Society of Civil War Historians Mini-Conference GrantThe primary goals of the SCWH Mini-Conference are to expand and diversify society membership across career stages and professional pathways, to expand access to scholars and professional members from groups that have historically been marginalized or under-represented within the historical profession, to foster opportunities for mentorship, and/or to facilitate the beginning of new work with the potential to boost younger scholars’ careers, foster broader public engagement, or both. Held in odd-numbered years (when the SCWH biennial conference does not meet), the SCWH mini-conference advances these goals by providing $5,000 to help fund seminars, workshops, collaborative sessions, or other events that bring together a group of scholars from different institutions and career stages to launch a project, share strategies and sources, or otherwise partner to do work that they could not do without the opportunity to join forces. We especially encourage proposals that bring together scholars from different specialties and even disciplines, that include a range of senior and junior scholars working both inside and outside of academic departments, that include participants from groups historically under-represented in academia, and that engage (or have the potential to create work that engages) a broader public audience. 2025 Mini-Conference Grant Awardee AnnouncedThe Society of Civil War Historians and the ad-hoc awards committee (consisting of James Broomall, Melissa DeVelvis, and Lorien Foote) are proud to announce that the Kentucky Historical Society (KHS)'s proposal, "Public & Applied History Symposium on the Civil War Era," is the winner of the $5,000 mini-conference grant. "22nd Infantry Regiment photograph of flags and flag bearer," Kentucky Historical SocietyThe KHS’s evocative proposal promises to bring together graduate students, academic scholars, public historians, and popular audiences to explore Kentucky’s role as a historic border region and as a modern education laboratory to better understand the post-Civil War South. Through virtual discussions, site-based experiential learning, and public programming, participants will consider racial violence in the postbellum South; the creation and contestation of memory; a contested border region of memory, war, and civil rights; sites of public remembrance; and the construction of educational interpretation in museums, podcasts, and programming. Putting history to work, participants will not only engage in a series of extended discussions around academic publications but also offer feedback on the KHS’s redesigned permanent exhibit on Civil War and Reconstruction in the Bluegrass State. While planning remains ongoing, participants in this conference will visit several sites that may include:
The committee selected this proposed mini-conference because of its forward-looking engagement with graduate students, its promise to confront the challenges of an academic job market and offer career alternatives, and its exploration of different modes of public history. The application team is incredibly diverse, including digital documentarians and editors, academic historians at every career level, and a vast range of public historians. Community partners include the Camp Nelson National Monument and the Kentucky Military History Museum. The application team hopes to attract graduate students from different backgrounds and institutional homes who possess a range of professional aspirations who will use this opportunity to develop publications, educational interpretation, and continued research, each of which is framed through the lens of applied history. The mini-conference grant seeks to engage local communities, increase public outreach, and involve historians at all career stages both inside and outside the academy. This proposal serves the purposes of the grant well and the committee is excited to see the results of the project. To read more about the 2023 Mini-Conference Awardees, click here, and to see the 2025 call for applications, click here. |
