All events will take place at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies (University of Pennsylvania, 3355 Woodland Walk, Philadelphia, PA) unless otherwise noted.
4:00 p.m.—4:30 p.m. Registration
4:30 p.m.—4:45 p.m. Welcome and Introductory Comments
4:45 p.m.—6:30 p.m.
Panel 1: Reframing the Family
Chair: Alexis Broderick Neumann, University of Pennsylvania
Stephanie L. McKellop, University of Pennsylvania
“Beyond British ‘Blood’: Reframing the Family in Early American Family History”
Lisa Rose Lamson, Marquette University
“‘A good many other people assisted’: The Oblate Sisters of Providence, Community Networks, and Saint Dominique Emigrés”
Mary Freeman, Columbia University
“Documenting Freedom: Black Families and Correspondence in the Era of Gradual Emancipation”
Anna Leigh Todd, University of Pennsylvania
"'Nullius filii, the sons of nobody': Illegitimacy, Family, and Society in Early Philadelphian Print Culture, 1720-1820"
6:30 p.m.—7:30 p.m. Opening Reception
8:15 a.m.—9:00 a.m. Coffee & Light Breakfast
9:00 a.m.—10:30 a.m.
Panel 2: French Letters
Chair: Andrew Dial, McGill University
Catherine Murray, Temple University
“Remembering the French and Indian War: Women's Captivity and the Emergence of American Nationalism”
Nicole Mahoney, University of Maryland, College Park
"French Periodicals and Refugee Publishers in the Early Republic"
Kelsey Salvesen, University of Pennsylvania
“‘Pretendus Livres’ and Massinahigan: New Words for All in Early New France”
10:30 a.m.—10:45 a.m. Break
10:45 a.m.—12:15 p.m.
Panel 3: Knowledge Circulation in the Caribbean
Chair: Andrew Ferris, Princeton University
Gregory D. Wiker, University of Rochester
“Reframing Loyalty: Bermuda in an Atlantic World at War, 1775-1815”
Timothy Fosbury, University of California, Los Angeles
“Crèvecoeur’s Early American Circuit”
Casey Schmitt, College of William and Mary
“‘Nor any Spaniard I have met with’: Iberian Expertise and English Cacao in Seventeenth-Century Jamaica”
12:15 p.m.—1:15 p.m. Lunch (on own)
1:15 p.m.—3:00 p.m.
Panel 4: Science and Religion in Early American Technology
Chair: Elaine LaFay, University of Pennsylvania
Rachel Knecht, Brown University
“Cui Bono? The Politics of Mathematics in Early America”
Whitney Barlow Robles, Harvard University
“‘A Different Species of Resistance’: Early American Animal Frameworks”
Andy McKee, Florida State University
“‘This unique specimen’: Framing the Networks of Science and Religion in Early America”
David Babaian, University of Massachusetts Boston
“Body of Words: Evolving Handwriting as Lens on the Life of a Slave”
3:00 p.m.—3:15 p.m. Break
3:15 p.m.—5:15 p.m.
McNeil Center for Early American Studies Friday Seminar
Location: University of Pennsylvania
Brooke Bauer, University of South Carolina Lancaster
“The Catawba Homeland, Before and During Contact”
5:15 p.m.—6:15 p.m. Reception
8:15 a.m.—9:00 a.m. Coffee & Light Breakfast
9:00 a.m.—10:30 a.m.
Panel 5: Ports and Portages
Chair: Alexandra L. Montgomery, University of Pennsylvania
Jacob Pomerantz, University of Pittsburgh
“Building the Bridge: Labor and Urban Infrastructure in Eighteenth-Century Barbados”
John Nelson, University of Notre Dame
“‘Four Miles of Muddy Ground’: Contest and Collaboration at the Chicago Portage, 1679–1816”
Makiki Reuvers, University of Pennsylvania
“‘The Axe of the Husbandman’ and the Ink of the Printer: How American Frontiers and Newspapers Defined ‘This Young But Rising Empire,’ 1783-1787”
10:30 a.m.—10:45 a.m. Break
10:45 a.m.—12:15 p.m.
Panel 6: Labor and Capitalism
Chair: Emilie Connolly, New York University
Sarah Winsberg, University of Pennsylvania
“‘He Declared Himself to be Partner’: Legal Boundaries Between Owner and Worker, 1780-1860”
Alexi Garrett, University of Virginia
“No Urban Development without Rural Slavery: Catharine Flood McCall and Feme Sole Mastery in Early National Virginia”
Ajay Kumar Batra, University of Pennsylvania
“Uneasy Narration: Freedom, Illicit Bondage and the Abrogation of Reason in French Asylum, 1783–1803”
12:15 p.m.—1:45 p.m. Lunch (on own)
1:45 p.m.—3:15 p.m.
Panel 7: Violence and Justice
Chair: Hayley Negrin, New York University
Nicole Breault, University of Connecticut
“Landscape of Order: A Spatial Approach to the Reports of Boston's Night Watch, 1763-1774”
Max Speare, University of California, Irvine
“To Observe and Contain: Surveillance of Forced Laborers in Colonial New York”
Matthew Sparacio, Auburn University
“Pox Chahta: The Choctaw Civil War as a Bio-Social Event”
3:15 p.m.—3:30 p.m. Break
3:30 p.m.—5:00 p.m.
Keynote Address
Deirdre Cooper Owens, Queens College, CUNY
“Framing Blackness: Early American Visual Art, Gynecology, and Slavery”
