Message Board for USIH 2017 Conference Proposals

37 Thoughts on this Post

1. Have gotten some emails & inquiries from a number of folks looking to put together panels, so just wanted to post a comment here as a marker/reminder of this open thread.

   Let each other know what you’re working on and what you’d like to present at the USIH 2017 conference, and you are bound to find somebody who has a topic that will fit yours.

2. I’m currently researching nineteenth century American religious and intellectual history and history of higher education. I’d like to present on the American Education Society’s modern and progressive influence in the early nineteenth century U.S. South.

3. I am interested in putting together a panel on mid-20th century intellectual history, possibly around the theme of “liberal utopias / academic utopias.” I’m working on a paper about the Committee to Frame a World Constitution.

   • Patrick: I’m working on a paper on American public intellectuals and East Asia in the mid-twentieth century. Liberalism, the academy, and ecumenism will be themes in the paper. If you are interested or want to know more, please email me.

   • Hi Patrick,

     This might be too late, but I have a paper about postwar transnational student connections and their visions for a higher education informed by human rights and anti-colonialism. If you are interested and still need a panelist, please email me.

     • Hi David, what’s your email? You can reach me at firstname dot lastname at gmail.

4. I’m interested in doing a panel on the intellectual history of science fiction. I’m expecting to have a paper ready on Philip K. Dick and alternate realities. Any takers?

   • That might go well with a paper on John C. Lilly, the dolphin mystique, Lilly as futurist, Lilly as model for character in a couple of sci fi films.

     • Hi Anthony, sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you on this. It actually looks as though I’m going in a different direction for S-USIH, not doing a sci-fi panel at all, so you may want to look elsewhere. I may do a sci-fi panel next year (2018), though, so we should keep in touch.

5. For the upcoming S-USIH conference in Dallas, I’m interested in putting together a panel on “Unsung Texas Intellectuals.”

   For my contribution, I have some material on Constance Pessels (1864-1962), a Texas Jew, scholar, and Zionist intellectual in the early 20th century. He wrote an article in 1907 called “Zionism and Pragmatism.” Edited the short-lived Texas Zionist journal “The Jewish Hope” from 1906-1907. Also earned a doctorate in languages from Johns Hopkins in 1894, wrote about Anglo-Saxon grammar. Born in NYC, moved to Texas as a child, BA from UT-Austin, and also taught there briefly before becoming a high school teacher in San Antonio. Still learning more about him.

   I would be willing to contribute this also panels on pragmatism, or Jewish intellectuals, or Zionism, or some combination. Or to a panel more temporally themed. But ideally I’d like to keep on the theme of Texas Intellectuals, for obvious reasons. Anyone else have anything to contribute?

   • I would be interested in doing somethings on a Mexican American intellectual in Texas. Probably George Sanchez or Alonso Perales as I am already doing a paper that involves both. Both were involved in the fight for Mexican American Civil rights in Texas in the 40s and 50s. Sanchez was a professor at UT, one of the first Mexican American professors there, and Perales was an attorney.

     • That sounds great! Let’s discuss further.

     • Please e mail me at
       daweinfeld (at) vcu (dot) edu

6. I am a PhD candidate at Saint Louis University. The dissertation I am writing now is about the cultural roots of New York Loyalist political ideology. I am researching on the historical memories of New York Loyalists, focusing on how they recalled the American Revolution. I am looking for other co-panelists. Would someone like to organize a panel on the historical memories of the American Revolution together??

   • Hello Cho-Chien,
     A colleague of mine told me about this comment. I too am a PhD candidate–from the University of Texas at Dallas. My dissertation is on loyalists ministers and the sermons they preached during the Revolution. I am still in the very beginning stages of my research, so I’m not sure what I could bring to the table as far as what you’re wanting. I would, however, love to connect with you and discuss some of your primary sources or maybe a certain direction you could send me for my own research. Many thanks!

     • Sorry fo late response. We definitely should find a chance to talk about it.

     • I’m also an historian of loyalists (my dissertation was on the nature, scope, and origin of loyalists in Virginia) and me and some of my loyalist historian colleagues have a new collection of loyalist essays coming out this year in honor of Bob Calhoon. In any case, the Newport Historical Society, of which I’m part, is doing a lot of work right now on the loyalist experience in North America and would love to connect with others working on the same topic.

   • Hello Cho-Chien,

     I and another graduate student are both interested in this exact topic. My paper would be on the way that Jacksonian Democracy conceptualized American history as a series of conflicts with a nebulously defined “aristocracy,” from the Revolution down through 1829, and the way that political patronage was conceived as a weapon for ending this war. (Occasionally identifying their enemies as “Tories,” particularly in New England. Would you be interested in talking further about this?

     • Sorry that I did not read this message until now. I am certainly interested. I have sent you an email. I know time is pressing, but we can talk more about it.

7. I am researching intersections of ecumenism, higher education, and scientific efficiency during the first half of the twentieth century. If your research resonates with any of those topics, let me know!

   • You might contact someone at the Religion in American History blog. Many writers there have positively interacted with S-USIIH members in the past. – TL

   • Hello, Ben. I am currently doing research on the economic views of the major Protestant ecumenical bodies (mainly the Federal/National Council of Churches) from the early 1900s through the 1950s. Part of this involves higher education, since several noted academics/intellectuals were involved in shaping (and critiquing) FCC/NCC policies. If this sounds like a good fit for your interests, please feel free to contact me to discuss further.

8. Hi Benjamin:

   Stephen Weldon and I are putting together a panel on humanism in the twentieth century. The panel would concern the development of humanist thought and the scientific humanist movement, which would link, perhaps, with your concerns regarding higher education, religion, and science. If you see some connections, let me know. Paul Murphy, Grand Valley State University

   • Paul,

     I recently submitted a paper on Isabel Paterson and Ayn Rand to the committee.. While Paterson might not fit the definition of a “humanist,” I was thinking that Rand somehow fits in?

     In particular, I was going to present on Paterson’s and Rand’s ideas about love/romance through their fictional works.

     If you were looking for someone else to join your panel—and if my proposal is accepted—-I would love to be considered.

     Mark

9. Is anyone interested in forming a panel dealing with the interpretations of natural disasters or perhaps environmental intellectual history? My research focuses on the federal response to natural calamity and the rationale in forming disaster relief policy in the United States, beginning with FDR and ending with George H.W. Bush. Alternatively, I’d be happy to broaden the panel into something dealing with 20th century federal policy/politics in general.
   Anyone? Anyone?
   -Natalie

   • Natalie: You might contact Keith Woodhouse at Northwestern University (http://www.history.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/core-faculty/keith-woodhouse.html). I think he’s on leave through this summer, but he’s been at a few past S-USIH conferences. – TL

     • Great! Thanks, Tim.

   • Natalie, would you email me with your thoughts? I’m working on intellectual history-environmental humanities connections and may have a contribution. [email protected]

10. Anybody working on social science history and interested in putting together a panel?

11. All, I received an inquiry re: conference proposals, so I thought I’d post my reply here…

    On keywords, it’s fine to use a phrase as a keyword — so, “Civil Rights movement” would count as a single keyword

    If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email the 2017 conference email account: USIH2017 [— AT….] gmail.com.

    Or drop me a line:
    lora[DOT]burnett[ — AT — ]utdallas [ — dot … ] edu

    (Sorry for the periphrastic typography; the bulk mail filtering for the university ain’t all that, so I’m trying to outsmart the bots. A futile exercise, I know.)

12. Hello, colleagues. I am seeking a panelist,, a chair, and commentator for a panel, ‘Revolution, Moderation, and Restoration: Historical Narratives and Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century.’ The panel will look at the way that Americans re-purposed past events, such as the Age of Revolutions, in order to construct narratives and teleologies for the present. We will also consider the ways that political actors tried to situate themselves within these narratives, and how these narratives about the past shaped their sense of the possibilities for politics in the future. Subjects might include (but are not limited to): Historical periodization; historical memory and commemoration; tensions between adaptation, compromise, and vigilance; politics and religious (or quasi-religious) eschatology; historical touchstones other than the American and French Revolutions.

13. A colleague and I are both developing individual proposals that have some overlap, and we are looking for a third person to form a panel. (His proposal deals specifically with oral histories and John Kennedy, while mine focuses on LBJ and the Civil Rights Movement.) The broad topics we address are memories of American presidents, and the 1960s. If you are developing a single paper submission that hits on either of these subject areas, please let me know. We’d like to discuss if a full panel on memories of American presidents, or memories of the 1960s is viable.

14. Hi all — quick reminder for those of you submitting S-USIH conference proposals: please submit the entire proposal as a *single* .pdf file (EDIT: or .docx file). In other words, panel descriptions, paper abstracts, CVs, etc, all need to be submitted together in one big file. Thanks much!
    -LD and the Conference Committee, In the Thick of It!

15. I’m looking to present a paper on the late American philosopher Arthur C. Danto, which explores the intersection between his philosophy of art, the 1960s Avant-Garde, and Analytic philosophy. If anyone is interested in putting together a panel dealing with American philosophy, art and aesthetics, or academic culture, I’d love to talk to you. Likewise, if anyone with an existing panel thinks this might be a good fit, get in touch!

    -Erik Hmiel, PhD Candidate, UW-Madison

    • Eric,

      I just saw this. I can use a chapter from my dissertation on Newman.
      Let me know if this is a possibility.

16. October marks the centennial of Randolph Bourne’s “Twilight of Idols” essay in the Seven Arts, indicting his erstwhile philosophical allies for their support of US intervention in the First World War. This essay has long been a touchstone for critics of pragmatism as a social and moral philosophy, and nearly every generation or so, it seems, the essay finds a new audience among academics distraught by perceived aggressions on the part of the American state. Anyone want to put a panel together in the next couple of days? I’ve got a paper that is critical of Bourne and provides a genealogy of his apotheosis among engaged intellectuals, linking it to the general poverty of internationalist thought since Wilson’s era. Would love to work with colleagues more sympathetic to Bourne’s argument or working on some other aspect of its legacies and afterlives. Also would need a chair and commentator.

17. Hi! Does anyone need a last minute panelist? I have mentioned in previous response that I am a PhD candidate at Saint Louis University. The dissertation I am writing now is about the cultural roots of New York Loyalist political ideology. I am researching on the historical memories of New York Loyalists, focusing on how they recalled the American Revolution. I am looking for other co-panelists. I am truly grateful for those who responded to my comment. I was too late to notice those responses so it did not work out. I would like to see if anyone need a panelist in their panel.

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