[JAST 7 Contents]   [JAST Homepage]

Journal of American Studies of Turkey
7 (1998) : 107-108.

Conference Report

The Young Americanists Conference


 


The Program in the History of American Civilization of Harvard University, chaired by Werner Sollors, organized on 23-24 January 1998 a “Young Americanists” conference. Professor Sollors asked the chairs of American Studies departments throughout the US to name the best doctoral dissertation submitted to each department in the last three years. The doctoral candidates at Harvard then selected, among these, nine dissertations whose authors were invited to come and present their theses at the two-day conference. Below is the program of the seminar. As only a happy few were lucky enough to attend the conference, we print the program below, since we believe that it may serve to represent the best of what is done in American Studies in the US at present.

As can be seen from the program, the last session was devoted to a panel discussion by editors who advised the young scholars on how to get published.

Friday, January 23

Colonial Period to the Civil War

Panel Chair: Thomas Augst, Harvard University.

“Welcome” Werner Sollors, Chair, History of American Civilization, Harvard University.

“A ‘New Species of Forgery’ : Crè vecoeur, America, and the Baconian Project of History,” Ralph Bauer, Yale University. Respondent: Noel Ignatiev, Harvard University.

“Talking Leaves and Wigwam Words: The Problem of Indian Speech in Early America,” Jill Lepore, Boston University. Respondent: John O’Keefe, Harvard University.

“Mapping ‘Race’ in Time and Space,” Joanne Melish, Brown University. Respondent: Linda Prince, Harvard University.
 

 Civil War to World War I

Panel Chair: Jessica Dorman, Harvard University.

“Investigating the Bureau: Censorship, Language, and the (F)BI during the World War I,” Peter Conolly-Smith, DeVry Institute. Respondent: Cynthia Wachtell, Harvard University.

“Aven Nelson’s Rocky Mountain Flora and Western Institution-Building,” Frieda Knobloch, University of Wyoming. Respondent: Steven Holmes, Harvard University.

“In Search of Mrs. Pinkerton: American Women and the Gendering of American Orientalism,” Mari Yoshihara, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Respondent: Pleun Bouricius, Harvard University.
 

 Saturday, January 24

World War I to the Present

Panel Chair: Jeffrey Melnick, Trinity College, Hartford.

“American Studies and Im/Migration: Towards a Political Economy of Home in the Late Twentieth Century,” Rachel Buff, Bowling Green State University. Respondent: Michael Washington, Harvard University.

“What’s Left: Public Memory at the End of the American Century,” Kristin Hass, University of Michigan. Respondent: Andrew Walsh, Trinity College, Hartford.

“Faith in the Nation: Defining a Transnational American Studies,” Melani McAlister, The George Washington University. Respondent: Martha Nadell, Harvard University.
 

 Editors and the New American Studies

Panel Discussion

Introduction: William Pannapacker, Harvard University.

Speakers:

1. Cathy Davidson, Editor, American Literature, Duke University Press.

2. William Germano, Senior Editor, Routledge.

3. Monica McCormick, Editor, University of California Press.

4. Lindsay Waters, Executive Editor in the Humanities, Harvard University Press.

5. Paul Wright, Editor, University of Massachusetts Press.


[JAST 7 Contents]   [JAST Homepage]