Conference Program

Unless otherwise noted, all sessions will be held in the Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, 3355 Woodland Walk (34th and Sansom Streets), University of Pennsylvania.

 

All panels are free and open to the public.

 

Thursday, September 26, 2013


4:30 p.m. – 5:15 p.m. Registration

 

5:15 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. Welcome and Introductory Comments

 

Daniel K. Richter, Richard S. Dunn Director, McNeil Center for Early American Studies

 

5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

 

Panel 1: Memories

 

Chair: Chase Wallace, College of William and Mary

 

Lori Daggar, University of Pennsylvania
“Resurrecting the ‘Chain of Friendship’: Traces of Earlier America in the Nineteenth Century Ohio Country”

 

Alex Manevitz, New York University
“Archival Traces and the Memory of Seneca Village”

 

Amelia Marini, CUNY Graduate Center
“Presenting the Historical Fragment: Narrative Dis/Organization in Susan Howe’s ‘Frolic Architecture’”

 

David Grant Smith, University of Virginia
“Ordering a Fragmented Past: Evidence and Method in the Writing of New England’s History”

 

Friday, September 27, 2013

 

8:15 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Coffee & Bagels


9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

 

Panel 2: Lives


Chair: Benjamin Breen, University of Texas, Austin

 

Joseph Beatty, University of Florida
“‘We seek goodness and assistance from Allah’: Tracing a Muslim Path in Early America”

 

Lindsay Keiter, College of William and Mary
“Erasing Indiscretion: Memory and Mutilation in the Diary of Louisa Cocke”

 

Emily Merrill, University of Pennsylvania
“On the Margins of the American Revolution: Uncovering Lives through Military Court Records”

 

10:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. Break

 

10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

 

Panel 3: Affects

 

Chair: Sara Damiano, Johns Hopkins University

 

Rachel Engl, Lehigh University
“Bonds of Strictest Friendship: Uncovering Traces of Friendships During the American Revolution”

 

Melissa Riebe, University of Missouri-Kansas City
“Tracing Mrs. Jack Tar across an Atlantic World: Social Representations of Eighteenth-Century Sailors’ Wives”

 

Dylan Ruediger, Georgia State University
“‘Faire and Loving Meanes’: Affect, Power, and Political Community in Seventeenth-Century English North America”

 

12:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Lunch (on own)

 

2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

 

Panel 4: Sketches

 

Chair: Mairin Odle, New York University

 

Elizabeth Athens, Yale University
“Scientific Ornamentation: William Bartram’s Visual Rhetoric”

 

Amy Breimaier, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“Blue People, Purple Elephants, & Yellow Dogs: Making Sense of Children’s Coloring in the Early Republic”

 

Charlotte Ickes, University of Pennsylvania
“Sartorial and the Skin: Portraits of Pocahontas and Allegories of English Empire”

 

4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

 

MCEAS Seminar

 

Class of 1978 Pavilion, Special Collections Center, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, Sixth Floor

Professor Silva’s paper will be pre-circulated to conference participants and should be read by all who attend. To obtain access to the paper contact mceas@ccat.sas.upenn.edu

 

Cristobal Silva, Columbia University
“Tracing a Name: Autobiography and the Archive”

 

6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Reception

 

Saturday, September 28, 2013

 

8:15 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Coffee & Bagels

 

9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

 

Panel 5: Networks

 

Chair: Lynne Feeley, Duke University

 

D. Andrew Johnson, Rice University
“Africans, Native Americans, and the Creolization of Slavery in Early South Carolina”

 

Nora Slonimsky, CUNY Graduate Center
“‘A Principle of Natural Justice’: Tracing the Political Significance of Copyright in Early America”

 

Jonathan Wilson, Syracuse University
“The Empire of Romance: Fiction, Privacy, and the Extensive Republic”

 

10:30 a.m. – 10:45am. Break

 

10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

 

Panel 6: Bodies

 

Chair: Sean Trainor, Pennsylvania State University

 

Colin Hogan, Pennsylvania State University
“Flowers in Buttonholes: Style, Affect, and Historical Traces of Queer Life in Dr. Alexander Hamilton’s The History of the Ancient and Honorable Tuesday Club

 

Jessie Regunberg, University of Pennsylvania
“Nursing the Nation: Motherhood, Reproduction, and Population, 1776-1830”

 

Patricia Sunia, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
“Traces of Whiteness: Affective Disruptions of Race in Notes on the State of Virginia and Garden and Farm Books

 

12:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Lunch (on own)

 

2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

 

Panel 7: Paths

 

Chair: Michael Blaakman, Yale University

 

Allison Manfra McGovern, CUNY Graduate Center
“Looking for Traces in Public and Private Spaces: Investigating Native American Labor in Eastern Long Island”

 

Kevin Waite, University of Pennsylvania
“Tracing a Southern Commercial Empire: The Proslavery Campaign for a Transcontinental Railroad, 1836-1850”

 

4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Keynote Address

 

Nicole Eustace, New York University

 

6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Reception