ASEH Call for Proposals
2026 Annual Conference in Kansas City
March 25-28, 2026
Crossroads: Environmental Histories on Contested Ground

The American Society for Environmental History invites proposals for its annual conference, to be held March 25-28, 2026, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Crossroads: Environmental Histories on Contested Ground The American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) invites proposals for its annual conference, to be held March 25-28, 2026, in Kansas City, Missouri. The theme, Crossroads: Environmental Histories on Contested Ground speaks to Kansas City’s rich history as a meeting point for people, goods, and ideas from across the continent.

This region exemplifies the entanglement of environmental history with histories of imperialism, colonial displacement, globalizing economies, and struggles for racial justice. At the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, where the forests of the East become the prairies of the West, the city developed on land belonging to diverse Indigenous communities, including the Kaw and Osage nations. Before the founding of the city, the area was a hub for an Indigenous-white commerce in millions of beaver pelts and bison hides. In the nineteenth century, Kansas City became an eastern terminus for transportation routes that opened the West to extraction and settlement, while Missouri and Kansas played important roles in conflicts over freedom and enslavement and the competing systems of land use and expansion that undergirded sectional conflict. In the twentieth century the city and region continued to sit at the crossroads of both local and national challenges that came with urban development, racial tensions, and environmental degradation.

This year’s theme also speaks to our current moment, with nations and people across the world facing crises emerging from the crossroads of technology, culture, politics, and environmental change. In the United States, attacks on environmental justice and the environmental regulatory state are the greatest threat to the environmental consensus since before the first ASEH conference in 1982. Environmental historians, who study the crossroads of human affairs and nonhuman actors, are uniquely situated to speak to these current challenges and their wider contexts.

Submission Guidelines

While programming in Kansas City will emphasize the theme “Crossroads,” ASEH invites proposals on all facets of environmental history, from any geographical or temporal context. We also welcome submissions from independent scholars, public historians, K-12 teachers, and other historians from a range of institutions (government agencies, museums, historical consultants), and encourage ASEH members to engage with and actively include diverse practitioners beyond the academy. Building on very positive membership feedback, conference sessions will once again be set at 75 minutes including the requisite time for discussion. This shorter allotted time allows for greater participation both in terms of overall number of panels, and by bringing more voices into conversation during discussion. Because of the shorter time limit than in years past, we envision traditional panels of 3 to 4 papers, each running 12-13 minutes. The program committee requires chairs for all panels but discourages commentators. We also encourage alternative panels (see below) that creatively use the shorter time-block.

Please note that due to its prohibitive cost internet access will not be available in session rooms. Those who wish to present their work virtually are welcome to submit their proposals to ASEH Presents, our online forum, here: https://forms.gle/Pjk9fwf8KHpGr1uR8

All panels should take seriously issues of diversity and inclusivity, and carefully consider representation across institutions, genders, career stages, race, and geography. The Program Committee encourages those developing panels on topics focused on historically marginalized groups to build relationships with scholars of diverse backgrounds and make a space for them in these panels. We look forward to receiving panels, papers, and alternative sessions that show commitment to the principles of disability rights, inclusivity, and universal accessibility.

We encourage complete session proposals. ASEH has created an Open Sessions Page to connect individuals and scheduled an ASEH Connects event on July 25 that will provide information for those new to ASEH and to assist in connecting individuals with potential co-panelists. Posting to H-Environment has also been a good way to find co-panelists.

ASEH encourages panel organizers to seek out and incorporate individuals who are new to the organization. ASEH encourages panel proposals to articulate a thesis, rather than just a topic, in the titles of proposed papers. Doing so advances ASEH goals by making it easier for conference attendees to identify papers on topics where it is the argument or method, more than the topic, that is of interest.

Submission proposal types include:

• Complete Panels (four presenters and a session chair; no commentators)
• Individual Papers (accepted papers will be placed in panels; presentations are limited to 12-13 minutes).
• Roundtables (presentations should be limited to 55 minutes to maximize audience participation; no commentators).
• Alternative Sessions (this category is open, but such sessions should involve at least four participants). Sessions must still allow 20 minutes for discussion. Examples include Open-Mic Roundtables; Living History Performance sessions; Reading Groups where participants collectively engage with a selection of pre-circulated readings; panels using emerging technologies including digital histories, StoryMap, Timelines, GIS, 3D modeling, use of LIDAR, and other digital tools; or sessions that foreground activists or practitioners for whom a standard paper presentation is not the ideal format.
• Individual Lightning Presentations (each presenter gets 5 minutes and up to 10 slides) • Author-Meets-Critic Sessions or Book Talks (lightning-style talks focused on recent book publications, these will be organized into sessions with 30 minutes for discussion).
• Posters (those presenting posters and who attend the conference will be expected to participate in the poster session).

Please note that individuals can be a primary presenter in only one panel, roundtable, or other session proposal, but can also serve as chair in a second proposal.

ASEH members are reminded of the Society’s travel grants which exist to offer some financial support for presenters including graduate students, international presenters, and those with limited access to funds to support conference participation. The process for applying for travel grants will open in mid-July and close Nov. 1, 2025. Apply through the ASEH website.

ASEH is pleased to announce it will continue the practice of offering first-time presenters a year’s free membership in the organization. For information contact: diana.distefano@aseh.org

Accepted panelists must register for the conference to remain on the program.

For more information and the link to the submission site, visit the ASEH website at aseh.org.

Deadline for Submissions: August 25, 2025.