SMA 2027 Call for Papers

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SMA 2027 Call for Papers: Mississippi’s Archival Past, Present, and Future

For this year’s conference, SMA will partner with the Digital Humanities Hub* at USM, utilizing grant support from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). This joint conference is free and open to the public. For more information on the DH side of the conference, view the sister CFP here.

Conference Dates: April 8-9, 2027

Location: Trent Lott National Center, The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS

Submission Deadline: January 15, 2027

Submission URL: Submit Proposal Here

The Society of Mississippi Archivists is excited to co-host the 2027 Annual Meeting with the Digital Humanities Hub at the University of Southern Mississippi. SMA invites proposals for presentations that explore the past, present, and future of archival collections and work in Mississippi. Talks do not have to include digital humanities information, but if they do, that’s perfectly acceptable.

SMA welcomes proposals on a broad range of topics, including but not limited to:

  • Advocacy and outreach
  • AI metadata projects
  • Archival education and training
  • Archival management and labor
  • Born-digital topics
  • Collaborative/community archives
  • Collecting at the margins: grassroots & community-led archiving
  • Collection processing
  • Creative crowdsourcing
  • Digital humanities
  • Digitization
  • Disaster preparedness and climate change
  • Exhibit design and execution
  • Funding initiatives and infrastructure improvements
  • Modern political, labor, or late-stage civil rights collections
  • Projects related to civil rights and/or the civil rights movement
  • Open access projects
  • Oral history archiving
  • Recruitment and retention of archival workers
  • Reference and instruction
  • Role of the archivist
  • Social justice and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access initiatives
  • Strategic planning and long-term goals

Submission Guidelines

We are accepting proposals for two presentation formats:

Individual presentations (15 minutes) should include a title, an abstract (250-350 words), and a brief biography (100 words).

Panel presentations (50 minutes) should include a title, an abstract (300-500 words), and a brief biography (100 words) for each participant. Fifty-minute slots are reserved for team presentations.

How to Submit

All proposals should be submitted via the Submission Form. Abstracts and bios should be prepared in advance and uploaded when applying.

Dates and Deadlines

Submission Deadline: January 15, 2027

Notification of Acceptance: January 29, 2027

Conference Registration Opens: February 12, 2027

Questions? Contact email: Karlie.Herndon@usm.edu

*The Mississippi Digital Humanities Hub is a grant-funded initiative of the Center for Digital Humanities at The University of Southern Mississippi. The Hub receives Congressionally allocated funding administered by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), a part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). For more information on the Hub, please visit https://www.ms-digital-hub.com/.