NORTH AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR SPORT HISTORY

2023 Call for Papers

2023 Fifty First Annual Convention of the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH)

CALL FOR PAPER AND SESSION PROPOSALS

NASSH 2023 will be a hybrid conference held from May 26-29, 2023. The in-person conference will be hosted in the Washington, DC metro area with sessions/events at the Smithsonian Museum and at local hotels. The DC metro area is surrounded by just over a dozen tribal nations that thrive along the Anacostia and Potomac River watersheds and in the Chesapeake Bay area and the states of Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware. Washington, DC sits on the ancestral lands of the Nacotchtank (or Anacostans), and neighbors the ancestral lands of the Piscataway and Pamunkey peoples. We gratefully acknowledge the Indigenous Peoples on whose ancestral homelands we will gather, as well as the vibrant Indigenous communities who make their home there today.

We anticipate that parts of the live and in-person conference (keynotes and spotlight sessions) will be livestreamed to and recorded for those who are unable to attend in person.  Registration fees will be tiered according to modality and can be found on the lodging/registration fee page.

Please note that the first session of NASSH will be begin at 4 pm at the National Museum of African American History and Culture on Friday 26 May and will be followed by the wine and cheese reception.  Plan your trip to arrive a little earlier than usual to participate in the session and to enjoy special access to the Museum.  Additional tours and events at various DC Metro museums, libraries, and archives are being scheduled for Friday 26 May. The conference concludes with a banquet on the evening of Monday 29 May.

The call for papers can be downloaded as a pdf here.

Timeline

Submissions Open: November 15, 2022

Deadline for Submissions: January 22, 2023 11:59 PM CST

Notification of Acceptance or Rejection: February 15, 2023

Submission Deadline for Prerecorded Presentations: April 15, 2023 

Conference: May 26-29, 2023

Presentation Modes

The Program Committee encourages NASSH members and others interested in the scholarly study of sport history to submit proposals in one of three categories:

  • In-person Complete Sessions (thematic sessions with individual papers, panels, roundtable discussions, etc.): Proposals for this category will describe how the group (no fewer than 3 participants, please) will fill 75 minutes including at least 15 minutes of discussion. A participant in a complete session may participate remotely via zoom or teams, but the in-person participants will be exclusively responsible for navigating the technology. 
  • Live Individual Research Presentations: Proposals for individual 12-15 minute research presentations, which the program committee will then group into appropriate 60-minute sessions.
  • Remote Individual Research Presentations:  Proposals for individual 12-15 minute research presentations.  Remote presentations must be pre-recorded and uploaded to NASSH by April 15, 2023.  Additional technical guidelines will be forthcoming. Recorded presentations will be posted to Hopin as part of a video library for the duration of the conference.  All registered participants of NASSH 2023 will have access to the recorded presentations.

Proposal Submission

Please submit all proposals to the online abstract submission page at  https://www.conftool.org/nassh2023/.

A detailed visual guide to using the submission system is available at https://conference.nassh.org/. Additional questions can be referred to conftool@nassh.org.

To submit an abstract, you will need to register for an account using your preferred email and contact information. You will be asked to select the mode of presentation you wish to give and then provide, among other elements, the following information:

  • Title of Presentation, Individual or Group
  • Name/s of Presenter/s including email addresses and institutional affiliations
  • Abstract (300 words)

Guidelines for Submitting Complete Sessions/Roundtables/Panels

Submit via https://www.conftool.org/nassh2023/

Required information includes:

  • confirmation that at least one participant in the session will be physically present and capable of running any technology needed;
  • title of session;
  • moderator if appropriate (affiliation and email);
  • participants (names, affiliations, emails);
  • session abstract (300 words) including, if appropriate, individual presentation titles. If you are submitting a thematic session with individual papers, NASSH recommends one moderator, three or four paper presentations, and, if only three papers, a commentator/moderator.

The session abstract should include a discussion of its theme and argument or relevance, a description of the relationship among the papers or the presenters, and a statement about the significance of the session to our understanding of sport history (300 words).

Guidelines for Submitting Individual Abstracts (in-person or remote)

Submit via https://www.conftool.org/nassh2023/

Required information includes:

  • Selecting whether presentation will be in-person or recorded;
  • title of presentation;
  • corresponding author’s name, email, and affiliation;
  • if relevant, co-authors names, emails, and affiliations;
  • abstract (300 words);
  • session topic suggestions/keywords.

The abstract should include the question(s) addressed in the paper, the evidence to be used, a precise statement of the argument and conclusions, and what significance the paper has to our understanding of sport history.

Letters of acceptance or rejection will be sent by February 15, 2023. The Program Committee will evaluate all submissions according to their individual merit, contribution to the field, and fit within the total program. Proposals that do not provide all the information requested will be returned to the author(s). For general enquires please contact Sarah Fields (sarah.fields@ucdenver.edu)

Implicit Agreement to Attend Conference. Submission of an abstract indicates the author’s and co- authors’ intent to register for the conference at the appropriate conference fee in the appropriate format (e.g., in-person, remote).  All authors must also be NASSH members in good standing (https://www.nassh.org/membership/). Membership dues must be paid by April 15, 2023, to be on the final program.

Publication of Abstracts Pre-Conference. Accepted abstracts will be posted to the NASSH website prior to the conference using a Creative Commons CC-BY attribution license. Authors will have an opportunity to edit them prior to their publication.

Remote Conference Platform. If interested, please click this 10-minute video for an introduction to HOPIN: https://bit.ly/2QH3s3i

HOPIN allows registrants to:

  • Access the NASSH Conference Reception Page with all relevant information, communication and links
  • Attend some live sessions or watch recordings of the keynote addresses and possibly some spotlight sessions.
  • Utilize Networking to attend breaks and to hold private meetings with colleagues.

Additional Information

Graduate Students

Graduate students who have an in-person presentation accepted for the 2023 NASSH convention are eligible for a grant from the Roberta Park Graduate Travel Fund. No application is needed; Treasurer Thomas Hunt will distribute checks at the conference. Annual interest from the Park Fund is divided equitably among all graduate students presenting at the conference to help defray the costs of travel and accommodation at the convention. The amount of the grant is TBD.  Graduate students are also encouraged to enter the NASSH Graduate Essay Competition, which is described on the NASSH website. Please note that graduate students who have their presentation accepted are expected to have the financial wherewithal to attend the conference, no matter the amount of the contribution from the Roberta Park Graduate Travel Fund.

General Guidelines for NASSH Presentations

*(“presenter” refers to authors and all co-authors as well as members of panels and roundtables)

  • Presenters may not be on the program more than two times as a presenter.  Moderating a session does not count as a presentation.  Commentating does count as a presentation and only complete sessions which include commentators will have commentators.
  • Individuals whose papers are accepted by the Program Committee as in-person presentations must agree to present the paper in person and to attend and participate in other conference sessions.
  • Individuals whose papers are accepted by the Program Committee as recorded presentations must agree to provide a recorded presentation by the deadline (April 15).
  • Each presenter must be a NASSH member in good standing.
  • Each presenter must register for the conference.
  • NASSH encourages the inclusion of diverse perspectives and communities at its conference and in its work. Those submitting proposals for panels are advised to ensure that the constitution of the panel reflects, or comments upon, the constitution of the field and/or research topic that is being addressed.
  • Except for supporting graduate students through the Roberta Park Fund, NASSH pays no honoraria or any other expenses for speakers to prepare papers or to attend the conference.
  • Papers are to be original works, not published or presented in full elsewhere.
  • Individuals whose abstracts are accepted by the program committee must deliver the paper summarized by the abstract and not some other piece of work.
  • Presenters should not be the moderator of the session in which they present.
  • All abstracts accepted for presentation will be posted on the NASSH Website prior to the conference and be published in the annual NASSH Proceedings. It is essential that presenters adhere to the above-mentioned Guidelines for Submitting Individual Abstracts.
  • Moderators will firmly enforce time limits for papers. Speakers should plan on no more than two minutes per page (calculated on the time it takes to read a double-spaced page in 12-point Times New Roman font consisting of 25 lines).
  • LCD projectors will be available. Please let the conference hosts know if speakers or other media are needed. They may not be able to accommodate all requests.
  • Participants are encouraged to familiarize themselves with recommendations on accessibility of presentations and multimedia-based materials. Please consult the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Initiative Guidelines on Presentation Accessibility: https://www.w3.org/WAI/training/accessible.

Program Committee

Chair: Sarah Fields (sarah.fields@ucdenver.edu)

Committee Members:

Sarah Eikleberry (EikleberrySarahJ@sau.edu)
Janice Forsyth (Janice.Forsyth@ucb.ca)
Keith Harrison (scholarballer51@yahoo.com)
Brian Ingrassia (bingrassia@wtamu.edu)
Shelley Lucas (smlucas@boisestate.edu)
Louis Moore (moorelou@gvsu.edu)
Christine O’Bonsawin (cobonsaw@uvic.ca)

NASSH 2023 Museum Liaison: Alec Hurley (alec.hurley07@gmail.com)