Time to Claim Your IFPH-FIHP Membership for 2014!

October 13, 2013

Dear Colleague,

We thank you for your interest in the International Federation  for Public History and, if you are already a member, we appreciate your support as well.  As you know, the Federation’s mission is to create international linkages among public historians and promote the development of a worldwide network of practitioners.   We hope it has been a means for you to strengthen your contacts to a growing number of historians and institutions dedicated, like you, to international public history activities.

Launched in 2009 as an NCPH Task Force for International Public History, the IFPH has already accomplished some important things and is preparing many new activities in the future:

* In 2010, we applied to and were accepted as an Internal Commission of the International Committee for Historical Sciences (or CISH, Comité International des Sciences Historiques)

*In April of this year we co-sponsored, thanks to the Canadian Social and Humanities Research Council,  eight sessions and workshops at the National Council for Public History meeting in Ottawa, helping to boost international participation in the meeting substantially.
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*From August 30 through September 1 the IFPH sponsored the organization of the first Greek Public History conference in Volos.  Entitled “Use and Abuse of History:  Public History in Greece” it was organized in cooperation with the University of Macedonia thanks to the Municipality of Volos.  Conference organizers are now exploring the possibility of establishing an International Public History Summer School sponsored jointly by the IFPH and the NCPH to attract historians from around the world interested in learning more about international public history.

*In January 2014, a joint session between the NCPH and the IFPH will be held during the American Historical Association (AHA) annual meeting in Washington with a focus on “Capital Reflections: A Comparative Exploration of Public History in Ottawa and Washington”.

* We will also be well represented, like for the Ottawa, at the annual meeting of the NCPH, our federation is joining the Monterey annual meeting in March 2014 with several participants to panel and working groups that have been accepted and we also will organize a business meeting there.

*In October 2014 we will have our first IFPH international conference in Amsterdam: Public History in a Digital World: The Revolution Reconsidered, at the University of Amsterdam and the Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD), Thursday 23 October 2014 until Saturday 25 October 2014.  The Call for Papers is now running:  250 word proposals are due by January 31, 2014 to ifphamsterdam2014@gmail.com and we hope many of you will contribute to that conference.

After Ottawa in 2013, we will have our annual meeting 2014 in Amsterdam, during  that conference.

*As a permanent Internal Commission of the CISH-ICHS, the Federation is sponsoring several important activities at the next 22nd world history congress that will take place in Jinan, China in August 2015.  These include a half-day Roundtable on “Why Public History?” as a part of the larger program, as well as our own annual meeting which will offer two half days of sessions, and a general assembly.  Those interested in the participating in the Roundtable can find further information at the CISH-ICHS and answer the call for paper open until the 31st of November.  A program committee for the  IFPH sessions in Jinan is currently being formed.

We are now asking you to become member or to renew your membership for 2014.  The IFPH has for a transition period distributed information informally not only to our membership but also to others who expressed an interest in the field. At the general meeting of the IFPH-FIHP in Ottawa last April it was decided that beginning in 2014 we will, in an effort to make better use of resources available to the Federation, we will limit the list serve and other communications to our members.

Those who have already renewed their membership since September 1, 2013, or who renew prior to December 31, 2013, will be members in good standing through 2014.

So I hope you will join us.  Every day,  IFPH and its many volunteers are strengthening a sense of community among a broad mix of professional and inter-disciplinary backgrounds. So, our community is growing and you should become part of it.  You can claim your membership by visiting our different membership options on our web site from which you can access the payment platform that the NCPH, our sister organization, has kindly established for us.

Sincerely  yours,

Arnita Jones (IFPH-FIHP Secretary) and Serge Noiret (IFPH-FIHP Chair)