The politics network of the Social Science History Association (SSHA) invites submissions for papers to be presented at the association's annual meeting, to be held this year in Portland, Oregon on Nov. 3-6, 2005.

The politics network welcomes submissions for individual papers or entire sessions on any topic with a political focus. The conference theme, "Big Social Science," is intended to explore "the practices, prospects and results of large collaborative research projects within and across disciplines active within SSHA," and so the network will also be interested in presentations and sessions devoted to discussing major research endeavors that promise to expand the knowledge base of political history. Examples of the latter might include collaborative research projects or databases of historical statistics.

Further information about the conference appears at http://www.ssha.org/ssha2005/index.html. All proposed sessions or papers should be submitted electronically via that website. Please designate the politics network as your "first choice" network. Panels should be interdisciplinary, with presenters and commentators representing at least two disciplines as well as different institutions. The deadline for proposals has been extended: proposals will be accepted until Feb. 16, 2005 for individual papers and until Mar. 1, 2005 for entire sessions. The program committee hopes to announce acceptances by April 29, 2005. Please also note that panel participants must pre-register for the conference and join the SSHA in order to appear on the program. Inquiries about the politics network or possible sessions or topics can be directed to Liette Gidlow at gidlow@bgsu.edu.

At the 2004 meeting of the politics network in Chicago, members identified the following topics as matters of particular interest. Persons with an interest or expertise in any of the following are urged to contact the panel organizer, listed below.

• One or possibly two sessions in conjunction with the Historical Geography network on GIS applications in political history, with particular attention to electoral analysis or redistricting. Contact: Jack Reynolds (John.Reynolds@utsa.edu)
• Since this will be the first time the SSHA will hold its meeting on the west coast, sessions with a local or regional focus would be particularly welcome. These might be narrowly based -- the politics of Portland -- or more broadly conceived -- the politics of the Pacific Rim. There was also some interest expressed in Oregon's experience with the mail-in ballot. Contact Donald DeBats: don.debats@flinders.edu.au.
• Panels on the political experiences of Native Americans or Asian Americans (in the Northwest or elsewhere) or, more broadly, of ethnic and racial minorities and women are particularly welcome. Contact Liette Gidlow at gidlow@bgsu.edu.
• As we will also be near the northern border, we hope to see papers and sessions dealing with some aspect of Canadian politics. Contact Frank Towers at ftowers@ucalgary.ca.
• A session on the growth of the state power in the U.S., especially during the Jacksonian Era. Contact Jason Kassel at kassel@ufl.edu.
• David Parker is interested in forming a panel on the political aspects of the evolution of transportation. Contact him at dparker@depauw.edu.
• Liette Gidlow is organizing a session offering a Retrospective on the Voting Rights Act of 1965. gidlow@bgsu.edu
• A session that considers what role -- if any -- critical election theory should play in teaching political history. Is the theory thoroughly mined out or discredited by the work of David Mayhew and others. What other grand narratives are there to build our lectures around? Talk to Howard Reiter if you have a settled opinion on the matter: howard.reiter@uconn.edu.
• A session on local history, particularly focusing on the stories that we choose to tell about our communities, to be organized by Richard Hogan: hoganr@purdue.edu.