Thursday, July 9, 2015

SHEAR 2015 Features Two Exciting Maritime Sessions

The annual conference of the Society for Historians for the Early American Republic (SHEAR) is coming up and the event features two exciting panels on early American voyages beyond the Atlantic world.  As readers of this blog and my book True Yankees: The South Seas and the Discovery of American Identity know, the first U.S. travels beyond the Cape of Good Hope opened opportunities for Americans to encounter lands, peoples, and cultures that they had known only second-hand in the narratives of Cook and Dampier and in fiction (Robinson Crusoe, The Arabian Nights).  With independence from Great Britain, Yankee travelers began to explore the world and in the process to construct new ways of thinking about their national identity.  In the past decade or so, scholars have begun to turn their attention to this area and to situate “America and the World” as an essential aspect of the American experience.  The papers in these sessions offer some of the latest research in this important new subfield.

To quote from the program:

"The 37th annual meeting of the Society for Historians for the Early American Republic will meet Sheraton Raleigh Hotel from July 16 to 19, 2015 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Over the years, SHEAR has developed a reputation for welcoming all scholars and history practitioners to its annual meetings. We gather with old friends and new, discuss ideas and share resources, and inspire each other. Our programs—from panels to plenary to presidential address—are created with attention to quality and variety. We have something for everyone! Our 2014 meeting in Philadelphia was our largest ever, and we take this as a sign that we are doing something well. So please plan to join us in 2015."

FRIDAY, JULY 17 10:30-12:15 AM
9 • MARITIME AND GENDERED ENCOUNTERS IN THE PACIFIC DURING THE EARLY REPUBLIC
Capital Room

PRESIDING • Gene Allen Smith, Texas Christian University
An Empire of Commerce: “Merchant Navigators” in the Pacific before Manifest Destiny
Michael D. Block, University of Southern California
“A Judicious Exhibition of Maritime Strength”: American Naval Expeditions in the South Pacific and East Indies as Indian Warfare, 1830-1842
Michael Verney, University of New Hampshire By a Lady: An American Sea Captain's Wife and Moral Authority in Nineteenth-Century Fiji
Nancy Shoemaker, University of Connecticut COMMENT • Dane Morrison, Salem State University

14 • EARLY AMERICA AND THE OCEANIC WORLD
Hannover II
PRESIDING • Timothy Marr, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Antebellum Coral
Michele Navakas, Miami University
Hemispheric Archipelagoes
Lindsay Van Tine, Columbia University
Islam and Barbary
Jason M. Payton, Sam Houston State University COMMENT • Timothy Marr

You can find out more details on the upcoming SHEAR meetings on the SHEAR website at:  http://www.shear.org/annual-meeting/


You can also read some of the papers and follow the sessions on Twitter at: #SHEAR15