Interview with Ilka Brasch, Author of the Fall 2023 Free Access EAS Article

Why did you choose to research your topic? What interested you about the topic? I initially read Hugh Henry Brackenridge’s political satire Modern Chivalry because I am fascinated by literature that is somewhat puzzling, written in a fragmented or meandering style, that is self-reflexive and offers narratives or opinions that need historical contextualization to be understood. I was also drawn to texts of the Early Republic that have a unique…

Interview with Zachary M. Bennett, Author of the Spring 2023, Free Access EAS Article

EAS Miscellany is featuring an interview with author Zachary Bennett, whose Spring 2023 Early American Studies article, “‘Canoes of Great Swiftness’: Rivercraft and War in the Northeast,” is freely available for the next few months on Project MUSE. Why did you choose to research canoes? What interested you about the topic? My initial interest was in river spaces. I grew up in New England, and after living in other parts…

Interview with Emma Hart, Richard S. Dunn Director of MCEAS

Emma Hart: Leading the McNeil Center toward the Semiquincentennial and beyond  Emma Hart has an exuberance that is infectious. In her second year as the Richard S. Dunn Director of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies (MCEAS), Hart emanates a sense of enthusiasm, readiness, and gratitude regarding her place at the helm of the Center. She is honored to carry on the work that her predecessors began and is…

The Pig of Knowledge: The Career of a Concept – Dan Richter

The Pig of Knowledge and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies (MCEAS) grew up together. The porcine horizon—as archaeologists might call the Pig’s first appearance in the Center’s material culture—occurred in 1998, the same year in which the former Philadelphia Center for Early American Studies assumed its current name. The porker’s premier was abrupt, and two-fold: The Pig of Knowledge graced both the 1997–1998 fellows’ class memorial tee-shirt and…