The theme of the 2026 Australian Historical Association conference is Changing Minds. Presenters are asked to reflect on how and why they have changed their minds about historical matters and, in this time of proliferating representations of reality, what tools or techniques historians might need to use to change the minds of others.

For the Green Stream, the idea of changing the minds of others has been a topic of interest over many years and has led to robust discussions of the concepts of urgent history and the historian as activist. We welcome proposals for individual papers, panels or other creative approaches to a 90 minute block of time that continue this work.

We have tended to have less discussion of the first proposition in the Green Stream. We invite papers that engage with how your thinking has changed. Do you have a true confession about a time when you held mistaken beliefs about history? Reflections on your own historical journeys and those of other influential historians are welcome. So too are considerations of the differing forms of historical knowledge and how we know what we know in environmental history.

The Green Stream is being convened by Emily O’Gorman, Nancy Cushing and Rohan Lloyd with plans for a stream keynote, a social event and a field trip that aspires to reach the heights of the now legendary bird watching excursion in Townsville. We will also have one or more crossover session with the History of Capitalism strand.

If you would like to join in the fun, please select the Green Stream option when submitting your abstract. The full Call for Papers and submission portal are here.

Abstracts are now due 20 February 2026