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American History Colloquium

Background to the Colloquium

Over the past several years the School of History and Anthropology at Queen’s University Belfast has significantly enhanced its strengths in American history—adding substantially to its microfilm and digital research resources; building its relationships with US-based scholars through collaborative research projects and transatlantic conferences, and welcoming onto its teaching staff outstanding historians engaged in some of the most exciting research in the field of American history. As a result Queen’s University Belfast is today widely recognised as a leading centre for the study of US history in the UK and Ireland, with particular strengths in Southern history. Its postgraduate pathway in American history attracts students from throughout Europe and the United States, and the completion of a new campus library in 2010 will help solidify Queens’ outstanding reputation in the field. This year, Queen’s launches an exciting new American History Colloquium, bringing to Belfast some of the most distinguished scholars working in US history to present papers and host seminars on their ongoing research. Join us over the coming year for a stimulating series of discussions on the American past. 

Rethinking the American South’s Legacy in the Age of Mass Incarceration"

Heather Thompson of Temple University (Philadelphia)

WEDNESDAY, 8th FEBRUARY 2012 at 4.00pm

Room 02 018 (second floor), Peter Froggatt Centre

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC - ALL WELCOME - CONTACT: catherineclinton@mac.com


Wednesday 25 October, 4pm, Lanyon G09

“Lincoln And Emancipation: How A Railroad Lawyer Freed The Slaves”

Professor Paul Finkelman, Albany School of Law, New York

Wednesday 16 November, 4pm, Room 18, Peter Froggatt Centre

"Abraham Lincoln and the Election of 1860"

Douglas Egerton, LeMoyne College and UCD

Wednesday 7 December, 4pm, Room 18, Peter Froggatt Centre

"Frederick Douglass and Women"

Leigh Fought, LeMoyne College

Everyone Welcome

For questions, contact Professor Catherine Clinton: catherineclinton@mac.com

Spring Programme 2011

WED. FEBRUARY 9:

4:00 p.m. /LANYON BUILDING/ROOM G-09

Professor Bryant Simon, Temple University  
http://www.redroom.com/author/bryant-simon & http://www.temple.edu/history/simon/index.html

“Learning about America from Starbucks”


WED. MARCH 30:

4:00 p.m. /LANYON BUILDING/ROOM G-09

Professor Melissa Walker, Converse College (South Carolina)                                
http://www.converse.edu/about/directory/melissa-walker 

"Making Meaning from Hard Times:  Rural Southerners' Stories about the Great Depression"


WED. MAY  11: 

4:00 p.m. /LANYON BUILDING/ROOM G-09

Professor Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill  

http://history.unc.edu/faculty/hall.html & http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/1999-11/medalists.html

“The Long Civil Rights Movement”

FALL PROGRAM 2010

 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6 --4:00 P.M.

PETER FROGGATT CENTER, QUEENS UNIVERSITY BELFAST 2:018

Nativists and Nationalists: Understanding Irish American Anti-Abolition

ANGELA MURPHY (TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY)

http://www.txstate.edu/history/people/faculty/murphy.html

 

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12--4:00 P.M.

PETER FROGGATT CENTER, QUEENS UNIVERSITY BELFAST 2:018

The Old South and the End of American Exceptionalism: Rethinking Modernity in the U.S.

FRANK TOWERS (UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY)

http://hist.ucalgary.ca/profiles/frank-towers

 

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17--4:00 P.M.

PETER FROGGATT CENTER, QUEENS UNIVERSITY BELFAST 2:018

Toward a Comparative History of the American Civil War

ENRICO DAL LAGO (NUI-GALWAY)

http://www.nuigalway.ie/history/dallago/index.html

Spring Programme 2010

1.)  Patrick Huber - "Linthead Stomp: Textile Mills and the Rise of Country Music" - February (co-sponsored by the Belfast Nashville Songwriters Festival)

2.)  Karen Cox - "Selling Dixie: Marketing and Identity in the Twentieth Century American South" - March

3.)  Robin D. G. Kelley - "Thelonious Monk and Jazz" - May

Autumn Semester 2009 Programme

Thurs. 1 October, 4pm: PFC 302a
John W. Quist, Shippensburg University (Pennsylvania)
“Northerners and the Response to the Harpers Ferry Raid: Michigan as a Test Case”

Wed. 14 October, 4pm: PFC 301
Douglas R. Egerton, Lemoyne College (New York)
“Judging the Founders”

Wed. 18 November, 4pm: PFC 301
David Brown, University of Manchester
“Rag Tag and Bob Tail’ in ‘Lubberland’: Rethinking Poor Whites in the Old South”

Wed. 2 December, 4pm: PFC 301
 Robert E. Bonner, Dartmouth College (New Hampshire)
“Proslavery Unionists & the Crisis of American Nationhood”

for more information contact the School of History at history@qub.ac.uk


Ted Widmer

Spring Programme, 2009

download programme flyer [word-doc]

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18
5.30 pm, Canada Room, Lanyon Building, Queen's University Belfast  download poster - Link to his profile

Ted Widmer, Brown University, "Ark of the Liberties:  America and the World"

Ted Widmer directs the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. He was a speechwriter for President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2000,
during which time he worked on many of the speeches relating to Northern Ireland and accompanied President Clinton on his visits here. 
His most recent book, Ark of the Liberties, explores early American history to find many of the reasons that Americans talk and act in the
world as they do.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25
Room G-46, Lanyon Building, Queen's University Belfast 5:00 P.M.
“Southern Economic Thought in Perspective: Sectionalism and the American Union”
(Susanna Delfino, University of Genoa, Italy) [word doc]

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11
Room G-46, Lanyon Building, Queen's University Belfast, 5:00 P.M.
“Selling the Blues: Black Religion, Popular Music, and the Emergence of Consumer Culture in the American South, 1880-1939”
(John Giggie, University of Alabama) Link to her profile

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29
Room G-46, Lanyon Building, Queen's University Belfast, 5:00 P.M.
“Without a Trace: Same-Sex Sexual Desire & Violence on Slave Plantations”
(James Downs, Connecticut College) http://www.conncoll.edu/academics/web_profiles/downs.html

TUESDAY, MAY 12
Senate Room, Lanyon Building, Queen's University Belfast, 5:00 P.M.
“Thomas Jefferson and the Origins of American Democracy”
(Peter Onuf, University of Virginia), Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History, Harmsworth Professor of American History (2008-9) Link to his profile

Autumn Programme 2008

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8
4:30 pm, 16 University Square, Room 101

Black Southerners and the New Political History (Michael Fitzgerald, St Olaf College) View his profile

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22
4:30  pm, 16 University Square, Room 101

In the Footsteps of Henry Martyn:  Missionaries and Muslims in the Middle East (Christine Heyrman, University of Delaware) View her profile

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12
4:30 pm, Lanyon Building, Room G09

Religion, Race, and the Right: The Rise of Southern Religious Conservatism (Paul Harvey, University of Colorado) View his profile

PLEASE ALSO CONSULT: FIRST MONDAYS  SEMINAR

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1
4:00 P.M. SEMINAR ROOM 1, GOVERNANCE BUILDING,  53-67 UNIVERSITY ROAD

Women’s History and the History of Prostitution: New Orleans as a Case Study (Dr Alecia Long , Louisiana State University)

Information: Catherine Clinton at  02890975124 or catherineclinton@mac.com

Spring Programme, 2008

Monday, 11 February
4pm, Lanyon 121
ERIC FONER, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University [view speaker profile]

PRESIDENT’S DAY LECTURE:
Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Rights of Black Americans Listen to this lecture [MP3 downloadable file] or [streaming file]

Wednesday, 13 February
4:30pm, 16 University Square Rm101
CINDY HAHAMOVICH, Associate Professor of History, William & Mary College [view speaker profile]

LECTURE:
“Drying out the Wetbacks": The Ever So Strange U.S.Immigration Policies of the 1950s

Wednesday, 12 March
4:30pm, 16 University Square Rm101
JOHN INSCOE, University Professor, University of Georgia [view speaker profile]

LECTURE:
"'I Learn What I Am': Struggles of Mixed Race Identities in Southern Autobiography"

Thursday, 1 May
4:30 pm, PFC 204
Paul Harvey, Professor of History, University of Colorado [view speaker profile]

LECTURE:
Religion, Race, and the Right: The Rise of Southern Religious Conservatism

Thursday, 15 May
4:30 pm, Lanyon G-46
William Link, Richard J. Milbauer Chair in History, University of Florida [view speaker profile]

LECTURE:
Jesse Helms and the Politics of Race, 1972-1990

Autumn Programme, 2007

Wed 10 October
Creating and Sustaining the Confederate Project: the Political Coalition of Elites and Working-Class White Men in Savannah, Georgia, during the Civil War Era
Jacqueline Jones (Brandeis University) Speaker profiles

Wed 17 October
Through a Purple (Green and Gold) Haze: New Orleans and Mardi Gras in American Culture
Anthony Stanonis (Queen’s University Belfast) [view speaker profile]

Wed 24 October
 ‘She is Dissatisfied with Her Present Condition’: Requests for Re-enslavement on the Eve of the Civil War
Emily West (University of Reading) [view speaker profile]

Wed 28 November
Breaking the Silence: Sexual Hypocrisy from Thomas Jefferson to Strom Thurmond
Catherine Clinton (Queen’s University Belfast) [view speaker profile]

Monday 3 December
Piety in a Slave society: Henriette Delille and the Founding of the Sisters of the Holy Family—Black Nuns in New Orleans
Virginia Gould (New Orleans-based Independent Scholar) [view speaker profile]

Thursday 13 December
 How W. E. B. Du Bois Won the United Daughters of the Confederacy Essay Contest
Bruce E. Baker (University of London-Royal Holloway)  [view speaker profile]

[view speaker profile]