Past Events



Policing Occupied Boston, 1774-1775

Brown Bag Session
Nicole Breault, University of Connecticut/American Philosophical Society
Mar 16, 2022 at -

Nicole Breault is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at University of Connecticut. Her research interests include legal history, social and cultural history, urban governance, institutions, gender, material culture, and space…



‛Reader, Be Assured This Narrative is No Fiction’: Harriet Jacobs, Sentimental Fiction, and the U.S. Abridgment History of 'Pamela'

Friday Seminar
Emily Gowen, Boston University and 2020-2021 MCEAS Barra Dissertation Fellow
Mar 11, 2022 at -

As we ease into hybrid events, we are limiting in-person attendance at seminars to current MCEAS fellows and Penn students, faculty, and staff. We look forward to when we can safely gather in greater numbers, and will…



The Benighted Soul: Africana Religions and the Diabolical in the Time of Revolution

Friday Seminar
Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh, Stanford University
Mar 4, 2022 at -

Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies whose teaching and research explores the intersections of race, religion, and gender in the United States. A historian of African-American religion…



Justice, Fairness, and Good Governance in a Republic of Creditors, 1779-1791

Brown Bag Session
Jonah Estess, American University
Mar 2, 2022 at -

Jonah Estess is a Ph.D. Candidate at American University. His interests include both popular and authoritative understandings of public debt, nation building, banking, and federal monetary policy during the early…



As Though he had been a Whig: The Post-War Reintegration of the Hudson Valley Loyalists

Friday Seminar
Kieran O’Keefe, George Washington University and 2021-2022 MCEAS Society of the Cincinnati Fellow
Feb 25, 2022 at -

Kieran is a Ph.D. candidate studying Colonial and Revolutionary America. Before entering the Ph.D. program in 2016, Kieran received a bachelor's degree from Mount Saint Mary College and a master's degree from the…



‛Reclamando su Libertad’: Freedom Fighters on the Mexico-US Global South

Friday Seminar
María Esther Hammack, McNeil Center for Early American Studies
Feb 11, 2022 at -

Dr. María Esther Hammack received her PhD in US History and a portfolio in African and African Diaspora Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in May 2021. She is a Mexican scholar and public historian whose…



Paying by the Hundreds and Thousands: Sugar Money in Barbados, 1640-1713

Brown Bag Session
Teanu Reid, Yale University
Feb 2, 2022 at -

Teanu Reid is a joint Ph.D. student in History and African American Studies at Yale University. Her dissertation project explores the hidden economic activities of enslaved and free people of color in Barbados, Jamaica…



The Benighted Soul: Africana Religions and the Diabolical in the Time of Revolution

Friday Seminar
Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh, Stanford University
Jan 28, 2022 - Oct 28, 2021 at -

Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies whose teaching and research explores the intersections of race, religion, and gender in the United States. A historian of African-American religion…



'Now, to return’: John Lawson and Empire’s Public Diary

Brown Bag Session
Katrina Dzyak, Columbia University
Jan 19, 2022 at -

Katrina Dzyak is a PhD candidate in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where she studies American literature pre-1900.



Insanity, Race, and Property Rights in the Early Republic

Friday Seminar
Sari Altschuler, Northeastern University
Jan 14, 2022 - Oct 8, 2021 at -

Sari Altschuler’s research focuses primarily on American literature and culture before 1865, literature and medicine, disability studies, and the health humanities, broadly understood. She is the author of The Medical…