Washington Early American Seminar (WEAS)
The Washington Early American Seminar brings senior scholars, junior faculty, and advanced graduate students to College Park to discuss their work in progress.
The Seminar is composed of graduate students and faculty from the University of Maryland and a host of other Baltimore-Washingto area institutions. It is currently convened by Rick Bell, Christopher Bonner, Holly Brewer and Clare Lyons from the Department of History.
The Seminar meets regularly throughout the academic year on Fridays at 4pm in Taliaferro Hall 2110. Papers (typically 30-40 pages) are pre-circulated among seminar participants seven days in advance of each meeting. The ninety-minute workshop is followed by dinner with the presenter at a local restaurant.
To join the Seminar email list or to apply to present a work in progress in future cycles, See Organizers contact information below. We usually issue a call for papers in April.
Schedule of Events 2023-24
Fall 2023
Justin Iverson, Langley Air Force Base, "Breakers and Bloodhounds: Environmental Knowledge of Water and Dogs in the Second Maroon War in Jamaica, 1795-1786." Joint meeting with the Anna Julia Cooper Workshop. Respondent: JP Fetherston, University of Maryland
Kieran O'Keefe, Lyon College, "Competing Loyalist Visions in Post-War British North America." Co-sponsored and hosted by the National Museum of American History. Respondent: Hannah Nolan, University of Maryland
Spring 2024
Rebecca Brannon, James Madison University, "'Be pleased with the Retirement which you are dismissed into:' Making Retirement a Widespread Goal after the American Revolution." Co-Sponsored and Hosted by George Washington University. Respondent: Ty Collier, George Washington University.
Nicholas Crawford, Sam Houston State University, "'They pretended it was for the purpose of helping one another to work their grounds:' Food Cultivation, Social Networks, and the Politics of Slavery in Revolutionary Tobago." Co-sponsored and hosted by the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington. Respondent: Sophie Hess, University of Maryland
Past Events
Fall 2021
September 17, on Zoom. Randy Browne (Xavier University). 'Driving: Slave Drivers and the Management of Enslaved Laborers on British Caribbean Plantations.’ Respondent: Dusty Dye (Maryland).
October 15, in person. Tracy Barnett (University of Georgia). 'A Powder Keg: Buying and Selling Guns in the Antebellum South.’ Respondent: Derek Litvak (Maryland).
December 10, in person. Lois Leveen (Library of Virginia). ‘"And that may be the reason for her irritability & ill conduct": Excavating the Liberian Adolescence of a Black Civil War Spy.’ Respondent: Sophie Hess (Maryland).
Spring 2022
January: WEAS Virtual Mini-Conference.
February 4, in person. Elizabeth Clay (University of Pennsylvania). ‘"Proceed Directly to Cayenne”: The Role of Amazonian Spice Production in Shaping Nineteenth-Century Slavery and Franco-American Commerce.’ Respondent: Katie Labor (Maryland).
March 4, Zoom. Joint event with the George Washington University's Department of History. Jerome Dotson (University of Arizona). ‘"Less than a peck of corn-meal per week”: Provisioning, Food Insecurity, and Plantation Reform in the Antebellum South.’ Respondent: Michael Guy (George Washington).
April 1, in person. Joint event with Maryland’s Anna Julia Cooper Workshop. Marjoleine Kars (UMBC). 'Multiple Crossings: The Lives of Two African Men in the Eighteenth-Century Dutch Atlantic.’ Respondent: Jordan Sly (Maryland).
April 29, in person. Matthew Mason (Brigham Young University). 'Slavery and the Politics of Humanity in the Era of the American Revolution.’ Respondent: Hannah Nolan (Maryland).
Fall 2022
September 16, in person. Nicole Dressler (College of William and Mary) .'Black Convict Transportation and Servitude in the British Atlantic World.' Respondent: Derek Litvak (University of Maryland).
October 14, in person. Phillip Emanuel (College of William and Mary). ‘"In the nature of an Ambassadour": Non-European allies of the English Empire.' Respondent: Lauren Michalak (University of Maryland).
November 4, in person. Tara Bynum (University of Iowa) 'Phillis Wheatley ‘Passes the Last Evening’ with Someone Else’s Husband.' Respondents: Chloe Kauffman and Angelina Lincoln(University of Maryland).
Spring 2023
February 3, in person. Camden Elliott (Harvard University). 'In Sickness and In Health: Colonial Military Campaigns, Disease, and Wabanaki Survival.' Respondent: Dusty Dye (University of Maryland).
March 3, in person. R. Grant Kleiser (Columbia University). 'Slave Ports, Free Ports: Enslavement and Emancipation in the Caribbean, 1750-1800.' Respondent: JP Fetherston (University of Maryland).
April 7, in person. Kate de Luna (Georgetown University). 'Moving Bodies: Emotions, Sex, and Enslavement in Terms of the ‘Long’ African Atlantic.' Co-sponsored and hosted by George Washington University. Respondent: Michael Guy (George Washington University).
April 28, in person. Andrew Juchno (Harvard Law School). 'Puritanism and the Hierarchy of Slaveries in Colonial New England.' Respondent: Hannah Nolan (University of Maryland).
DC-Area Early American History Seminars
- The Anna Julia Cooper Workshop in Black History hosted by the University of Maryland
- The Slavery, Memory and African Diasporas Seminar hosted by Howard University
- SlaveryArchive Book Club hosted by Howard University
- The Early Modern Global History Seminar hosted by Georgetown University
- The U.S. History Workshop hosted by Georgetown University
Organizers
Christopher Bonner
Associate Professor, History
2122 Taliaferro Hall
College Park
MD,
20742
Holly Brewer
Burke Chair of American Cultural and Intellectual History, History
Director of Undergraduate Studies, History
Associate Professor, History
2101A Francis Scott Key Hall
College Park
MD,
20742