All papers are for conference discussion purposes only. Do not cite or circulate.

Models for Communities
Mutaka, Ngessimo, PhD, independent scholar, Giving Back to the Speakers of a Language: Linguistics Research in Sub-Saharan Africa

Wuesthoff, Eric, ABD, Rice University, Research Reflections: Fieldwork for Community-Managed Ecological Restoration in Madagascar

Huayhua, Margarita, PhD, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Doing Fieldwork While Speaking the Language of “Your Own People” in the Southern Andes

Models for the Future
Schmidt, Danielle, MS, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Cowboy Ethnography: Challenges of and Strategies for Collaborative Spatial Data Collection and Community-Engaged Methods in the Twenty-First Century

Fitzgerald, Jacqueline, PhD, Williams College, The Near Future of Field Notes

Yaman, Asil, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, Innovating Fieldwork Practices: Sustainable Archaeology and Environmental
Responsibility at the Phoenix Archaeological Site

Keynote
Scott Edwards, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and Curator of Ornithology at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, A Bird in the Hand: The Highs and Lows of Collections-Based Ornithological Fieldwork

Models for Collection and Preservation
Skelly, David, PhD, Peabody Museum, The Future of Collections

Barker, Alex, PhD, Arkansas Archaeological Survey, University of Arkansas, Useful Knowledge and Its Perils: Open Data, Sovereignty, and the Problem of “Cui Bono”

Schurr, Theodore, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, The Challenges of Managing Diverse Data Sets Obtained Through Field Work in Biological Anthropology Projects

Models for Inclusivity
Culbertson, Katherine, BA, University of California, Berkeley, Integrating Ecology With Traditional Botanical Knowledge to Empower Effective Conservation and a Deeper Understanding of Tropical Ecosystems

Barber, Paul, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles, The Diversity Project (TDP) to Address Inequities in Marine Science Field Work

Veyrie, Thierry, PhD, Fort McDermitt Piaute-Shoshone Tribe, From Field Work to Holistic Community Engagement: Linguistic Anthropology in Native Communities in the Twenty-First Century

Models for Innovation
Abdalian, Andrew, PhD, Tunica Language Working Group, Technology and Community-Engaged Language Revitalization: Building Accessible Solutions in Awakening the Tunica Language

Dobrin, Lise, PhD, University of Virginia, Communication at a Distance and the Diminishing Possibility of Disorientation in Immersive Cross-Cultural Field Work

Varillas, Rosa Maria, MA, University of Illinois at Chicago, Drones and the Future of Archaeological Research Field Work, Data Collection, and Community Engagement

Models for Sustainability
Simmons, Nancy, PhD, American Museum of Natural History, Large-Team Multidisciplinary Collaborative Research on Bats in Belize

Pruetz, Jill, PhD, Texas State University, Sustaining Long-Term Field Projects: The Case of the Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project

Gee, Jennifer, PhD, Independent scholar, The Organization of Biological Field Stations and the Future of Field Work

All papers are for conference discussion purposes only. Do not cite or circulate.

All papers are for conference discussion purposes only. Do not cite or circulate.

Vaughn Scribner (University of Central Arkansas) "Devastation Nation: Emotional Suffering among Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War”

Adam Bridgen (University of Oxford) "Naval Medicine and Abolitionism: The Contexts and International Influence of Thomas Trotter’s Observations on the Scurvy (1786)”

Steve Walton (Michigan Technological University) "Founding the Cannon of a Nation: State sponsorship and heavy military industries in the Revolution”

Ellen Cohn (The Papers of Benjamin Franklin) "The Beginnings of American Botany"

Michael Guenther (Grinnell College) "Tale of Two Jacobins: Scientific Networks and Revolutionary Politics in the 1790s”

Anna Toledano (Los Altos History Museum) “Shipping and Statecraft: Valentín de Foronda, Guinea Grass, and the Decline of Spanish Colonial Power in the Americas”

Jessica Lepler (University of New Hampshire) “Dreams of Canals and Climate Change: Citizen Science at the end of the Age of Revolutions”

Mary Ashburn Miller (Reed College) “Restoring the ‘Apparently Dead’ to Life: Anti-Drowning Measures and Public Health in the Late Eighteenth Century”

Clare Tonks (Yale Center for British Art) “The Teeth Trade: Dentures and Dental Disease in the Age of Revolutions”

Holly Gruntner (George Washington's Mount Vernon) “Thy Industrious Neighbor:” Kitchen Gardens, Horticultural Knowledge, and Local Circulation Networks'

Cameron Strang (University of Nevada, Reno) “Pursuits of Knowledge and Happiness: Revolutionary Black Explorers”

Diego Pirillo (University of California, Berkeley)  “Museums, Antiquarians and Indigenous Dispossession”

Laura Clerx (Boston College) “The Science of Settlement: Western Land Companies and Eastern Scientific Societies in the early national United States”

Sean Silver (Rutgers University) "Edward Bancroft’s Drab Revolution”

Caroline Douglas (Royal College of Art)  “Edinburgh to Philadelphia: Elizabeth Fulhame and the Chemical Networks of Early Photography”

Al Coppola (John Jay College of Criminal Justice) "Science, Farce, and Fictionality: The Wonders of Katterfelto”

Mary Richie McGuire (Virginia Polytechnic Institute) “View down James river from Mr. Nicholson’s House above Rocketts: Benjamin Henry Latrobe’s Observations of the Chesapeake Rivers, 1796-1801”

All papers are for conference discussion purposes only. Do not cite or circulate.

deadline for submissions: October 10, 2025
full name / name of organization: 
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
Contact: Annalisa Zox-Weaver
contact email: [email protected]

News of the demise of literary humanities, college-level reading and writing, and American higher education is ubiquitous. AI is replacing critical thought, preprofessional ambitions guide undergraduates, and students can’t—or won’t—read good books. And though in rapidly diminishing numbers, students continue to become English Majors and enter graduate school for PhDs in English.

In the spirit of American Philosophical Society’s guiding purpose of “promoting useful knowledge,” this call for papers seeks discussions of the pleasure and persistence of the English Department. What remains sacred, vital, and animating about English Departments? What can we document and observe of its meaning to those who study and teach—and believe—in this institution? What “definable expertise” does an English Department offer and promote? As William M. Chace lamented over fifteen years ago in the pages of American Scholar: “In the face of one skeptical and disenchanted critique after another, no one has come forward in years to assert that the study of English . . . is coherent, does have self-limiting boundaries, and can be described as this but not that.”

I am interested in essays that brave such challenges. Essays may be informal in tone or more academic in their efforts; or a bit of both. Submissions from senior scholars and undergraduates are welcome.

The American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States, was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge.” Proceedings operates in the founder’s spirit of inquiry, providing a forum for the free exchange of ideas and conveying our conviction that intellectual inquiry and critical thought are inherently in the best interest of the public.

Please take a look at previously published issues here. Consult the submission guidelines carefully before
submitting article.

Scholarly book publicity is most successful when the author participates in the campaign. We at the APS Press are doing everything we can to showcase your book to the world and get it into the hands of readers, but nobody knows your readers better than you do. Here’s how you can support our efforts:

• Spread the word on campus. Don’t wait for your colleagues to ask what you’ve been working on. Tell your colleagues, your library, your local and campus bookstores, your university’s communications department and alumni magazines, and any other venues available. 
• Use your online presence. Add the book to your department website, your email signature, and any social media account bios. Include a cover image and a link to the book’s webpage whenever you can. Encourage your friends and colleagues to post about the book as well.
• Distribute your discount flyer. All APS Press authors receive a PDF of a flyer that includes the book cover, a description, and a discount code. Attach it to emails, distribute it at conferences, share it with friends and family.
• Pitch some public scholarship. Keep an eye on current events, in case anything connects to your work. Pitch op-eds at relevant publications, or contact podcasts and radio programs that relate to your work.
• Set up a free account through Amazon Author Central. This will allow you to create an Amazon author page with a bio. You’ll also be able to file help tickets with Amazon if any issues arise with your book’s Amazon page. Get started here: https://authorcentral.amazon.com/.

Most importantly: Keep us in the loop! Let us know about any reviews your book has received, any awards it’s won or been nominated for, any podcast appearances you’ve secured, any op-eds you have planned, and any author events you have planned. Let us help in any way we can. 

Publicity and marketing inquiries can be sent to David Carpenter, Editorial Administrator, at [email protected].

The APS Press considers proposals for books in a variety of disciplines, as befits our calling to promote useful knowledge, though we do not publish fiction or poetry. Please use these guidelines as a way to structure your prospectus for consideration, but feel free to include any other information that will give us a good idea about your project.

In addition to the proposal form, we will also need at least two chapters (any two, but preferably the introduction and one body chapter) ready for peer review and your CV with full contact information.

On submission, your proposal material will be discussed for fit at the Press. If the project is determined to fit, we will send it out for external peer review with two readers in the applicable subject area(s).

Please let us know at the time of submission if you have already submitted the project to another Press. We prefer exclusive consideration of your work.

Please include:

• Project title/subtitle
• A brief description of the project (What is it about? What makes it unique? Why does it fit at the APS Press?)
• An annotated table of contents, including brief chapter summaries for each chapter, especially those not included with the packet. Please include major headings/subheadings.
• A description of the intended reader (student/scholar/interested layperson) for your book, including academic fields likely to be interested and any particular courses where this book might be adopted. Are there any likely associations or other professional bodies that might be interested?
• A list of three or four competing titles from the last five years that are similar to yours in some way (subject, type of book). Include the author/title/publisher and how your book is different or better than these.
• An estimated word count for the manuscript, including notes and bibliography.
• An estimated number of illustrations and what type (maps, figures, tables, photos).
• An estimated date for when you will be finished with the full draft of the manuscript.
• Any people you think would make good peer reviewers for your work. We may not use these folks, but it will give us a place to start and some insight into where you see your work fitting into the literature.
• If the book is edited, a list of confirmed and speculative contributors.

All submissions must be original. Any use of Large Language Models (LLMs) or similar tools (e.g. ChatGPT) must be explicitly acknowledged at the time of submission. 

Send submissions to:

Kimberly Guinta, Director
[email protected]

Peter J. Dougherty, Editor-at-Large
[email protected]

For current authors with questions regarding manuscript formatting and submission, the handling of copyrighted materials, the review process, indexing, advertising, royalties, and stylistic considerations, contact Editorial Administrator David Carpenter at [email protected]. 

Staff

Kimberly Guinta, Director
[email protected]

Allison Cadle, Associate Editor
[email protected]

David Carpenter, Editorial Administrator
[email protected]

Peter J. Dougherty, Editor-at-Large
[email protected]

Kate Tyler Wall, Managing Editor of Transactions
[email protected]

Annalisa Zox-Weaver, Managing Editor of Proceedings
[email protected] 

Committee on Publications 

Roger S. Bagnall

Clyde F. Barker                       

Julia Haig Gaisser                            

George Gibson  

Carol J. Greenhouse                    

Linda Greenhouse                   

Christie Henry                       

Michael Hout       

Paul W. Kroll                   

Edward Mendelson            

Linda Musumeci 

Sara Seager 

Patrick Spero                            

Elizabeth Widdicombe 

Location

Richardson Hall

431 Chestnut Street

Philadelphia, PA 19106