AAHM Annual Meeting

AAHM Annual Meeting in Kansas City, 2024


Call for Papers



August 24, 2023 - October 2, 2023


The American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) invites abstracts for papers in any area of the history of health, healing, and medicine for its 97th annual meeting, to be held in Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas, May 9 – 12, 2024. The AAHM welcomes proposals for papers, roundtables, panels, posters, and workshops on the history of medicine, disease, and health broadly defined, including the history of medical ideas, practices, institutions, and technologies; the history of healing, disability, illness, disease, pharmaceuticals, and public health; and the history of peoples’ experiences of health, illness, and disability. We invite proposals that engage with biomedical and non-biomedical therapeutic systems and traditions in all eras and regions of the world.

This year’s Program Committee, led by co-chairs Elena Conis and Samuel Kelton Roberts, encourages proposals examining relations and historical processes of power in medicine and health. We welcome the submission of proposals that address the role of medicine in reinforcing and challenging social hierarchies of race, gender, empire/nation, ability, and more; that build connections between the history of medicine and related fields and disciplines; and that expand the methodological, thematic, chronological, and geographic diversity of the history of medicine. Because this year we meet on the border of two states with historically significant reproductive politics, we also specifically invite papers and panels on reproductive and sexual rights and justice that include local activists, advocates, and practitioners in conversation with historians.

The AAHM Council has approved, on a continuing trial basis, a supplementary one-day virtual meeting to occur approximately one week after the annual meeting. All submissions should indicate whether they want to be considered for the in-person or the virtual meeting. Major elements of the in-person meeting, such as the Garrison lecture and the awards presentation, will be broadcast, but owing to technological and financial obstacles, regular panels will not include virtual or pre-recorded presentations.

The Program Committee will accept five kinds of submissions, listed below. Please note that submissions are limited to one per person per category. Presenters, however, can also be chairs or discussants of an organized panel, roundtable, or workshop. Submission types include:

Individual papers: All papers in this category should represent original scholarship not already published or in press. Speakers should expect to give a presentation of no more than twenty minutes followed by ten minutes of discussion. Authors wishing to publish their papers are urged to submit them for consideration to the Bulletin of the History of Medicine (BHM).

Panels: Panels (ninety minutes) should consist of three to four individual papers featuring original scholarship (limited to fifteen to twenty minutes each) addressing a common topic. An appointed chair should submit a proposal for the entire panel and coordinate individual speakers. Each speaker should submit an individual abstract as well, with a note indicating their participation in the panel. Please note that both panels and individual abstracts for the papers included in them will be judged collectively, with a goal of keeping proposed panels intact as proposed; occasionally, however, the program committee may make changes. Panels may include an invited discussant, bearing in mind the time limit.

Roundtables: Roundtables (ninety minutes) should engage with pressing scholarly or political issues; bring together different disciplinary or methodological backgrounds; or address audiences or use formats not well supported by a more traditional panel format. Only one abstract need be submitted by the organizer, although a slate of four to six participants (including the chair) should be confirmed at the time of submission.

Workshops: Workshops (seventy-five minutes) should address topics of broad interest, such as historiography, teaching, research methods, and advocacy. These sessions have a flexible format and can include four to five participants (including the chair), while leaving ample space for discussion with the audience. Only one abstract need be submitted by the organizer, although all participants should be confirmed. The Program Committee will schedule several of these workshops during each lunch break.

Posters: Posters are well-suited to works that emphasize non-textual content. A limited number of them, representing original work not already published or in press, will be accepted for display in a designated area, with planned times for discussion during the meeting. A call for posters will be issued in January 2024.

The AAHM uses an online abstract submission system. Links to this submission system can be found at https://www.histmed.org/call-for-papers-2024. Submissions must include an abstract of no more than 300 words, including title, your name and institutional affiliation, three descriptive keywords, and three Continuing Medical Education (CME) learning objectives. (The learning objectives are not considered part of the word count.) For suggestions on developing learning objectives, see www.histmed.org/learning-objectives. For examples of successful abstracts from selected past programs, see www.histmed.org/meetings.

Individuals are not required to be AAHM members at the time of submission, but they must join AAHM before registering for and presenting at the meeting.

Abstracts must be submitted by midnight, Pacific Time (US), October 2, 2024. Late submissions will not be considered.