Join us for a stellar virtual NEHA conference on Saturday, April 10, 2021. Thanks to our conference organizers, Vice President Jess Parr and Melanie Murphy from our host institution, Emmanuel College.
Registration deadline: Thursday, April 8, 2021 by 11:59 pm – Click here to register
Preliminary Conference Program (last updated: 6 April 2021)
Saturday, April 10, 2021
Hosted by: Emmanuel College Boston, MA, USA
All sessions will be held online. The links for each session will be distributed the day before. Please note that ALL sessions are on EDT. All participants will need to register prior to the conference in order to receive access to the sessions.
If you live-tweet any panels, please use the hashtag #NEHASp2021
First Morning Sessions, 8:30-10:00
Panel 1: Local Histories
Chair/Comment: Libby Bischof, University of Southern Maine
Jews of Troy, 1850-1950
Harvey Strum, Russell Sage College
Small in Size, But in Nothing Else
Donald Rogers, Central Connecticut State University
Migration, Mills, and Murder: The Manchester-Pelletier Case, 1932-1933
Kathryn Lamontagne, Boston University
Analyzing the Silences: The Lasting Impact of the Expansion of Pine Camp
Mary Millage, Simmons University
Panel 2: Contours of Slavery and Resistance
Chair/Comment: Dominic DeBrincat, Missouri Western State University
Who Stands in the Digital Shadows: Implications for Studying Fugitivity
Marcus Nevius, University of Rhode Island
Northern Bondage: Enslaved Families in Temporate Slavery and Gradual Resistance
Christopher Gismondi, McGill University
The Language of Liberty: Black Patriotism, the Freedom Petitions, and the Abolition of Slavery in Massachusetts, 1773-1783
Grant Stanton, University of Pennsylvania
Panel 3: Methodologies in the Digital Humanities
Chair/Comment: Ravynn Stringfield, College of William and Mary
A Stark Change in Computing: The Technology Age of 1982
Nabeel Siddique, Susquehanna University
Antislavery Activist Networks in the Liberator
Jo Dutiloy, Simmons University
Beyond Founded by Abolitionists
Anelise Hanson Shrout, Bates College
Panel 4: Applied History: Teaching and Case Studies
Catherine DeCesare, University of Rhode Island
Rod Mather, The University of Rhode Island
Anna Snyder,The University of Rhode Island
Ryan Nadeau, The University of Rhode Island
Panel 5: A Not-So Distant Mirror? Studying Revolution Times in a Revolution Time
Chair/Comment: Michael McGuire, University of Illinois, Springfield
The Past in Our Prescience: Reflection on Nineteenth-Century Europe’s Links to a Year of Tumult
Matthew Saeger, Mount Saint Mary College
Times of Change: 19th Century Europe and 2020
Julia Foley, Mount Saint Mary College*
Times of Turmoil: America’s President, Europe’s Nineteenth-Century, and Philosophy’s Power
Ethan Rastadt, Mount Saint Mary College*
Panel 6: Material Culture and Public Histories
Chair/Comment: Kimberly Alexander, University of New Hampshire, Durham
Mexico and its Military Bands: All Roads Lead to Boston, 1885-1908
Charles V. Heath II, Sam Houston State University
Mexico at the 1908 New England Food Fair
Nizabani Pacheco Sanchez, Sam Houston State University
New Light on Old Graves: The History of the “Hill of Tombs†in Athienou, Cyprus
Jody Gordon, Wentworth Institute of Technology
Keeping Cemeteries Alive Through ArcGIS Online
Kimberly Sebold, University of Maine, Presque Isle
Panel 7: Pushing the Boundaries of Colonial Ceilings in Latin American History
Chair/Comment: Frances Peace Sullivan, Simmons University
Imagining Juana Asurdui
Javier F. Marion, Emmanuel College
The Un-“conventional” Life of Sor Juana
Kristen Archer, Emmanuel College*
Catalina de Erauso: The Lieutenant Nun
Sophia Rusciano, Emmanuel College*
Panel 8: African Americans in New England
Chair/Comment: Martha Schoolman, Florida International University
A Struggle for Suffrage: The Dorr War and African American Rhode Islanders
Anne Schrenck, Simmons University
“Raise Ten Pounds Each:†John W. Lewis and the Building Blocks of Abolitionism
CJ Martin, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Panel 9: Politics in the Age of Denial
Chair/Comment: Sarah Purcell, Grinnell College
Noticeably Absent: Inauguration and Presidential No-Shows
Tom Balcerski, Eastern Connecticut State University
Echos of the Past: the 2020 Election Denial and Holocaust Denial in Theory and Practice
Robert Bernheim, University of Maine, Augusta
Break: 10-10:15
Second Morning Sessions, 10:15-11:45
Panel 10: Black in the Academy: A Conversation Among Grad Students and Early Career Historians
Chair: Charlene Fletcher, Brown University
Derek Litval, University of Maryland, College Park
Adam McNeil, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Shana Hanes, College of William and Mary
Alina Scott, University of Texas, Austin
Panel 11: Animal Histories
Chair/Comment: Jacob Leveton, Northwestern University
The Journeys of Elephants: An Indian Circus Trail
Nisha Poyyaprath Rayaroth, Yale University
Little Sorrel, Living Relic of the Lost Cause
Allen Horn, Eastern Connecticut State University*
Mules are “the Most Lucrative Animals They Can Generate: Mule Breeding for Export in Eighteenth-Century New England
Charlotte Carrington-Farmer, Roger Williams University
“Songster’s Tale:†The Soldier-Horse Relationship in Life and Memory, 1914-1939
Jane Flynn, The University of Derby
Panel 12: Roundtable: Documenting a Pandemic in Real Time: New England Colleges Archiving COVID-19
Libby Bischof, University of Southern Maine
Jessica Hovey, University of Southern Maine
Matthew Revitt, University of Maine
Rebekah Irwin, Middlebury College
Panel 13: Roundtable: Approaches to Race and History Pedagogy
Frances Peace Sullivan, Simmons University
Abel Djassi Amado, Simmons University
Christian Gonzales, University of Rhode Island
Panel 14: Museums and Public History in the Age of COVID
Chair: Angel David Nieves, Northeastern University
Shirley Wajda, Enfield Shaker Museum
Marjory O’Toole, Little Compton Historical Society
Chuck Arnig, National Park Service
Panel 15: Legal and Constitutional Histories
Chair/Comment: Daniel Mandell, Truman State University
Judicial Politics in Nineteenth-Century Common Law and Civil Law Courts: a Comparative Analysis of the US Supreme Court and the Italian Court of Casstion
Stefano Lombardo, University of Calabria
Creating the Frame of Government: The Records of State Constitution Writing
Nicholas Cole, Rothermere American Institute, Pembroke College, University of Oxford
Perilous Vigilance: Confederate Runaway Laws During the American Civil War
Gautham Rao, American University
Rust Underneath: How the Missouri Supreme Court’s Turn Towards Comity and Away From Personhood During the Golden Age of Freedom Suits Paved the Way for Dred Scott
Jacob Brandler, Lincre College, University of Oxford
Panel 16: Contemporary Politics
Chair/Comment: Margaret Sankey, Air War College
Mein Kampf: Catholic Authority and the Holocaust
Martin Menke, Rivier University
Liberterianism: Origin Stories
Troy Paddock, Southern Connecticut State University
The Dragon From Chicago: An American Reporter in Nazi Germany
Pamela Toler, Independent Scholar
Panel 17: Histories of Music and Theater
Chair/Comment: Richard Canedo, Independent Scholar
A Black Fiddler on Massachusetts Bay: The Sound-Worlds of Joseph Brown, 1749-1834
Christopher Smith, Texas Tech University
Community Art and Civic Discourse: New York City’s DanceMobile Program, 1967-1976
Emily Hawk, Columbia University
Gentlemen, Be Seated: Minstrelsy as Sociopolitical Commentary in Kander and Ebb’s Scottsboro Boys
Susan Schieblhofer, UniversitÓ“t Salzburg
Panel 18: Contemporary China
Chair/Comment: Martin Fromm, Worcester State University
History Education in Shanghai’s Secondary Schools in the 1950s
Guanhua Tan, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Opium and Addiction in Modern China, 1839-1912
Shihan Zheng, University of Connecticut, Storrs
Panel 19: Education and History Pedagogy
Chair/Comment: Rebecca Noel, Plymouth State University
Social Unionism and University Faculty: The Case of the Cambridge Union of University
Teachers, 1935-1940
Nathan Godfried, University of Maine, Orono
Toward “An Ethic of Incommensurability:†Some Reflections from the Undergraduate Philosophy and History of Education Classroom
Deirdre Dougherty, Knox College
11:45-12:45 – Lunch Break
Panel 20: Plenary Session 12:45-2:30 Writing a Book Proposal
This session will begin with brief salutations from the NEHA President and from the Chair of Emmanuel College’s History Department
Chair: Jessica M, Parr, Simmons University
Adina Popescu Berk, Senior Editor, Yale University Press
Debra Gershenowitz, Executive Editor, University of North Carolina Press
Michael J McGandy, Senior Editor, Cornell University Press
2:30-2:45 – Afternoon Break
Afternoon Sessions, 2:45– 4:15
Panel 21: Reimagining Public History in the COVID Era
Chair: Kristen Petersen, MCPHS University
Alison Horrocks, National Park Service
Marisa Calise, Gore Place
Nicholas Hardisty, Tall Ships America
Ahenebah N. Lane, Becker College
Panel 22: European Politics and Civics
Chair/Comment: Troy Paddock, Southern Connecticut State University
To Establish Such a Form of Government as Will Best Produce the Happiness of the People
Peter J. Aschenbrenner, National Convenor (US) International Commission for the
History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions
The Politics of Requisition and the Civilian Dilemma in WWII
Cameron Zinsou, High Point University
Panel 23: Histories of Medicine
Chair/Comment: Miriam Reumann, University of Rhode Island
Geographies of Care: Decentering ACT UP to Broaden the Scope of Mutual Aid in the AIDS Crisis
Caleb Simone, Simmons University
Lost Mothers in the Caribbean Plantation and Contemporary Black Maternal and Infant Mortality
Kerry Sinanan, University of Texas, Austin
Educating English Women: Seventeenth-Century Conduct Manuals’s Role in Framing Women’s Household Medical Practice and English Women’s Health
Melissa Kleinschmidt, University of New Hampshire, Durham
We Are the Keepers of the Light
Bridget Keown, University of Pittsburgh
Panel 24: Race and Empire in French West Africa
Chair/Comment: Sarah Zimmerman, Western Washington University
Longing for Sainte-Domingue/A Longing for Haiti: Haiti and the Rise and Fall of French Africa
Matt Robertshaw, York University
The Historiography of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais and French Racial Paternalism
Michael Gomes, Southern Connecticut State University
Between Custom and Catholicism: Slaves, Marriage, and Legal Pluralism in Early Colonial Mali
Wallace Teska, Stanford University
Panel 25: Roundtable: Archives in the Age of COVID
Chair: Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai, Massachusetts Historical Society
Kim Toney, American Antiquarian Society
Hannah Elder, Massachusetts Historical Society
Jayne Ptolemy, Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Ashley Cataldo, American Antiquarian Society
Panel 26: Foreign Policy and Western History
Chair/Comment: Margaret Sankey, Air War College
The Eternal Frontier: Manifest Destiny and American Foreign Policy
Thomas Brodey, Amherst College
Expatriot Diplomacy: Reconsidering the Bonds of Empire
Dane Morrison, Salem State University
The Wine of Wilsonianism: Palestinian Self-Determination in the 20th Century
Amy Smith, University of Southern Maine
Panel 27: Modern Politics and Citizenship in the United States
Chair/Comment: Tona Hangen, Worcester State University
The Outsiders Within: Volunteers in Service to America and the Boundaries of Citizenship
Britney Murphy, University of Connecticut, Storrs
Saving the Army From Itself: Reporting Atrocities in Vietnam to the United States Government
Christopher J. Levesque, University of West Florida
Tenacity in Action: The Lifelong Activism of Suffragist Judith Winsor Smith
Kathryn Angelica, University of Connecticut, Storrs
Panel 28: Roundtable: History for the Public
Mark Booneshaft, Duquesne University
Gillian Frank, University of Virginia
Lauren Gutterman, University of Texas, Austin
Saniya Lee Ghanoui, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Marjoleine Kars, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Panel 29: New England
Chair/Comment: Shelby Balik, Metropolitan State University of Denver
Memory and the Identity of the Puritans
Karen Gauthier, Blue Grass Community and Technical College
“By the Sword We Seek Peace:†Some Thoughts on Native Americans and the Historiography of War in Early America and New England
Christoph Strobel, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Scottish Networks in Early New England
Marsha Hamilton, University of South Alabama
Panel 30: Economics in American History
Chair/Comment: Kathrine Rye Jewell, Fitchburg State University
Lotteries and Luck in Antebellum America
Anders Bright, University of Pennsylvania
Dependence, Labor, and the Significance of the Chronological Age in Nineteenth-Century Orphan Asylums
Sarah Mulhall Adelman, Framingham State University
Measuring Gentrification
Ella Howard, Wentworth Institute of Technology
Panel 31: New Perspectives on Early Modern Parliaments
Chair/Comment: Allan Macinnes, University of Strathclyde
The Privy Council and Prisoners of War: The Scottish Revolution, 1688-1690
Gillian MacDonald, Central Michigan University
The Tudor transformation of the Irish Parliament, 1494-1585
Brid McGrath, Trinity College Dublin
The Scottish Parliament, Maritime Security and the Problem of Piracy in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, c.1639-1651
John Young, University of Strathclyde
* Denotes undergraduate presenter
