Seeking panelists for OAH 2017 (Jan 22. deadline)
Hi. I'm planning on attending the OAH conference in New Orleans in 2017. My work focuses on African American and Irish American newspaper editors in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I'd love to present on one African American editor's trip to Hawaii and the Philippines in 1902-03, under the auspices of the U.S. government, and his attempt to advocate for African American futures in these new U.S. possessions. He encounters robust and very disparate local media landscapes in both Honolulu and Manila. My research here touches upon race and empire, media studies, black politics around the turn of the century, "Jim Crow colonialism," civilizationist discourse and race/labor regimes, including Chinese exclusion... It's a long chapter from my PhD dissertation and could be reworked and focused in a variety of ways. I completed my PhD at U.C. Santa Cruz in December.
Thanks, and hope to hear from you soon!
Brian
3 Replies
Post ReplyMy research focuses on George Houser, a leader and pioneer in four social movements throughout his long career: the peace, civil rights, african liberation, and anti-apartheid movements. He was a member of the Union 8 who were a group of seminary students who conscienciouly objected to the draft and served prison time for their civil disobedience. He was also a cofounder and leader of the Congress of Racial Equality from 1942-54. Then he became involved in Africa with the American Committee on Africa through the Defiance Campaign Against Unjust Laws in South Africa. He served as its leader from 1954-1981. I could write a paper focusing on any or all aspects of his life. I can also make transnational connections between his civil rights and african liberation/anti-apartheid activism. His career begins after your subject comes to a conclusion but variety might be a benefit with the program committee. I already have chapters written I could draw from. He was even the son of American missionaries serving in the Philippines. My thesis is that his experiences in the Philippines as a child led to his racial awakening and his activism. I could write on that if you would like. Contact me at: zpeterson2@gsu.edu.
Hi Brian:
Sounds like really interesting work. I am currently drafting an article that might complement your piece, at least in that it will speak to race and empire, media studies, African American politics abroad, and the black press. I hope to examine the experience of black soldiers during World War II through a series of images taken during the liberation of Buchenwald by a black photographer from Atlanta. It will open up into a broader discussion of World War II and Civil Rights, the collision of American racism and German fascism, and the impact of the Holocaust on civil rights discourse. I am a second year at Yale in History and African American Studies and would love to join you for a panel in New Orleans. You can reach me at anna.duensing@yale.edu.
Take care,
Anna
Hello Brian,
It's wonderful to know that you are also interested in the intersections of race and empire, especially through the study of media and international travels. I recently finished a paper in which you may be interested. This paper hinges on an Irish-Catholic Congressman, William Bourke Cockran, and his seldom-studied visit to the Philippines in 1905, along with a congressional delegation led by William Taft. Before this visit, Mr. Cockran was involved in the Jim Crow by supporting the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment, but also anti-imperialism movement against the Boer War, and the Anti-Imperialist League in the US, while acting as a silver-tongue orator supported by Tammany Hall and many others of Irish America. His attitude to U.S. empire-building was changed by his visit to the Philippines. Because of his Catholic religion and networks, his role during and after this experience of empire became a lens to the interactions between two pair of actors: US Catholic Church and American Empire; the US administration and the Vatican. His racialized judgements also reflect a broader racial attitude in Irish America. I am interested in exploring the racial side of this man or his social network. I am a second-year PhD student in US history at Catholic University, Washington D.C. Please feel free to contact me at: 67xu@cua.edu
Best,
Atlas