Society of Early Americanists

Heritage Tourism and Race in the Early Americas

This panel seeks to explore the ways in which early American landmarks, events, sites, and even gift shops, are marketed as authentic “heritage” tourist experiences but often ignore the complex racial dynamics that undergird them and recolonize historic peoples of color. Sites like Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown, cities like Savannah and Charleston, and countless plantations, historic homes, monuments, museums, and forts throughout the Americas and Caribbean often portray a sanitized version of history in order to appeal to a broad tourist base. We invite proposals from diverse scholars of the early America/s to interrogate the economic, rhetorical, pedagogical, and/or socio-cultural implications of race-based heritage tourism on modern visiting publics. Send abstracts of 500 words and a short cv to Shevaun Watson (watsonse@uwm.edu) by August 22, 2016.