Program

You can find a static version program here. or access it via our PreTalx web app. 

Registration

Given the rising cost of running the conference and feedback from members and conference attendees, the WHA Council has voted to modify our registration process and rates for 2025. In the past, we have had member and nonmember pricing as well as individual discounted registration rates for students, k-14 teachers, and online only attendance with Early, Regular, and Late rates for each of those categories. This year, we've decided to streamline the registration rates to only three categories: Regular registration, Discounted Registration, and the OER Project Sponsored free registration for k-12 teachers from KY, TN, OH, and IN. We've also limited it to Early and Late Registration. The rates for nonmember registration, in practice, were roughly equivalent to the member registration rate + the cost of a membership, so we are now making membership a requirement for Regular Registration and Discounted Registration and the discounted registration now encompasses students, middle school, high school, and community college instructors. We are still in negotiation with AV suppliers for the Seelbach to see if we can feasibly offer virtual or hybrid attendance this year. If online only attendance is possible, this will be included under the discounted registration rate.  

Since registration is now restricted to members, please either log-in or sign up for a membership before registering for the conference.

Registration for the Louisville 2025 conference can then be accessed through our Membership Database.

Registration to the conference includes:

• Entry to all Conference Panels
• Entry to Exhibits
• Attendance at Keynote Addresses and Plenary Sessions
• Opening and Closing Receptions
• Conference Materials
• Morning and Afternoon Beverage Breaks

REGISTRATION FEES

Regular Registration: 
Early $250 | Late $300

Teachers from KY, TN, OH, and IN:
Thanks to a generous grant from the OER Project, registration is free for the first 40 K-12 teachers from Kentucky, Tennesee, Ohio, and Indiana. Please be prepared to show your teaching ID at conference check-in. WHA Membership is not required for local k-12 teachers.
** Please fill out your registration information into this form and WHA staff will process your registration**

Discounted Registration (Online only participation, Students and k-14 teachers):
If you are a student or k-14 teacher, please either upload or email a current, valid I.D. that confirms your eligibility for the discounted rate. If you do not submit documentation ahead of the conference, please be prepared to show your student or teaching ID at conference check-in.
Early $125 | Late $175

Guest Pass:
Good for entry to beverage breaks, keynotes, and social events only if accompanied by registered conferee.
$75

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Early Registration has been extended through May 31, 2025
Late Registration begins on June 1, 2025

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REFUND POLICY

The last day for conference registration fee refunds is May 15, 2025. Requests must be made in writing or via email. Due to logistical reasons, refund requests received after May 15, 2025 can not be honored. Refunds can only be made via US check, PayPal, or Venmo, credit card refunds are not available at this time.

CONFERENCE SCHOLARSHIPS

The World History Association offers several scholarships.  Deadline date for scholarship applications is March 15, 2025. Click here for application information.

If you have any problems with registration or have any further questions, please e-mail us at: info@thewha.org. 

Lodging

We have a room block reserved at The Seelbach Hilton Louisville for June 24, 2025 through June 29, 2025. The conference rate is $179/night for rooms with either 1 queen bed or 2 double beds.

Please be aware that reservations must be made before June 23rd to qualify for the conference rate.

Book your room here!

For attendees who are staying at the conference hotel, the Seelbach is pleased to cover your Uber or Lyft trips to and from Louisville Airport for guests of the Seelbach during your stay. Please use the voucher link below to request your rides between 7:00 AM and 11:00 PM:

Lyft: https://lyft.com/lp/SEELBACH3

Uber: https://r.uber.com/rajjurbtetx

Set your pickup or drop-off location to The Seelbach Hotel and enjoy a seamless ride.

To make your transportation experience seamless, we offer both Uber Voucher / Lyft Pass and Uber Central / Lyft Concierge services. Below are the details on how each option works:

Uber Voucher / Lyft Pass (Self-Service)

• Click the voucher link (Uber) or Lyft Pass link provided.
• Ensure you have the Uber or Lyft app installed.
• The voucher/pass will automatically apply to eligible rides.
• Book your ride as usual, and the discount will be applied at checkout.

Uber Central / Lyft Concierge (Concierge Service)

• Our team will book a ride on your behalf.
• You will receive a text or call with your trip details.
• No app is required—simply meet your driver at the designated pickup spot.

Voucher Terms & Conditions:

• Limited availability. Non-transferable and has no cash value.
• Maximum of two (2) trips per guest account.
• Maximum discount of $50 per ride. Additional charges beyond this amount are the guest’s responsibility.
• Uber Voucher/Lyft Pass must be applied in the Uber or Lyft app before requesting a ride.
• Valid from February 1, 2025, at 12:00 AM through March 1, 2025, at 11:59 PM.

For any issues with redemption or usage, please contact The Seelbach Valet Stand at (502) 585-9291

Professional Behavior Policy

Why We Have a Professional Behavior Policy 

The World History Association (WHA) is a professional association of scholars, teachers, and students organized to promote world history by encouraging teaching, research, publications, and personal interactions. As described in its constitution, its mission is to “promote activities which will increase historical awareness, understanding among and between peoples, and global consciousness.” Promoting understanding among and between peoples includes encouraging mutual respect, an ethical practice that is essential for the collegial camaraderie that has long been part of the WHA’s aims and vital for the continued health of the field of world history. The practice of mutual respect fosters a sustainable environment for freedom of expression and open inquiry. When a culture of mutual respect is not maintained, the field suffers by the voices lost and the diminished reach of the voices that remain. 

Annual Meeting

The principles and policies contained in this document apply to all attendees at the WHA’s annual meeting, a place where people come to exchange ideas and build intellectual and professional networks. All interactive venues of the annual meeting—in person, in hybrid sessions, through email and other electronic forms of communication, or on social media, and whether formal or informal—are shared professional spaces. In a professional space, attendees should comport themselves according to the values of nondiscrimination, dignity, and courtesy. The WHA is comprised of scholars, teachers, and students from all over the world; attendees should thus acknowledge the rights of all WHA members and other scholars to hold diverse values and opinions. 

Attendees should assume that all of their interactions during the meeting are professional, not personal. Keeping in mind that consent may look different to different individuals, the best practice is for all parties to agree freely and explicitly when interactions shift away from the strictly professional. 

Harassment 

The World History Association views harassment as a form of discrimination and misconduct by which the harasser asserts a relationship of power over the harassed through behavior that causes feelings of fear or distress. Harassment implies that an individual is not worthy of respect and that the views and person of that individual hold little or no value. Harassment may be overt or subtle, public or private, in-person or online, sexual or otherwise. All forms of harassment hurt the individual, the organization, and the profession in far-reaching and long-standing ways. The WHA is committed to creating and maintaining a harassment-free environment for all participants in the Association’s activities. 

Harassment includes demeaning, humiliating, and threatening actions, comments, jokes, other forms of verbal and/or written communication, body language, and physical contact, based on sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, ethnicity, age, religion, physical and mental ability, or any other characteristic. 

Sexual harassment includes but is not limited to unwanted sexual advances; requests for sexual favors; other verbal and physical conduct of a sexual nature; offensive or suggestive jokes or remarks; inappropriate personal questions or conversations; unwelcome or nonconsensual physical contact; display of sexually explicit, offensive, or demeaning images except for scholarly analysis; leering or ogling; sexual remarks about someone’s clothing or body; repeated requests for dates after having been told no; and retaliatory behavior. Sexual harassment does not refer to occasional compliments of a socially acceptable nature or consensual personal and social relationships without discriminatory effect. It refers to behavior that reasonably situated persons would regard as not welcome and as personally intimidating, hostile, or offensive. 

Bullying 

The United States government (https://www.stopbullying.gov/ ) considers bullying a serious problem. Bullying is characterized by direct or indirect intentional aggression that is physical, verbal, or social in nature, and a power imbalance between aggressor and victim. Bullying may include refusal to recognize the cultural and personal meaning of ideas and actions that are different from one’s own. In a professional setting, bullying of any sort can be considered workplace violence, whether this occurs at conferences or in digital spaces, and the WHA strongly condemns this. 

Social Media 

The WHA asks that attendees at annual meetings observe the principles of consent and respect when using social media. Express permission to post or tweet conference speakers’ work, images, and audio or video recordings must be secured in advance through session organizers or presiders (copyright law may well require this). Speakers reserve all rights to their work and related materials. Due to its immediacy and brevity, live-tweeting or blogging must strive for accuracy and avoid misrepresentation, misappropriation, and misunderstanding. Members participating in online conversations or public forums pertinent to annual meetings should practice respect and collegiality. The WHA considers doxxing, outing, online harassment, and stalking antithetical to its core values. 

Violations 

The World History Association will not take breaches of professional or ethical behavior lightly. At the annual meeting, the WHA will maintain a team to receive complaints from any participant who has experienced or witnessed violations of this policy. The contact information for team members will be made available on the WHA website and in registration materials. If you would like to report a violation of our Code of Conduct, please fill out this report form or call us at 413-275-3858. Reporting an incident does not obligate the reporter to pursue any further action. All communications are confidential and the details of such conversations will not be reported, except as required by law. Depending upon the severity and nature of the report, the team will take action appropriate to the particular context, in accordance with the WHA’s status as a membership organization, the policies of a host institution, and local, state, and national law. Neither the team nor any other WHA official can provide legal advice to individuals who make reports under this policy. 

Some text in this policy is taken from documents produced by the American Historical Association and the Medieval Academy of America, with their permission.

Excursions

Sponsors

OER Project: One of our key goals for our Louisville 2025 conference is to increase accessibility to and interaction with World History pedagogy at all levels of education. To that end, we have two dedicated initiatives that we are able to implement this year thanks to a generous grant from the OER Project.

We are thrilled to offer free registration to the first forty k-14 teachers from Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Indiana to this year’s conference. We look forward to seeing a strong representation of regional educators at this year’s event. 

Acknowledging the range of scholars without institutional funding for conference travel or who are otherwise unable to make it to Louisville this year, the OER Project is funding a hybrid track of the conference with a focus on World History pedagogy. Online-only registration is available at a discounted rate.

The OER Project is also generously sponsoring the closing reception on Saturday, June 28.

Gulf University for Science & Technology and the Global Studies Center are generously sponsoring the beverage breaks at our Louisville 2025 conference. Thanks to their contribution, we are able to provide attendees with coffee, tea, and snacks twice a day throughout the conference. 

The University of Louisville College of Arts & Sciences are sponsoring our conference tote bags for our Louisville 2025 conference. We would also like to thank the numerous University of Louisville Students, Faculty, and Staff who have volunteered their time to make this year’s conference great.

We have also received several anonymous donations from individual WHA members to provide registration waivers and travel funding for attendees who otherwise would not have been able to attend our Louisville 2025 conference. We sincerely appreciate all of your contributions.

Conference Theme

The World History Association’s 34th Annual Meeting will be held in Louisville, Kentucky in the United States with the theme "Protest, Prohibition, and Pugilism: Louisville and the World." The rich history of Louisville places it firmly within the interactions, migrations, and networks that have formed the modern world, and the forces that have shaped Louisville have been globally resonant throughout human history as well.  

With "Protest," we highlight race and resistance as themes in world history.  Our conference venue, the Seelbach Hotel, is located on 4th Street, the location of several key events in Louisville civil rights history.  Louisville also evokes the global history of racialized state violence, since it is the site of the 2020 police murder of Breonna Taylor and the outpouring of political action that emerged as a response. 

With "Prohibition," we evoke the global history of foods and intoxicants, their economic and cultural significance, and the attempts of states and other actors to limit or shape their consumption. We invite participants to focus on Louisville's role as a production center for bourbon, one of the city’s largest historical and contemporary exports, and the ways that  Louisville’s economy and culture have followed the booms and busts of prohibition and global commercialization of “Kentucky Nectar.”  The city’s culture grew around home distillers, corporations, and at times an active underground bootleg community.  Likewise, hemp was an important industrial product in Kentucky throughout the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. However, the shifting legal status of hemp since the 1970s has had an impact on agricultural workers. 

“Prohibition” evokes global histories of labor and regulation in other ways as well. Historically an active riverport linked to the Atlantic world, Louisville is today a global center of logistics and transportation, thanks in part to the presence of UPS Worldport.  As in every generation, workers are at the heart of trade and economic power. Many of them are immigrants, and some were historically unfree, like the enslaved peoples who once labored in homes, warehouses, factories, and riverfront docks.

With "Pugilism," we invite participants to explore global sports history and human-equine relationships as themes in world history.  The famous boxer and political figure Muhammad Ali  is a Louisville native whose skill and global activism were both forged in the city.  Louisville also produces Louisville Slugger bats, the most famous baseball equipment in the world.  Finally, it is one of the global homes of horse racing culture, with the Kentucky Derby held every year since 1875 at the Churchill Downs racetrack.

Louisville lies on the ancestral lands of the Shawandasse Tula, the Osage, the Kaskaskia, the Adena Culture, the Hopewell Culture, and the Myaamia.

Call For Proposals

Submission Deadline Extended for Late-Breaking Sessions: 15 May, 2025

Given the interesting times that we live in, we have decided to keep submissions open through 15 May, 2025. 

You can submit your proposal(s) on our PreTalx submission site. 

All papers which approach history from a transnational and global perspective are welcome, but Louisville offers a diverse range of topics to consider, and applicants are encouraged to center or connect their proposal to one or more of these themes. 

The World History Association encourages proposals for sessions and papers presenting original research and pedagogical techniques within the overarching themes of Protest, Prohibition, and Pugilism, as well as other topics of interest to world historians. We welcome topics involving the widest possible range of geographic locales and historical time periods.

We invite proposals from students, scholars, teachers, and activists around the world that investigate—and extend the boundaries of—the conference’s theme. Proposals may take the form of:

• Organized Panels (three to four panelists, one chair, and optionally, one discussant) - each paper should be a maximum of 20 minutes in length for three panelists; papers should be a maximum of 15 minutes in length for four panelists
• Individual Papers (not part of an Organized Panel) - each paper should be a maximum of 20 minutes in length
• Roundtable Sessions (between four to six participants) – five-minute opening statements from each participant followed by conversational dialogue with the audience
• Workshop Sessions (between one to four participants) – these are hands on sessions on specific teaching techniques or practices that often include handouts, breakout sessions and/or assignment creation/reflection
• Meet the Author Sessions - an excellent opportunity for exchanges between authors and audiences, including explanations of methods and suggestions for use
• Innovative Sessions - innovative teaching, research, or other formats not outlined above Proposals from the fields of anthropology, geography, political science, literature, art history and criticism, digital humanities, other humanities and social sciences, as well as natural or physical sciences that address global historical change are also encouraged.

Each organized session should include a 250-word panel proposal and a 250-word proposal for each paper along with a short biographical statement for introduction by the session Chair. Individual papers and all other sessions should include a 250- word abstract and a short biographical statement for introduction by the session Chair.

PLEASE NOTE: Prearranged (organized) panels/roundtables/workshops are given priority in the program and receive earlier notification of acceptance. Individual papers will also be considered and, if accepted, are arranged into suitable panels by the Program Committee. Individual papers may receive later notice of acceptance, pending appropriate placement on panels.

Contact Email: info@thewha.org 

Lightning Round Sessions

We are adding Lightning Round Sessions to the Louisville 2025 WHA program! These are five minute presentation slots intended to give brief summaries or introductions to relevant topics.

Do you have an early stage research project that you'd like feedback on? Are you an undergrad or graduate student who wants a low pressure way to present at a conference? Do you have an idea that's not big enough for a full research project but really want to share with your peers? Do you have thoughts on how current events are effecting the field of World History but they're changing to rapidly to prepare a full talk in advance of the conference? This is the right format for you!

Since these presentations are less formal, the deadline for lightning round submissions is June 15, 2025.

Submit your Lightning Round Talk here