CFP: Congress & History

[Word has reached us of a call for the 2021 Congress & History Conference in the guise of the following open letter, dated December 8, from Burdett Loomis, University of Kansas.  The organizers tell us that the legal historian Maggie Blackhawk is among the organizers.  DRE.  H/t: JC]

West Front of Capitol, July 1861 (LC)

I'm delighted to say that Steven Smith (Washington University at St. Louis) and I will be host, via Zoom, 2021 Congress & History Conference. The conference will be held June 10-11. We welcome submissions – either individual papers or full panels -- on both contemporary and historical topics from all methodological perspectives. These topics could include legislative representation (including those focused on race or gender), legislative procedure, impeachment, congressional committees, parties, etc. Moreover, we enthusiastically encourage scholars whose work touches on Congress, legislatures, and legislation to consider applying, even if you do not consider yourself a “congressional scholar.” Likewise, we hope that historians and constitutional law scholars whose work relates to Congress and legislation will apply. We especially want to encourage junior scholars (faculty and graduate students) and first-time attendees. This small (~50 person) conference is a wonderful way to receive constructive feedback on your work and get to know the broad community of scholars working on legislative politics. We particularly seek scholars from and working on historically under-represented groups to make paper or panel proposals. In addition, the conference will have a poster session for graduate students to present their work, with an award for the best poster. The application deadline for all proposals and offers to serve as a discussant is January 20, 2021.

Here's a link to the application form.  Please submit the form and send a backup copy to me (bloomis@ku.edu), to be shared with Steve. Getting the word out about this excellent, small conference is important, especially beyond the traditional group of legislative scholars. Please circulate this to colleagues and graduate students who may not have received it and post this on list-serves that you may be a part of. Please don't hesitate to contact me (bloomis@ku.edu) or Steven (smith@wustl) if you have any questions. 

Although I’d love to host you all at KU’s Dole Institute of Politics in June, I’m afraid, for this year, we’ll have to keep our distance. Still, last year’s conference was a success via Zoom, and I’m sure this one will be as well. If you’d like to see the kinds of papers that have been presented at recent conferences, you can go to https://congressandhistory.mit.edu/past-conferences These programs are illustrative, and we certainly hope to broaden the scope of work in 2021.