Americas - Events

This conference seeks to showcase and further develop the rising scholarly interest in studying the western hemisphere from comparative, regional and trans-national perspectives as well as from the more orthodox optics based on the nation-state. Although the international movement of people, goods and ideas has accelerated appreciably since the Cold War, such 'globalisation’ also has deep historical roots. Many of these have been ignored or marginalised by the primacy of nationalism over the last 200 years and the influence which that has exercised on modern academic perspectives. The aim of this multidisciplinary meeting is to provide a forum for comparative and hemispheric studies of important historical, cultural and social phenomena alongside work on the enduring importance of the nation.

In particular, we wish to promote for an increasingly engaged European audience work that breaks with the conventional parameters – as much the notion that the 'Americas have a common history’ as the (recently revived) idea of US exceptionalism – across a range of disciplines, taking in rich cross-cutting cultural and historical experiences as well as the harsh and growing challenges of migration, poverty and inequality in the transnationalised western hemisphere.

Programme

Thursday 19 June

9.30-11.30 am History Panel
Chair: James Dunkerley, ISA

The American Revolution and the Atlantic World: Two worlds or one?
Trevor Burnard, University of Warwick

Prefiguration and Fulfillment: Shared biblical readings of colonization in the British and Spanish Atlantics
Jorge Cañizares, University of Texas

Haitian Revolution in International Context
David Geggus, University of Florida

An Atlantic Itinerary: 'Rosalie of the Poulard Nation' and her children in the era of the Haitian Revolution
Rebecca Scott, University of Michigan

Coffee 11.30-11.45

11.45-1.00 pm PLENARY 1

Sir John Elliott, Oxford and ISA
The Americas and the Atlantic World: Connections and Comparisons
Chair: Anthony McFarlane, Warwick

Lunch 1.00-2.00 pm

2.00-4.00 pm Culture Panel
Chair: Kate Quinn, ISA

American Tropics: Towards a Literary Geography
Peter Hulme, University of Essex

From Civilization to Barbarism: Images of the United States in Nineteenth-Century Argentina
Nicola Miller, University College London

After the Deluge: The Post-Katrina Cultural Revival of New Orleans
Helen Taylor, University of Exeter

Crossing the Line: Understanding Race and Citizenship in Dominican and US Dominican Texts
Conrad James, University of Birmingham


Tea 4-4.15

4.15-5.30 pm PLENARY 2

Leslie Bethell, Oxford and ISA
Is Brazil part of Latin America?
Chair: Charles Jones, Cambridge

Reception 5.30 – 7 pm

Conference Dinner 7.30 pm

Friday 20 June

9.30-11.30 am Migration Panel
Chair: Natasha Warikoo, ISA

Immigration in Canada and the United States: the Great Continental Divide
Jeffrey G. Reitz, University of Toronto

Race, Immigration, and Citizenship in the Americas
David Fitzgerald, University of California, San Diego

God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape
Peggy Levitt, Wellesley College

Educational Aspirations and Documented Dreams: Guatemalan and Salvadoran Immigrants and their Prospects in the U.S. Educational System
Cecilia Menjivar, Arizona State University

Coffee 11.30-11.45 am

11.45-1.00 pm PLENARY 3

Gordon Brotherston, Essex
Cultural Time Depth in Tropical America
Chair: Catherine Davies, Nottingham

Lunch 1.00-2.00 pm

2.00-4.00 pm Inequality Panel
Chair: Diego Sánchez Ancochea, ISA

Inequality in the Americas in the Neoliberal Age
James Galbraith, University of Texas at Austin

Measuring Inequality of Opportunity in Latin America
Francisco H.G. Ferreira, Development Research Group, The World Bank

Educational Assortative Mating and Inequality in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis
Florencia Torche, New York University

The Middle Class Squeeze
Edward Wolff, New York University

Tea 4.00-4.15 pm

4.15-5.30 pm PLENARY 4

Victor Bulmer-Thomas, ISA,
When labour was scarce: the Caribbean in the 19th Century
Chair: Colin Lewis, LSE