaries.

In anticipation of the publication of Thinking Otherwise: How Walter LaFeber Explained the History of US Foreign Relations, Cornell University will host a conference celebrating Professor LaFeber’s life and work at its Tech Campus on New York City’s Roosevelt Island.  The conference will take place from Friday evening October 27 through Sunday afternoon October 29, 2023, and will feature a viewing of Walt’s farewell address at the Beacon Theater in April 2006, recollections and tributes, presentations by Walt’s students of their contributions to Thinking Otherwise, and roundtables with former students who pursued distinguished careers in the public policy and private spheres.

The conference is free and open to the public. Pre-registration is nevertheless required, and space is limited. So if you can attend, please preregister as soon as possible at https://securelb.imodules.com/s/1717/giving/interior.aspx?sid=1717&gid=2&pgid=28765&cid=45887.