Conference Overview

The conference aims to identify new directions and new trends in scholarship on the American Revolution.  The conference organizers expect that it will be the first in a series of conferences exploring important themes on the era of the American Revolution.  The four themes that will guide the first conference are Global Perspectives, Power, Violence, and Civil War.

 

The format of the conference will differ from most academic conferences.  Instead of privileging papers, the conference organizers have created a program that aims to foster conversation between panelists and the audience with the hope that this dialogue will point toward the new directions in scholarship that the conference hopes to catalyze.  For that reason, we encourage all scholars interested in the era of the American Revolution to attend.  We expect the audience to be as much a part of the conference as the panelists..

 

Instead of reading papers, panelists will pre-circulate short papers (10 pages).  In the papers sessions, panelists will have just eight minutes to present their work, leaving the larger part of each papers session for discussion with the audience.  After each papers session, a commentary session will follow.  A group of eminent scholars will continue the conversation, reflecting on the papers and on what was said.  In addition, the conference has ample time for participants to talk casually with one another between sessions and at lunch and dinner each day.  The conference will “happen” outside the sessions as much as in them.