Public programs facilitate dialogue between academics and professionals, informing scholarship and strengthening practice.
Multiple day conferences, year-long colloquia, individual lectures, “conversations” between individuals, hands-on workshops, and Museums at Noon talks featuring our graduate students all contribute to the remarkable richness of MSP offerings.
Video recordings of some MSP lectures are archived for viewing in our Media Gallery.
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American History Workshop – Constructing America: Identities, Infrastructure and Institutions
May 4, 2018 @ 8:30 am - 6:00 pm
In whose image is America constructed? What does “America” mean? In what ways has the world constructed America, just as America has shaped itself? The American History Workshop invites you to join us in considering these and other questions at our annual graduate student conference:
Constructing America: Identities, Infrastructure and Institutions
May 4, 2018 8:30am – 6pm
May 5, 2018 9am – 4pm
1014 Tisch Hall
Our keynote speaker is Professor of American Studies, Laura Barraclough (Yale University). Her talk, “Colonizing and Decolonizing Frontier Imaginaries in the U.S. West,” will be Friday May 4 at 4pm. Her talk will examine three sites in which imaginaries of the “western frontier” have been constructed and deconstructed in relationship to structures of settler colonialism, migration, and inequality. These include: rural land-use protections for horse-keeping and western heritage in Los Angeles; Mexican Americans use of the charro (gentleman horseman) to secure public and private space in California, Texas, and Nevada; and the Gila River Indian Community’s purchase and operation of a Wild West-style theme park just outside of Phoenix. Her goal is to have us think about the malleability of frontier myths: how they have been used to secure settler colonialism, but can also be repurposed for spatial justice, decolonization, and sovereignty.
A Public History Roundtable will take place on Saturday, May 5, 11:30-1:30, featuring speakers from museum, archival and digital humanities fields. NOTE, this portion of the conference has been cancelled!
We’ll be hosting panelists representing 14 universities across the U.S. and Canada, whose disciplines range from History, American Studies, Urban Planning, English, Architecture and more. Please see the attached posters and full schedule. Breakfast and lunch will be provided both Friday and Saturday.
Please register here if you are interested in attending.
Please contact Daniela Sheinin ([email protected]) with any questions.
Co-sponsored by: The Department of History, Museum Studies Program, and the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies
