MWCBS - 1998 Akron

Akronfest local arrangements
  • Martin Wainright (Akron)
    • (O) 330-972-6512
    • (H) 330-864-4149
  • Michael Graham (Akron)

    • (O) 330-972-7826
    • (H) 330-836-2589
  • Dept. of History
    • University of Akron
    • Akron, OH 44325
Program Committee:
  • Nancy LoPatin, Chair (University of Wisconsin--Stevens Point),  
  • Robert Butler (Elmhurst College),
  • Robert Bucholz (Loyola University),
  • James Stokes (University of Wisconsin--Stevens Point),
  • Melinda Zook (Purdue University).
Conference Program



The University of Akron hosted the 1998 Midwestern Conference on British Studies.  Despite the university's fame for research into rubber and polymer science the meals were very good, and especially stunning in the setting of the Martin Center ballroom during the first night for the plenary session.  The Gardner Student Center's "Tree Rooms," which housed the panel sessions was imaginitively (or hopefully) named.  Yet virtually all panels were without hitches or substitutions and, at least those I sat in upon, well attended.  Dan Szechi and Reba Sofer gave plenary session papers.  Melinda Zook and Marc Baer judged the papers submitted for the best graduate paper prize, and awarded the certificate and check to John Leazer of Loyola University of  Chicago for his paper on Scottish fisheries as an example of the benefits of the 1707 Treaty of Union."


Conference Program

Friday, 1:30-3:15 (Session I)

1. Transmission of Culture: Gender and Politics in Early Modern England
Chair/Commentator: Paul Teverow, Missouri Southern State College
"The Eagle in the Golden Steele: An English Political Prophecy of 1595", Jennifer E. Forster, Kent State University
"'Women without Grace'": The Gendered State and Defenders of the English Commonwealth, 1640-1660", Amber C. Wilke, University of Chicago
"Assessing Eighteenth Century Chapbooks. What Do they Tell us About Images of Women?", Katherine B. Fromm, Iowa State University
2. Early Development of Law in England and Empire
Chair/Commentator: Lowell Satre, Youngstown State University
"The English Reformation of Legal Education", Thomas E. Carney, West Virginia University
"Britain's Pattern of Colonizing the 'Corner Behind the Word': Ireland and her Experiences", Marcelle R. Wilson, West Virginia University

Friday, 3:30-5:30 (Session II)

3. Representation and Reality: Religious Minorities in Tudor-Stuart England
Chair/Commentator: Laura Yungblut, University of Dayton
"Elizabethan Marranos Exposed", Charles Meyers
"Self Destruction: The Failure of Catholic Missionary Efforts Under James II, Lisa Diller, University of Chicago
"Huguenot Reistance Theory and the Aristocratic Minority", Cindy Bowers, Loyola University
4. Local Spheres of Early Modern English Politics"
Chair: Gary S. DeKrey, St. Olaf College
"Informing Offices: Documents, Texts and Performances in Early Modern England", Myron C. Noonkester, William Carey College
"Gentry into Townsmen: The Problem of Honorary Burgesses in Augustan Age Britain", Newton E. Key, Eastern Illinois University
"Local Economies and Popular Politics: Worcestershire Meeting House Riots in 1715", Todd Michael Galitz
Commentator: Victor Slater, Louisiana Sate University, Baton Rouge
5. Victorian Identities: Gender and Citizenship
Chair/Commentator: Suzie Steinbach, Hamline University
"'Forced to Take to the Streets…': Henry Mayhew's Distressed Needlewomen", Beth Harris, Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York
"Urban Renewal and Urban Identity: Public Interest in the Embankment of the Thames River in Victorian London", Dale Porter, Western Michigan University
"The Franchise of Culture: Popular Citizenship and Municipal Power in Victorian Birmingham", Anne Rodrick, University of Texas

Reception

Dinner

6. Plenary Talk: Reba Soffer, "The Long Nineteenth Century of British Conservatism", California State University at Northridge

Saturday, 8:15-10:00 (Session III)

7. Spectacles of Possession : Identity, Propriety and Corporeality in London Pageantry
Chair/Commentator, David M. Bergeron, University of Kansas
"Margaret of Anjou, Civic Pageants and the Frontiers of Culture", Geraldo U. de Sousa, Xavier University
"Urban Resurrections: Incorporating Theology in the Early Modern Lord Mayor's Show", Daryl W. Palmer, University of Akron
"A Nursing Father of the Family": Anthony Munday's Chrysanaleia and the Experience of Audience Corporeality in the Lord Mayor's Show", Daniel W. Kulmala, University of Kansas
"Anthony Munday's Robin Hoods, or History for this Instant", Clinton Crumley, University of Kansas
8. Trade, Politics and Morality in Eighteenth & Early Nineteenth Century Britain
Chair/Commentator: Carla Pestana, Ohio State University
"England and Scotland United: The Eighteenth Century Scottish Fisheries as an Example of the Benefits of the 1707 Treaty of Union", John Leazer, Loyola University
"'For Honest and Unfortunate Men Only'. English Bankruptcy Law and the Enforcement of Morality in the Early Eighteenth Century", Ben A. Harshman, University of Illinois at Chicago
"Henry Brougham and the Westmorland Election of 1818", William A. Hay, University of Virginia
9. Twentieth Century British Challenges
Chair/Commentator: Angela Woollacott, Case Western Reserve University
"Peace as the Enemy: Gender and Politics in Britain: 1914-1916", Prudence A. Moylan, Loyola University
"'What Not to Do:" British Attitudes Towards Wartime Partners, 1939-1943", Phyllis L. Soybel, Elmhurst College
"The Membership of the British Communist Party, 1920-45", Andrew Thorpe, University of Exeter

Saturday, 10:15-12:00 (Session IV)

10. Biographical Studies
Chair/Commentator: David Cressy, Ohio State University
"Nathan Field: An Off-Stage Gallant?", Michael Radice, The Union Institute
"Spying for the Crown, Writing for the Aristocracy and Painting the Government's Knobs: The Manuche Family During the Tudor and Stuart Eras", William Proctor Williams, Northern Illinois University
"Sex Matters: The Case of King James VI and I", Michael B. Young, Illinois Wesleyan University
11. The Early Modern English Court
Chair/Commentator: Melinda Zook, Purdue University
"An Introduction to the Database of Court Officers", R. O. Bucholz, Loyola University
"Court Commerce in Likeness: Lely's Windsor Beauties Series as Restoration Paradigm", Susan Shifrin, Swarthmore College
"'The Wicked Man Shall Not Abide in My House': The Courts of the Verge and the English Monarchy", Matthew Szromba, Loyola University
12. Questions of Cultural Difference in the Victorian World
Chair/Commentator: Josef Altholz, University of Minnesota
"Queen Victoria and the United States", Walter L. Arnstein, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"The India Office and the Problem of Destitute Indians in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain", A. Martin Wainwright, University of Akron

Lunch, 12:15-2:00

13. Plenary Speaker: Daniel Szechi, "Jacobitism and the Historians: Historical Methodology and the Problem of Interpreting Lies, Evasions and Silence", Auburn University

Saturday, 2:15-4:00 (Session V)

14. Naturalization and National Identity in the Three Kingdoms
Chair: Daniel Szechi
"The General Naturalization Act of 1709, the Poor Palatines and English National Identity, John Biles, University of Kansas
"Defining the Highlands: Images of the Highlands and Highlanders in the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion", Kristen Robinson, University of Kentucky
"Glanicarde's Galway 1641-43: Conflict Between Town, Fort and Governor, Demtri D. Debe, University College, Dublin, National University of Ireland
Commentator: Daniel A. Baugh, Cornell University
15. Judges, Juries and Freeborn the Englishman: Law and Language in Stuart England
Chair: Melinda Zook, Purdue University
"Reconsidering the Freeborn Englishman: Gender and the Disruption of Social Categories", Hilda Smith, University of Cincinnati
"Revolutionary Justice: The English Revolution of 1688-89 and the Courts", Richard Kay, University of Connecticut
"The Emergence of a Jury Ideology in Restoration England and the Transmission to the American Colonies", Lois G. Schwoerer, George Washington University
Commentator: Janelle Greenberg, University of Pittsburgh
16. Victorians Abroad
Chair, Chet DeFonso, Northern Michigan University
"Bugs, Brigands and Balkan Beauty: Representations of Rural Southeastern Europe in Victorian Travel Literature", Todd Larson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"Sir Stafford Northcote in Canada and the United States, 1870-1871", James Cornelius, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"Bridges and Battlefields: Consumed and Contested Sites in Nineteenth Century British Tourism", Marji Morgan, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
Commentator: Walter L. Arnstein, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Saturday, 4:15-6:00 (Session VI)

17. Popular Politics and the Development of British Popular Political Culture
Chair/commentator: Carla Hay, Marquette University
"Within the Continuum of Response: Riotous Behaviour in Eighteenth Century London Theatres", Richard Gorrie, University of Guelph
"The Anti-Jacobin Novel: Popular Fiction, Popular Politics and the Revolution in France", Matthew Grenby, Fulbright-Robertson Visiting Professor, Westminster College
"Voices in the Wilderness: The Poor Law Medical Services, 1834-1859", Erin J. Shelor, University of Kentucky
18. Victorian Publication and Politics
Chair/commentator: Richard Spall, Ohio Wesleyan University
"Debtor to the Greeks and the Barbarians: Religious Periodicals and their Influence in the Victorian Prelude", Marsh Wilkinson Jones, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"Creating and Confirming Radical Community: A Study of the Works dinners of 'Reynolds's Newspaper'", Michael H. Shirley, Eastern Illinois University
"Ethnicity as Marker in Mayhew's 'London Labour'", Thomas Prasch, Washburn University
19. Does British History Have a Future? A Perspective from Non-research Institutions
Robert Butler, Elmhurst College
Chet DeFonso, Northern Michigan University
Comments: The Audience

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