Entangled Trajectories

Entangled Trajectories: Integrating Native American and European Histories

Conference at George Washington University, Washington, DC 

9am-6pm on April 9-10, 2015

This conference will explore how the encounters between European and Amerindian cultures after 1492 contributed to the first age of globalization.  Unlike many histories that cast Native Americans and Native cultures primarily as passive victims of colonizers’ actions and ideas, this event investigates the role of native actors in the creation of the modern world in both hemispheres.  A central ambition of the conference is to highlight the way that Native American history is, indeed, global history.  Scholars will present their research from multiple disciplinary perspectives, including those of history, art history, literature, cultural anthropology, and philosophy.

Elizabeth Boone (Tulane University) will deliver the conference's keynote address at the Mexican Cultural Institute at 6:45 pm on Thursday, April 9.

Speakers: Ned Blackhawk (Yale University), Galen Brokaw (Montana State University), Margaret Bruchac (University of Pennsylvania), Matt Cohen (University of Texas, Austin), Nancy Farriss (University of Pennsylvania), Karen Graubart (University of Notre Dame), Byron Hamann (Ohio State University), Dana Leibsohn (Smith College), James Maffie (University of Maryland), Barbara Mundy (Fordham), Neil Safier (John Carter Brown Library), Birgit Brander Rasmussen (Yale University), David Silverman, (George Washington University), Coll Thrush (University of British Columbia), Nancy van Deusen (Queen’s University), Molly Warsh  (University of Pittsburgh), Jace Weaver (University of Georgia). 

Organized by Ralph Bauer (University of Maryland) and Marcy Norton (George Washington University). The conference is organized under the auspices of the Early Americas Working Group and sponsored by the Kislak Family Foundation, George Washington University, University of Maryland, National History Center, and the Mexican Cultural Institute.

For those planning on attending, RSVPs are requested by sending an email to efeeney@historians.org or please sign in to the Entangled Trajectories event site.

For more information, see the Entangled Trajectories website.

Illustration courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.