MHR NS3 Call for Papers: Representation in American History
Deadline: 15 June 2021
Since its first volume in 1999, the Massachusetts Historical Review (MHR) has published original analytical essays, photo-essays, historical documents, and reviews for a general audience. Beginning in 2021, a new series of the MHR will devote each issue to a theme connected with Massachusetts history, although the essays in the volume need not be limited to Massachusetts or New England topics.
The publication of the third volume of the new series will coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. On the evening of 16 December 1773, American colonists opposed to the Tea Act seriously escalated their decade-long protest against the authority of Parliament to make laws that affected the North American colonies. Having chanted “no taxation without representation” through several legal and economic clashes with Parliament, the Sons of Liberty led this raid on ships carrying British East India Company tea anchored in Boston Harbor. Heaving hundreds of chests of tea into the murky water, these individuals took matters into their own hands, setting the colonies and the metropole on a course that would culminate in revolution and war. In the decades and centuries since, the Boston Tea Party has become a productive image, used in support of numerous demands for representation in other times and contexts.
Using the Boston Tea Party as a starting point, volume 3 of the MHR’s new series will focus on the theme of representation, broadly conceived. Essays may address the theme in a variety of ways, including but not limited to political representation, cultural representation, and historical representation. However, the idea of representation must be integral to the material examined and must be addressed directly as a key aspect of the analysis/argument. The MHR invites interested authors to submit proposals for original essays concerning representation in any era of American history and speaking to a general audience. Preference will be given to essays that connect in some manner to Massachusetts and New England. The journal welcomes submissions from authors pursuing research in history or related fields (such as American Studies or American Literature) at all career stages, including graduate students, tenured faculty members, and independent scholars.
Interested parties should submit a current curriculum vitae along with a one-page (double-spaced) proposal that outlines the subject the author seeks to pursue and its connection to the theme, the sources employed, and the intervention in relevant historical scholarship to mhr@masshist.org by June 15, 2021. By July 15, 2021, authors with successful proposals will receive an invitation to submit a completed draft of their essay for consideration.
First drafts of essays selected will be due by December 1, 2021, and must be 7,500–10,000 words. All drafts will undergo a rigorous peer-review process by both MHS staff and outside readers prior to publication.
Questions? Please write to mhr@masshist.org.