The MCEAS Consortium Undergraduate Research Workshop will be held January 31 and April 25-26, 2025.
View Call for Participants
The MCEAS Undergraduate Research Workshop was established in 2008 to extend the benefits of the Center to undergraduate students enrolled at MCEAS Consortium institutions. The Workshop provides a structured environment in which advanced undergraduates researching in the field of early American studies can meet one another, as well as graduate students and faculty, to discuss ideas, source materials, and methods. A highlight of the program is the individual mentoring given to each undergraduate by the Center’s Fellows. Undergraduate participants gather at the Center twice: first to meet their mentors and introduce their research project, then to present excerpts of their final papers in a conference format. The Workshop offers undergraduates firsthand experience with several stages of scholarly production, as the meetings include archival tours and are scheduled alongside the Center’s works-in-progress seminars.
Archived Workshop Programs 2009–2024:
Fifteenth Annual McNeil Center Undergraduate Research Workshop
Friday, April 19
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, McNeil Center for Early American Studies
3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania
1:15 p.m. Arrival at the McNeil Center
1:30-3:00 p.m. Discussion with Mentors
3:00-5:00 p.m. Friday Seminar
Dr. Elise Mitchell, Princeton University
“Kikrevou”(kì ire aiku): Sickness, Death, and Survival in the Jamaican Smallpox Epidemic of 1768
5:00-7:00 p.m. Reception and Dinner at the Center
Saturday, April 20: Undergraduate Research Workshop Conference
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, McNeil Center for Early American Studies
3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania
9:00 a.m. Arrival at the McNeil Center & Light Breakfast
9:15-9:30 a.m. Welcome and Opening Remarks
Dr. Emma Hart (McNeil Center and University of Pennsylvania)
Dr. Christopher Bilodeau (Dickinson College)
9:30-11:00 a.m. Panel 1: Early Early America
Chair: Dr. Peter Olsen-Harbich (McNeil Center)
Maura Campbell (Lehigh University)
Captivity in the Pennsylvania Colony: A Mechanism of Political Leverage
Commenter: Tayzhaun Glover (Duke University)
Claire DeVinney (Millersville University)
“This Popular & Malcontent Temper”: Unruly Politics and Transatlantic Commerce in Pennsylvania, 1721-1727
Commenter: Alexander Clayton (University of Michigan)
Samantha Klein (Seton Hall University)
Hannah Duston and her Damned Sister: Uncovering the Injustices in Puritan Infanticide Cases
Commenter: Amanda Summers (Temple University)
11:00-11:15 a.m. Break
11:15 a.m.-12:45 p.m. Panel 2: Revolutions
Chair: Dr. Emma Hart (McNeil Center and University of Pennsylvania)
Rachel Feilbach (Brigham Young University)
The Name at the Bottom of the Page: A Microhistory on Mary Katherine Goddard, a Revolutionary Printer
Commenter: Abigail Corcoran (University of Wisconsin)
Michelle Chuchuca (Iona University)
The Notions of Gender in Neoclassical Revolutionary Times
Commenter: Alexandra Macdonald (William & Mary)
Hannah Parisi (Iona University)
An Investigation of the Role of Gender in the American Military Complex: Colonial to Civil War Era
Commenter: Meg Roberts (University of Cambridge)
12:45-2:00 p.m. Lunch at the McNeil Center
2:00-3:30 p.m. Panel 3: A New Republic
Chair: Dr. Christopher Bilodeau (Dickinson College)
Andrew Cox (Seton Hall University)
Artery of Change: Financialization, Crisis and the Market Revolution Along the Erie Canal
Commenter: Francis Russo (University of Pennsylvania)
Austin DelSontro (Seton Hall University)
Jeffersonian Ideals and Sectional Rifts: The Paradoxical President Without a Party and the Prelude to Disunion
Commenter: Duangkamol (Jaja) Tantirungkij (Graduate Center, CUNY)
J. R. Rizzo (Seton Hall University)
Examining the Veiled Prejudice(s) of Edgar Allan Poe’s Fiction
Commenter: Jacob Myers (University of Pennsylvania)
3:30 p.m. Closing Remarks: Dr. Christopher Bilodeau (Dickinson College)
Fourteenth Annual McNeil Center Undergraduate Research Workshop
Friday, April 21
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, McNeil Center for Early American Studies
3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania
1:00-2:00 p.m. Workshop and Discussion
Michael LaCombe (Adelphi University)
2:00-3:00 p.m. Discussion with Mentors
3:00-5:00 p.m. Friday Seminar
Michael LaCombe (Adelphi University)
“Staking Claims: Founding Myths and Property Formation on Seventeenth-Century Long Island, 1648-1745”
5:00-7:00 p.m. Reception and Dinner
Saturday, April 22: Undergraduate Research Workshop Conference
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, McNeil Center for Early American Studies
3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania
9:00-9:30 a.m. Light Breakfast
9:30-9:45 a.m. Welcome and Opening Remarks
Emma Hart (McNeil Center and University of Pennsylvania)
Christopher Bilodeau (Dickinson College)
9:45-10:45 a.m. Panel 1: Gendered Norms on Both Sides of the Atlantic
Chair: Christopher Bilodeau (Dickinson College)
Sydney Munnerlyn (Bryn Mawr College)
She’s a Natural: Analyzing Marie Antoinette’s Personal Fashioning of the “Natural Mother” in 18th-Century France
Comment: Cambra Sklarz (University of California, Riverside)
Emily Varker (Iona University)
Exploring Women of the Revolution Through Digital Humanities
Comment: Molly Nebiolo (Northeastern University) and Emily Sneff (The College of William and Mary)
10:45-11:00 a.m. Break
11 a.m.-12:45 p.m. Panel 2: Race and Slavery in the Atlantic World
Chair: Emma Hart (McNeil Center and University of Pennsylvania)
Emma Bhansingh (University of Pennsylvania)
Gender and Disguise as Modes of Analysis in Fugitivity
Comment: Sophie Hess (University of Maryland, College Park)
Emma Griffin (Brigham Young University)
Armed and Half Free: Negotiating Slavery in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Atlantic
Comment: Michael Borsk (Queen’s University)
Kaitlyn Mohan (Pennsylvania State University)
How British Colonization Shaped the Race Relations in Guyana’s Politics
Comment: Frances H. O’Shaughnessy (University of Washington)
Adrien Van Voorhis (Temple University)
Sharing the Pew: An Analysis of Philadelphia Quakers’ Diverging Beliefs and Decisions Regarding Slavery, 1740-1770
Comment: Alexandria Mitchem (Columbia University)
1:00-2:00 p.m. Lunch
2:00-3:30 p.m. Panel 3: Violence and Terror in Early America
Chair: Laura Keenan Spero (McNeil Center for Early American Studies)
Dylan Wyatt Bails (University of Maryland, College Park)
Exploring Early Colonial Resistance: Gove’s Rebellion
Comment: Anders Bright (University of Pennsylvania)
Pearse Gorman (Seton Hall University)
The Shapeshifting Wendigo: White Use of an Indigenous Monster
Comment: Ben Pokross (Yale University)
James Lemons (Gettysburg College)
“Our Backwards Aquirements”: European and Indian Ways of War on the North American Frontier, 1755-1783
Comment: Cody Nager (The Graduate Center, City University of New York)
3:30 p.m. Closing Remarks: Christopher Bilodeau (Dickinson College)
Thirteenth Annual McNeil Center Undergraduate Research Workshop
Friday, April 22
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, McNeil Center for Early American Studies
3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania
1:00-2:00 p.m. Workshop and Discussion
Christopher J. Lukasik (Purdue University)
2:00-3:00 p.m. Discussion with Mentors
3:00-5:00 p.m. Friday Seminar
Christopher J. Lukasik (Purdue University)
The Sketch Book and the Rise of the Mass-Mediated Image
5:00-7:00 p.m. Reception and Dinner
Saturday, April 23: Undergraduate Research Workshop Conference
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, McNeil Center for Early American Studies
3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania
9:00-9:30 p.m. Light Breakfast
9:30-9:35 p.m. Welcome and Opening Remarks
Emma Hart (McNeil Center and University of Pennsylvania)
Panel 1: Revolutionaries and Loyalists
9:35-10:50 a.m.
Chyanne Blakey (Iona College and the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies)
The American Revolution: How It Shaped Protest in America
Comment: Whitney Fields (Rutgers University) and Umniya Najaer (Stanford University)
Bradley Phelps (Princeton University)
Between One Life and the Next: American Loyalists and the New Ireland Colony
Comment: Philippe Halbert (Yale University)
Gretchen Richardson (Providence College)
The Obedient Servants of Opportunity: Bermudians in the Revolutionary Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World
Comment: Lauren Michalak (University of Maryland, College Park) and Henry Snow (Rutgers University)
Panel 2: Colonialism, Conflict, and Geopolitics
11:15 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Jillian Bergin (Millersville University)
The Effects of European Colonization on Gender Relations in Native American Culture
Comment: Kristina Williams (Duke University)
Christopher D. Scharf (Dickinson College)
Language and Frontier Conflict in Western Pennsylvania during the Era of the Seven Years’ War
Comment: Raymond Batchelor (Texas A&M University)
Michael Taszarek (Boston College)
Mending the Gap: The Hohokam-Pima Continuum
Comment: Paul Wolff Mitchell (University of Pennsylvania) and Emily Clark (Johns Hopkins University)
Lunch
12:30-1:45 p.m.
Panel 3: Early American Discourses
1:45-3:00 p.m.
Kaitlyn A. Hillam (Brigham Young University)
“Blessed in Her Life and in Her Death”: Female Economy, Social Networks, and Coming of Age in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Salem, Massachusetts
Comment: Anna Todd (University of Pennsylvania)
Cope K. Makechnie (Brigham Young University)
“A Wild and Visionary Appearance”: Anti-slavery and Maple Sugar in the Early American Republic
Comment: Michael Baysa (Princeton University)
Sam Susan (Temple University)
Medical Discourse on Burial in “the Civilised Age”: The Rural Cemetery Movement as an Ancient Solution, 1823-1883
Comment: Timothy Grieve-Carlson (Rice University) and Evelyn Strope (University of Cambridge)
3:00 p.m. Closing Remarks
Whitney Martinko (Villanova University)
Thirteenth Annual Undergraduate Research Workshop
“Zooming through Early America”
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania
April 23-24, 2021
Friday, April 23
1:00-2:00 ET
Q & A with Dr. Barnet Pavão-Zuckerman (University of Maryland)
Students required; graduate mentors encouraged
3:00-5:00
Friday Zeminar (Zoom Seminar)
Dr. Barnet Pavão-Zuckerman (University of Maryland)
“The Role of Livestock in Millenarian and Revitalization Movements: Animals as Symbols of Colonial Oppression”
Paper should be read in advance.
Undergraduate Research Conference Program
Saturday, April 24
First Zession: Colonization
10:00-11:15 ET
Ashley Jumbelick (Millersville University)
Caught in the Crossfire: Early Trade Relationships Between Cultural Groups in the Area of Lancaster County, 1681-1730
Mentors: Megan Conger, Anna Graham
Matthew Lynn (Widener University)
The Paxton Boys from the Perspective of the Frontier
Mentor: Kieran O'Keefe
Jack Tingey (Brigham Young University)
Inept Prophet: Tenskwatawa as a Symbol of Native American Resistance
Mentor: Gabrielle Guillerm
Second Zession: Communication
11:45-1:00
Lacey Hall (Gettysburg College)
“Whoever Will Speak Indian Must Learn to Think in Indian”: The Evolution of Studying the Lenape Language
Mentor: Hannah Anderson
Thomas Hontz (Princeton University)
The Nazareth Hymn: Transcription, Translation and Analysis of Nikolas von Zinzendorf’s 1743 Hymn Celebrating Newlywed Moravian Couples Bound for the Nazareth, Pennsylvania Settlement
Mentor: Henry Stoll
Michaela Mills (Millersville University)
Sound, Dance, and Diplomacy: An Analysis of Eighteenth-Century Intercultural Diplomacy Through Performance
Mentor: Emily Gowen
BREAK 1:00-2:00
Third Zession: Revolution and Nation-Building
2:00-3:30
Sean Gray (Providence College)
Bringing “Justice to Every Man’s Door”: John Jay’s Struggle to Build the Supreme Court
Mentors: Meagan Wierda, Cory Young
Robert Swanson (Brigham Young University)
Richard Stockton and the Edges of the Common Cause
Mentor: Kevin Murphy
Liam Thompson (Widener University)
The Pressed Yankee: The American Experience of Impressment during the Revolution
Mentor: J.E. Morgan
Sarah Johns (Ursinus College)
The Political, The Personal, and the Personified: Eighteenth-Century British Political Caricature Art and the Formation of the British Empire’s Identity
Mentor: Emily Banta
Twelfth Annual Undergraduate Research Workshop
“Zooming through Early America”
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania
April 2020
Friday, April 17
1:00-1:45
Q & A with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (Harvard University)
Students only
3:00-4:30
Friday Zeminar
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (Harvard University)
“ ‛Liberty. . . or the Genius of America’: Revisiting the Library Company’s Iconic Painting”
Paper should be read in advance (instructions on accessing it sent via email)
Saturday, April 18
First Zession
11:00-12:30
Panel 1: “Crossing Borders/Navigating the Atlantic World”
Amanda Judah (Boston College)
“Maintaining Orthodoxy: Indigenous People and Religious Instruction in Colonial New England and New Spain”
Mentor: Ajay Batra
Meagan Schulman (Millersville University)
“'They Were Good And Honest Men,' Bermuda Governors' Early Relations With Smugglers, Pirates And Privateers"
Mentor: Casey Schmitt
Malcom Moreno Beningo (Iona College and the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies)
“A Digital Humanities Exploration of Thomas Paine and French Collaborative Writing”
Mentor: Simeon Simeonov
Panel 2: “Gender and Making Early America”
Lillian Shea (Gettysburg College)
“What Whalemen Want: Gender and Sex during the Golden Age of Whaling”
Mentor: Kellen Heniford
Clare McCabe (Fordham University)
“Neither Here nor There: Elizabeth Sorber, the Falls of the Schuylkill, and Midwifery”
Mentor: Elise Mitchell
Hannah Katriel Davis (Millersville University)
“The Heyser Girls and their Peers: Rural Antebellum Needlework in Montgomery County, PA”
Mentor: Ittai Orr
Hannah Gonzalez (Fordham University)
“Naturalists, Natives, and Negotiated Access: William Bartram’s Navigation of the Eighteenth-Century American Southeast”
Mentor: Liz Polcha
BREAK 12:30-1:30
Second Zession
1:30-3:00
Panel 1 “Battling for America”
Natalie Merton (Brigham Young University)
“‘For Lying and Disaffection’: New England Colonists’ Understanding of the Causes of Wabanaki Attacks during King William’s War”
Mentor: Lila Chambers
Geoffrey Cole (Dickinson College)
“Saving the City on a Hill: John Cotton and the Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638”
Mentor: Timothy Fosbury
Denis Long (Rowan University)
“A Significant Stalemate: Perspectives of the Battle of Monmouth and Their Importance to the American Revolution”
Mentor: Kyle Repella
Paige Hawksworth (University of Maryland, College Park)
“Complexity of Revolutionary Loyalties: A Comparison of Espionage through Benjamin Church and James Rivington”
Mentor: Sarah Templier
Panel 2: “Contested Republics”
George Rodriguez (Seton Hall University)
“Confronting the Elephant in the Room: George Washington’s Position on Slavery”
Mentor: Sherri Cummings
Patrick McAllister (Villanova University)
“The Disestablishment Clause: Understanding Religion and Civic Virtue in The Early American Republic”
Mentor: Peter Olsen-Harbich
Alexandra Wells (Seton Hall University)
“Politically Sociable: The Evolution of the ‘Republican Court’ Through the Original Three First Ladies”
Mentor: Nicole Mahoney
Eleventh Annual Undergraduate Research Workshop
April 12-13, 2019
Friday, April 12
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, 3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania
1:00-2:00 Workshop and Discussion
Jane Dinwoodie (Cambridge University)
2:00-3:00pm Discussion with Mentors
3:00-5:00pm Friday Seminar
Jane Dinwoodie, Cambridge University and 2016-2017 Advisory Council Fellow “Evading Indian Removal in the American South, 1812-1850”
The paper should be read in advance. Information on how to access it will be shared as soon as it is available.
5:00-8:00pm Reception & Dinner
Saturday, April 13: Undergraduate Research Workshop Conference
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, 3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania
9:00-9:30am Light Breakfast
9:30-9:35am Welcome and Opening Remarks, Zara Anishanslin
Panel 1: Out of the Archival Shadows: Women in Early America—9:35-10:50am
Amanda Donaghue, “Agents of Resistance and Change: Native Women in French Colonial Louisiana”
Comment: Joseph La Hausse de Lalouvière
Eleanor Anderson, “Metropole & Periphery: Wives, Mothers, and Otherwise in the Colonial Eighteenth Century”
Comment: Franklin Sammons
Lindsay Richwine, “Empowered in the Light: Explaining the Unusual Influence of Quaker Women in Colonial America”
Comment: Elizabeth Kiszonas
Panel 2: Economies of Power—11:15 am-12:30 pm
Erin Kelly, “A History of Ships Named USS New York” Comment: Matthijs Tieleman
Dillon Reyes-Brannon, “Unions and Manufacturing in the Early Republic: An Economic Interpretation of a Peculiar Consensus in the 1806 Trial of the Journeymen Shoemakers of Philadelphia”
Comment: Timo McGregor
Erin Keaveny, “Between the Lines: Women Claiming Authority in the Early Republic, a Case Study on Elizabeth Powel”
Comment: Kelsey Salveson
12:30-1:45 pm Lunch
Panel 3: Reclaiming Race—1:45-3:00 pm
Lauren Murphy, “Skin and Scripture: Race and Religion in the Writings and Sermons of John Marrant”
Comment: Michael Monescalchi
Cooper Wingert, “ ‘The Worst of a Villainous Tribe:’ Richard McAllister and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850”
Comment: Lucien Holness
Archana Upadhyay, “The Penn and Slavery Project: Enslaved Bodies and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 1785-1850”
Comment: Christopher Blakley
3:00 pm Closing Remarks, Zara Anishanslin
Conference ends by 3:15pm
Tenth Annual Undergraduate Research Workshop
April 20-21, 2018
Friday, April 20
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, 3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania
1:00-2:00 Workshop and Discussion
Amy Greenberg (Pennsylvania State University)
2:00-3:00pm Discussion with Mentors
3:00-5:00pm Friday Seminar
Amy Greenberg, Pennsylvania State University
“Profit, Loss, and Freedom on the Polk Plantation, 1834-1865”
Dr. Greenberg’s paper should be read in advance. Information on how to access it will be shared as soon as it is available.
5:00-8:00pm Reception & Dinner
Saturday, April 21: Undergraduate Research Workshop Conference
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, 3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania
9:00-9:30am Light Breakfast
9:30-9:35am Welcome and Opening Remarks, Zara Anishanslin Panel 1: Native Networks 9:35-10:50am
Rachel Felt (Brigham Young University)
“’The Glorious Crown of Martyrdom’: The Meaning of Martyrs in Jesuit Missions”
Comment: Hayley Negrin (New York University)
Sean Lorthioir (Seton Hall University)
“Understanding Tecumseh, Tenskwatawa, and Prophetstown” Comment: Emilie Connolly (New York University)
Annabel LaBrecque (George Washington University)
“ ‘Little White Men’: How Bent’s Fort and the Transformation of the Southwest Remade the American Colonial Frontier”
Comment: Elaine LaFay (University of Pennsylvania)
Panel 2: Revolutionary Loyalties 11:00am-12:00pm
Ernest Andreoli (Providence College)
“The Price of Their Blood and of Your Independency”: The Social and Economic Disparities within the Connecticut Line
Comment: Alicia Maggard (Brown University)
Daniel Cirino (Rowan)
“Through the Eyes of Others: South Jersey Perceptions on the American Revolution"
Comment: Jeremy Zallen (Lafayette College)
12:00-1:00pm Lunch
Panel 3: Print Politics 1:00-2:30pm
Jeremy Grivensky (Temple University)
“America’s First Constitution: The Articles of Confederation”
Comment: Aaron Hall (University of California, Berkeley)
Elliot Warren (George Washington University)
“Revolutionary Grievances: Exploring American Influence on Common French Citizens via the
Cahiers de Doléances”
Comment: Andrew Dial (McGill University)
James McGlashin (Iona College) “Paine and the United Irishmen Rebellion, 1798” Comment: Andrew Zonderman (Emory University)
Jonathan Feld (Princeton University)
“Cradle of Libertas: Reception of the Roman Republic in Post-Revolutionary Philadelphia”
Comment: Andrew Ferris (Princeton University)
Panel 4: Lost and Found 2:40-3:55pm
Jubilee Marshall (Villanova University) “ ‘My Dear Ann:’ Class, Gender, and Family in the Life of Ann Hamilton”
Comment: Nicole Dressler (Northern Illinois University)
Jaclyn Foster (Brigham Young University)
“Beyond Simcoe: Competing Interests in Upper Canada’s Gradual Emancipation Act of 1793” Comment: Alexandra Montgomery (University of Pennsylvania)
Francis Mahon
“Artifacts of Agency: Counter-Narratives and Alternative Histories within the Zwaanendael Museum”
Comment: Sam Sommers (University of California, Los Angeles)
3:55-4:00pm Closing Remarks, Zara Anishanslin
Ninth Annual Undergraduate Research Workshop
April 7-8, 2017
Friday, April 7
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, 3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania
1:00-2:00 PM Workshop and Discussion Gabriel de Avilez Rocha, Drexel University
2:00-3:00pm Coffee and discussion with Mentors
3:00-5:00pm Friday Seminar
Gabriel de Avilez Rocha, Drexel University and 2015–2016 Richard S. Dunn Dissertation Fellow “Cimarrones in the Commons: Toward a Political Ecology of Marronage in the Early Colonial Carribbean”
5:00-8:00pm Reception & Dinner
Saturday, April 8: Undergraduate Research Workshop Conference
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, 3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania
8:30-9:00am Light Breakfast
9:00-9:05am Welcome and Opening Remarks, Jessica Choppin Roney Panel 1: Colonizers, 9:05-10:20am
Hannah Christensen, Gettysburg College
Cultural Exchange and Culture Clash: Anglo-American Colonization in Texas in the 1820s Comment: Alexander Ponsen (University of Pennsylvania)
Caitlin Connelly, Gettysburg College
Intent to Conquer: Reconsidering the Motives of the Rivera and Dominguez-Escalante Expeditions
Comment: Melissa Morris (Columbia University)
Amelia Zurcher, The College of New Jersey
The Proprietary Years of Newark, East Jersey, 1666-1702 Comment: Alexandra Montgomery (University of Pennsylvania)
Panel 2: Organizing Revolution, 10:30am-12:00pm
Kyle Bostrom, Temple University
Crossing the Picket Line: How the Pennsylvania Line Went on Strike Comment: Eric Herschthal (Columbia University)
Meghan Brady, Seton Hall University
Defining Liberty: The Loyalist Experience in Revolutionary New York City Comment: Lauren Duval (American University)
Carolina Velloso, University of Maryland
Remember the Ladies: Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren and Other Public Women in the Early National Republic
Comment: Nicholas Bonneau (Notre Dame University)
James Wallace-Lee, Swarthmore College
Race, Slavery, and Organizing in Antebellum America Comment: Rachel Walker (University of Maryland)
12:00-12:45pm Lunch
Panel 3: Reading Texts, 12:45-2:00pm
Emma Chapman, Brigham Young University
“Due to Me”: Women and the Economy of Seventeenth-Century New England in the Account Book of Elizabeth Gibbs Corwin
Comment: Katherine Smoak (Johns Hopkins University)
Adam Fales, Fordham University
Herman Melville's Body: Archives, Absence, and Historical Literary Practice Comment: Christy Pottroff (Fordham University)
William Hancock, Franklin and Marshall College
Conservative and Conspiracist Discourse in the Wake of the French Revolution Comment: Hannah Anderson (University of Pennsylvania)
Fifth Annual Undergraduate Research Workshop
April 26-27, 2013
Friday, April 26 Seminar
Weigley Room, 9th Floor, Gladfelter Hall, Temple University
2:00-2:30 Meet with Friday Seminar speaker Rachel Hermann
3:00-5:00 Friday Seminar
Rachel Hermann, "From Hunters to Husbandmen": Culinary Imperialism and the Pan-Indian Western Confederacy War (pre-circulated paper)
5:00-8:00 pm – Reception & Dinner
Saturday, April 27 Conference
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, MCEAS, University of Pennsylvania
8:30-9:00 am – Light Breakfast 9:00-9:15 am Welcome
9:15-10:30 am Panel 1: American History on the Margins
Sam Ginty, University of Maryland
Social Order and Transatlantic Networks: Reinterpreting Barbadian Royalism, 1650-1652
William Linder, Rider University
Worthy of Commemoration?: The 1778 Treaty of Pittsburgh
John Nelson, Gettysburg College
The Niagara Portage: Eighteenth Century Confluence of Empire
Emily Wood, The College of New Jersey
Captain Cook and the Early Colonization of Hawaii
Comment: Matthew Kruer (Penn), Lori Daggar, (Penn) Cameron Strang (Texas), Chris Parsons (Penn)
10:30-10:40 am Break
10:40-11:35 am Panel 2: Slavery Imagined and Practiced
Anna Domestico, Ursinus College
Resisting the Master Class: A Comparative Perspective on Antebellum Slave Religion
Brian Hanley, Lehigh University
Chief Justice Benjamin Chew: A Captor of People Not Quiet
Trent Larson, Brigham Young University
Prometheus Delivered: Poetry's Effect on the Abolition of the Slave Trade
Comment: Craig Hollander, (Johns Hopkins) Samantha Seeley (New York) Sarah Schuetze (Kentucky)
11:35-11:45 am Break
11:45-12:35 pm Panel 3: Moments of Crisis and Consumption
Doug Cutariar, Stockton College
Course in Crisis: Philadelphia and the 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic
Bradley Kime, Brigham Young
American Unitarians and the George B. English Controversy
Sharon Hess, Millersville University
Brewed in Penn’s Woods: Germanic Influence on English Beer Production in
Colonial Pennsylvania from 1650 to 1800
Comment: Tristan Tomlinson (Stony Brook), Steve Smith (Missouri), Brenna O'Rourke Holland (Temple)
12:35-1:45 pm Lunch
Fourth Annual Undergraduate Research Workshop
April 20-21, 2012
Friday, April 20 Friday Seminar
2:00-2:30 pm – Discussion with Carrie Hyde
3:00-5:00 pm – Friday Seminar Carrie Hyde, UCLA Citizenship in Heaven: Eschatologies of Emancipation in Stowe’s Dred 5:00-7:00 pm – Reception & Dinner
Saturday, April 21 Conference
8:45-9:15 am – Light Breakfast 9:15-9:25 am – Welcome
9:25-10:15 am – Panel 1: Religion in Early America
Christopher Siuzdak, Catholic University ‘A Divine Blood-Letting’: Public Health and Public Religion in Colonial New England Ed Wiest, Stockton College The Federalist Domination of the Religion Clauses: The Erosion
Comment: Seth Perry (Chicago) and Martin Öhman (PEAES)
10:25-11:30 am – Panel 2: Explorations in Political History Caroline Marris, New York University ‘More Dirty Work Than Ever I Do’: Taking Advantage of English Privateering in the Elizabethan Era
Hadley Nagel, Johns Hopkins The Pen and the Sword: The friendship between James Madison and George Washington (1786—1789)
Brady Sullivan, University of Pennsylvania Political Language in Newspapers Surrounding President Polk’s Declaration of War on Mexico, May 1846 Comment: Dael Norwood (Princeton), Whitney Martinko (Virginia), Nenette Luarca-Shoaf (Delaware)
11:40-12:30 pm – Panel 3: Stories from the Quaker City
Andrew Smith, Gettysburg College The Internment of the Moravian Indians in Philadelphia, 1764-65
Daniel Barlekamp, Ursinus College
Resurrecting the Writer: A New Historicist Approach to Edgar Allan Poe
Comment: Jennifer Elliott (Virginia) and Mark Mattes (Iowa)
12:30-1:00 pm – Lunch
Third Annual Undergraduate Research Workshop
April 29-30, 2011
Friday, April 29
Stephanie Grauman Wolf Room, MCEAS, 3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania 3:00-5:00 – Friday Seminar
Wendy Roberts, Northwestern Univ. & 2009-10 Carpenter Fellow, “Poetic Conversion and Evangelical Revision in the Life of the Rev. James Ireland”
5:00-7:00 – Reception & Dinner
Saturday, April 30
Seminar Room, MCEAS, 3355 Woodland Walk, University of Pennsylvania 8:30-9:00 – Breakfast
9:00-9:15 - Welcome
9:15-10:30 – Panel 1: “North American Readers”
Alicia DeMaio, University of Pennsylvania, "Deformed Bodies but Beautiful Souls: The Harbottle Dorr Collection and Related Annotated Newspapers in Eighteenth-Century America"
Clara Ennist, Fordham University, “A Splintered Audience: The North American Colonies and Arabian Nights’ Entertainment”
Rachael Givens, Brigham Young University, “Vindicating Wollstonecraft: The Early American Reception and Revival of Wollstonecraft’s Religious and Political Thought”
Comment: Whitney Martinko (UVa), Joseph Rezek (MCEAS) & Alea Henle (UConn)
10:45-12:00 – Panel 2: “Studies of Success and Failure”
Matthew Johnson, Brigham Young University, “Many Were the Times I Begged Him for Peace!” – Hernando Cortés in Mexico, 1519-1524”
Doug Lundberg, Stockton College, “Backwoods Revolution: How the French and Indian War Fortified the American Revolution”
William Betts, Stockton College, “Tuckahoe, New Jersey: A Stillborn Industrial Revolution”
Comment: Jayne Ptolemy (Yale), Matt Karp (Penn) & Rob Gamble (Johns Hopkins)
12:00-12:45 – Lunch
12:45-1:45 – Panel 3: “Constructing Identity in the Age of Revolution”
Emily Cooper, Stony Brook University, "Time and the American Revolution: the Development of an American Community"
Cristen Pizzimenti, Stockton College, “Weaving a Nation: A Political Discourse on Fashion”
Comment: Cassie Good (Penn) and Kate Gaudet (Chicago)
2:00-3:00 – Panel 4: “Legal (Mis)interpretations”
Cara Stellato, Fordham University, “’Cruel and Unusual Punishment’: The Bill of Rights and the misinterpretation of English Law”
Jessica Johnson, Brigham Young University, “Two Directions: The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions as Precedents for Nullification”
Comment: Simon Gilhooley (Cornell) and Nicole Ivy (Yale)
Second Annual McNeil Center Undergraduate Workshop
April 23-24, 2010
McNeil Center, University of Pennsylvania
Friday, April 23, 2010
1:45-2:45: Session 1, Forging Identity in Time and Space
Jessie Wolfe, University of Pennsylvania. Plantation Economies and Parliamentary Enclosures:
Land as a Signifier of Triumph and Transgression in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park Lee Depperman, Brigham Young University. Honor and Righteousness: The Jacksonian Era
Roots of Thomas and Elizabeth Kane’s Civil War Perspectives
Respondents: Joseph Rezek and Dawn Peterson, MCEAS
3:00-5:00: McNeil Center Seminar, Empires of the Atlantic World: A Roundtable Reception and Buffet Dinner for all participants
8:30-9:00: Breakfast
Saturday, April 24, 2010
9:00-10:00: Session 2: Public Perceptions and Historical Realities
Brennan Phillips, Rider University. The Public Perception of the Revenue Cutter Service
Cody C. Vurgason, Stockton College. The Myth of the Self-Made Man: Exploring Patronage and Nepotism in the Life of Benjamin Franklin
Respondents: Jack Dwiggins and Cassandra Good, MCEAS
10:15-11:30: Session 3: Varieties of Revolutionary Experience
Spencer Wells, Brigham Young University. “Judase was a Chaplain to Congress:” Civic Faith and the American Revolution
Tori Pyle, Millersville University. Politics of Fashion: General John Cadwalader as Representative of American Reappropriation of Costume
Robert Fisher, Rider University. Gentleman Johnny’s Germans: The Experience of Brunswick and Hesse-Hanau Soldiers in the Convention Army
Respondents: Phillip Mead, Patricia Keller, and Troy Thompson, MCEAS
11:45-12:45: Session 4: Slavery and Anti-Slavery in Early America
Christopher Pensiero, Stockton College. West Jersey: The Cradle of Emancipation
Matthew Nixon, Ursinus College. “I Wish There Would Come A Time:” Liberty Rhetoric and Antislavery Reality Across Revolutionary America
Respondents: Paul Conrad and Carrie Hyde, MCEAS 12:45-2:00: Lunch
First Annual MCEAS Undergraduate Research Workshop
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Conference Program (download PDF)
9:00-10:00: Session 1: Trade and Piracy in the Atlantic World
Brandon Copeland, Rider University
“The First Barbary War: A Controversial Peace”
Keith Pluymers, University of Delaware
“Pirates, Profits & Progress in 17th-Century Munster, Ireland”
Comment: Justin Pope and Emily Pawley, MCEAS
10:15-11:30: Session 2: Interactions and Perceptions
Kevin Konrad, Stockton College
“Native American Imagery in Nineteenth-Century Portraits and Western Films”
Christina Smith, Bryn Mawr College
“The Haitian Revolution in Philadelphia Newspapers 1789-1804”
Peter Ward, SUNY Stony Brook
“Herman Melville and the Organization of Mankind"
Comment: Laura Keenan Spero, Jason Sharples, and Sarah Dennis, MCEAS
11:45-1:00: Session 3: Religion in Early America
Sarah DePaolo, Johns Hopkins University
“The Fight for the „Jew Bill‟: the struggle for religious civil liberties for Jews in Maryland from 1797 to 1826”
Rachel Laufer, University of Delaware
“America‟s First Female Foreign Missionary: Ann Judson in Burma”
Rebecca Scharf, Stockton College
“The Historical Controversy of Thomas Jefferson and the Unitarian Religion"
Comment: Jeff Edwards, Shona Johnston, and Marie Basile McDaniels, MCEAS