Author: EAS

Contemporary Connections, Special Features

Cancel Culture and Call Out Culture in Salem and Essex County, Massachusetts on the Eve of the American Revolution – Richard Morris

Today, much is made of “cancel culture,” or economically punishing those whose statements, ideas, and behaviors violate the values of various groups. Canceling can include calls for firing individuals who take objectionable stances; boycotting businesses that behave similarly; or, in the case of celebrities, steering clear of their performances. “Call out culture” also condemns offensive language and behaviors but is more often associated with pressure for apologies and reform than…

EAS
Interviews, Special Features

Interview with Jonathan Eacott, Author of the Summer 2024 Free Access EAS Article

EAS Miscellany sat down recently with Summer 2024 author Jonathan Eacott to talk about his article, “‘Elephant Murder’: ‘Lessons on Humanity and Benevolence’.” For a short period of time, it’s freely available on Project MUSE. Why did you choose to research your topic? What interested you about the topic? I kept stumbling into elephants when I was working on my first book, Selling Empire: India in the Making of Britain…

EAS
Roundtable Introductions, Roundtables, Special Features

Roundtable — Facing the Archive from the Present: A Celebration of Dan Richter’s Work – Tara A. Bynum and Liz Polcha

EAS Editors’ Note: This guest-edited roundtable is a follow up to “Facing the Future of Early American Studies,” the July 2023 conference where scholars reflected on the scholarship and mentorship of Daniel K. Richter, director emeritus of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies. Roundtable Introduction – Tara A. Bynum and Liz Polcha Jump to Facing the Archive from the Present Roundtable Posts As literary scholars, we want to honor…

EAS
Facing the Archive from the Present, Roundtables, Special Features

The Ethics of Narrating the Past – Sherri V. Cummings

What are the ethics of narrating the past? I often wrestle with this question while researching the quotidian lives of African women and their daughters, in slavery and precarious freedom, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Saidiya Hartman, in her essay “Venus in Two Acts,” reminds us to respect the “shrieks, the moans, the nonsense and the opacity,” of their experiences despite the want, or rather the need, for…

EAS
Facing the Archive from the Present, Roundtables, Special Features

Cultivating Curiosity: Phillis Wheatley in Newport – Michael Monescalchi

To more imaginatively engage with the early American archive, I think that we should go into every archive—and approach every text we read—without any kind of wishful thinking. Instead, we should be open-minded and curious about what we uncover. One of the ways that I’ve been able to enhance my curiosity is to move beyond the individual writers I research and learn more about the communities they belonged to and…

EAS
Facing the Archive from the Present, Roundtables, Special Features

Beyond Myth-busting – Bradley Dubos

On December 6, 1811, New York City’s mayor, DeWitt Clinton, stood before the New-York Historical Society (N-YHS) and voiced a prediction: “Before the passing away of the present generation, not a single Iroquois will be seen in this state.” I stumbled on Clinton’s speech while assisting with content research for a history exhibition at N-YHS. The exhibit, Acts of Faith: Religion and the American West, opens by examining how Haudenosaunee…

EAS
Interviews, Special Features

Interview with Douglas Winiarski, Author of the Spring 2024 Free Access EAS Article

Why did you choose to research your topic? What interested you about the topic? My article, “Revisioning the Shawnee Prophet,” began as a COVID project. I was already familiar with the journal of Quaker philanthropist William Allinson, in which he described his dinner conversation with Hendrick Aupaumut, and I was intrigued by the idea that Laloeshiga/Tenskwatawa started receiving visions several years earlier than historians had previously thought. With special collections…

EAS
Source Highlights, Special Features

Transcripts from the “Freedom Petitioners’” Campaign – Grant Stanton

In this post, EAS author Grant Stanton transcribes and collects for the first time all of the documents produced by a group of Black men in Boston who petitioned for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts during the American Revolution. This includes four petitions and a memorial formally submitted to the Massachusetts General Court between 1773 and 1777; a circular letter sent to individual representatives and towns throughout the colony…

EAS
Interviews

Interview with Zachary M. Bennett, 2023 Murrin Prize Winner

Zachary M. Bennett’s article, “‘Canoes of Great Swiftness’: Rivercraft and War in the Northeast” EAS 21, No. 2 (Spring 2023), won the 2023 Murrin Prize. The Murrin Prize is named for John Murrin (1936-2020), Professor Emeritus of History at Princeton University, who was a scholar of early American history and an active member of the McNeil Center community. The prize is awarded annually for the best article in EAS. The prize…

EAS