American History
Seminar or event series
Cambridge American History Seminar 2024-25
We are pleased to announce the schedule of seminars and events for the academic year 2024-25. Seminars will be held on Mondays at 4:00pm in Room 2, Yusuf Hamied Court, Christ’s College, unless otherwise stated. Several of the seminars will be based on pre-circulated papers that will be made available one week prior to the seminar date.
All inquiries should be directed to Jonathan Goodwin, jmg216@cam.ac.uk.
To listen to our Cambridge American History Seminar Podcast please check our seminar podcast page, or search for it wherever you listen to your podcasts.
For Axel Schäfer's paper please click here.
Events
Oct
14
Introductions and a pizza dinner
Oct
21
Book Launch: Word Across the Water: American Protestant Missionaries, Pacific Worlds, and the Making of Imperial Histories (Cornell University Press, 2024)
Tom Smith, Affiliated Lecturer and Keasbey Fellow in American Studies, Selwyn College, University of Cambridge
Harrison Room, Selwyn College
Commentators: Uta Balbier, University of Oxford
Sujit Sivisundaram, University of Cambridge
Oliver Charbonneau, University of Glasgow
Oct
28
The Persistence of Glyphosate: Monsanto’s Strategic Maintenance of Roundup, the World’s Most Enduring Herbicide Technology
Shane Hamilton, Reader in Strategy, Management and Society, University of York
Nov
4
History as Reparations: Lessons from Human Bondage in the American West
Jean Pfaelzer, Professor Emerita of English, Asian Studies, and Women and Gender Studies, University of Delaware
Nov
11
Between Self-Determination and the Sovereign Self: Ralph Bunche, Great Power Mediator
James T. Sparrow, Associate Professor in History and the College, University of Chicago
Nov
18
The World Awheel: Americans in the First Global Bicycle Age
Nathan Cardon, Associate Professor in United States History, University of Birmingham
This paper will be pre-circulated
Commentator: Lewis Defrates, Maynooth University
Nov
25
The National Campaign Against Police Violence, 1970-1985
Samuel Collings-Wells, Junior Research Fellow, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge
This paper will be pre-circulated
Commentator: Tom Adam Davies, University of Sussex
Dec
2
From Perishable Property to Industrial Preservation: Remaking the Telegraph Pole in the early 20th century U.S
Sophie Fitzmaurice, Research Fellow at the Centre for History and Economics, University of Cambridge
Jan
27
Networking Empire: Communications, Decolonization, and American Power in the 20th Century
Sarah Nelson, Assistant Professor, Universiteit Leiden
Feb
3
Charles Lindbergh and America First
Lisa McGirr, 2024-25 Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professor, University of Oxford and Charles Warren Professor of American History, Harvard University
Feb
10
Book Discussion: The Great Power of Small Nations: Indigenous Diplomacy in the Gulf South
Elizabeth N. Ellis, Associate Professor of History, Princeton University
Commentators: Arianne Urus, University of Cambridge Joy Porter, University of Birmingham
Please read the Introduction before attending the seminar
Feb
17
Eulalie Mandeville’s Money: A Free Black Woman and Her Legacy in Antebellum New Orleans
Kimberly Welch, Fellow-in-Residence, Rothermere Institute, University of Oxford and Associate Professor of History and Law, Vanderbilt University
Feb
24
Servants of the Seasons: An Experimental Essay on Temporary Mobilities in the Past and the Present
Molly Warsh, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh
This paper will be pre-circulated
Commentator: Arianne Urus, University of Cambridge
Mar
3
The “Tempest Tost” and the “People of Plenty”: Migration and the Politics of Consumption in the U.S. Since the 1880s
Axel Schäfer, Professor in American Studies, Johannes Gutenberg Universtität Mainz
This paper will be pre-circulated
Commentator: Julia Guarneri, University of Cambridge
Mar
10
"Live as Becomes a Free Christian Woman”: Freedwomen and State-Sanctioned Reform in the Era of Emancipation
Kaisha Esty, Assistant Professor of African American Studies, History and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Wesleyan University
Mar
17
Obour Tanner Makes an Archive: Or, How to Remember Your Famous (and Deceased) 18th Century Friend, Phillis Wheatley
Tara Bynum, Associate Professor of English & African American Studies, University of Iowa
May
5
We Don’t Call Them Wars Anymore: International Intervention and the United Nations
Lydia Walker, Assistant Professor and Myers Chair in Global Military History, Ohio State University
This paper will be pre-circulated
May
12
Book Discussion: Cross-Border Cosmopolitans: The Making of a Pan-African North America (University of North Carolina Press, 2023)
Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey, Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar, McGill University
May
19
Speaker to be confirmed
May
26
African Americans and the Photographic Seat of Honor
Brenna W. Greer, Associate Professor of History, Wellesley College
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