WHA Annual Meeting: Korea 2026
The world is changing, and the discipline of World History must respond to those changes.
In the 2005 article “Myths, Wagers, and Some Moral Implications of World History,” one of the founders of the World History Association, Jerry Bentley, noted that the world has been moving towards a state of globalization as long as the field has existed, noting that the general narrative is that “the intensity and range of cross-cultural interactions has generally increased over time.” Yet he also praised modern historical scholarship for its “openness to examination and criticism from all angles.” The world history he called for, he writes, “does not pretend to know the end of history.”
Indeed, we find ourselves today in a world that many world historians did not predict: one that remains intensely interconnected through trade, migration, culture, and shared planetary futures, while globalization as a narrative and as a political project has faltered. Nationalism, protectionism, deportations, and regional conflict have all surged in ways that challenge the logic of global integration. In teaching and scholarly work alike, this reality asks us to rethink what it means to teach and study the global past in a world that no longer embraces globalization as an ideal or inevitability.
The Program Committee of the 35th Annual Meeting of the World History Association, to be held in Incheon, Korea in 2026, invites proposals that explore this new terrain. We ask: how can we write, teach, and think about world history in a moment characterized both by global entanglement and anti-globalist politics ? What historical precedents —such as empires, invasions, epidemics, diasporas, trade routes, or cross-cultural encounters—might help us imagine a world that is connected but not necessarily globalized in the modern sense? What models of both interconnection and interdiction have emerged or persisted outside the framework of globalization? And how might the changing present force us to rethink historiographical frameworks about the past?
We especially welcome proposals that engage with Korea and Asia more broadly—not only as historical sites of cross-border connection, but also as important contemporary vantage points from which to rethink the global. Topics may include the history of Asian trade and exchange, transimperial and migration history, religion and cultural exchange, ecological frameworks, and communication infrastructures. We are particularly interested in papers that center Asian experiences and perspectives on global connectivity.
We encourage submissions from scholars at all career stages and from all regions of the world. The WHA remains committed to fostering inclusive and accessible scholarly exchange, and we recognize that geopolitical and institutional barriers—including those involving visas, funding, and travel—affect scholars differently.