CQHA Online Interpretative Approaches Sessions: October 2022

CFHA is pleased to share information regarding the following event.

Please join the Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists (CQHA) on three days in October for a set of virtual sessions foregrounding expanded approaches to the study of Quaker history and culture. The sessions are held over Zoom and there is no cost to attend. Registration is via Eventbrite.

CQHA’s October sessions have been chosen with a focus on interpretive approaches in mind. In each, CQHA is delighted to welcome both emerging and established practitioners in their areas of Quaker scholarship. Short CQHA informational briefings and the biennial CQHA business meeting will also be held as part of these sessions. 

The sessions are scheduled for October 12, 19, and 26, beginning at 12:30 pm EDT. They are: 

Graphic Novels: Quakers in Pictures and Print
Wednesday, October 12, 2022

12:30-2:00 pm EDT  |  Session
  2:00-2:30 pm EDT  |  CQHA Briefing

Presenters:

• Marcus Rediker, Distinguished Professor, University of Pittsburgh

• David Lester, Artist and musician (Mecca Normal) in Vancouver, Canada, and graphic novelist of Prophet against Slavery

• Will Fenton, Associate Director, Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, Stanford University

• Katelyn L. Lucas, Tribal Historic Preservation Assistant for Delaware Nation and PhD Candidate, Temple University

• Dash Shaw, American comic book writer/artist and animator, and cartoonist of Discipline (2021) published by the New York Review Comics

Description:

This session focuses on three historical graphic novels to consider issues of interpretation in presenting the Quaker past through the lens of graphic or visual presentation. David Lester and Marcus Rediker will discuss the collaboration of artist and historian in the making of Prophet against Slavery: Benjamin Lay, A Graphic Novel (Beacon Press, 2021), a graphic adaptation of Rediker’s biography of Benjamin Lay. Katelyn Lucas and Will Fenton will share insights from Ghost River: The Fall and Rise of the Conestoga (Library Company of Philadelphia, 2019), which reimagines the Paxton massacres of 1763 as an educational graphic novel, introducing new interpreters and new bodies of evidence to highlight Indigenous victims and their kin. Dash Shaw’s presentation will detail his process and the historical materials and references for Discipline (New York Review Comics, 2021), a graphic novel about a Quaker soldier in the American Civil War, which incorporates Civil War-era Quaker letters and diary entries. Together these presentations will give insights into innovative ways of engaging and imagining the Quaker past.

CQHA: A short briefing on CQHA and upcoming business will follow the presentation.

Thought and Action in Decolonizing Practices: A Conversation
Wednesday, October 19, 2022

12:30-1:00 pm EDT  |  CQHA Briefing
  1:00-2:30 pm EDT  |  Session

Presenters:

• Sa’ed Atshan, Director of Undergraduate Studies and Professor of Anthropology, Emory University

• Paula Palmer, Co-Director of Toward Right Relationship, a project of the Indigenous Peoples Concerns committee of the Boulder Friends Meeting

• Tanya Maus (moderator), Director, Peace Resource Center and Director, Quaker Heritage Center, Wilmington College

Description:

Focusing on academic practice and activism, this panel is devoted to a dialogue between Sa’ed Atshan and Paula Palmer regarding their interventions into upholding and uplifting the rights of first peoples and colonized peoples. Tanya Maus will moderate. Atshan’s scholarship has brought into focus the trauma of Palestinian identities including Queer and Quaker Palestinians as well as the potential for intersectional activism and solidarity among various constituents. Palmer’s lifework and activism have focused on the rights of Indigenous peoples. She witnesses the roles Quakers played in colonization and the forced assimilation of native children by means of the Quaker industrial boarding schools. Through dialogue, both participants will focus on the relationship between thought and practice, the various meanings of decolonization within the context of their work, and the necessity of restorative justice. 

CQHA: A short briefing on CQHA and upcoming business will precede the presentation.

Quakers and Networks
Wednesday, October 26, 2022

12:30-2:00 pm EDT  |  Session
  2:15-3:15 pm EDT  |  CQHA Business Meeting

Presenters:

• Esther Sahle, Research Associate in Global History, Freie Universität Berlin

• Michael F. Suarez, S.J., Professor of English and Director of Rare Book School at the University of Virginia

• James Truitt, Senior Archives Technician, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College

Description:

New attention to network analysis in the humanities has invited new opportunities to explore the dense set of religious, economic, and social interconnections that characterize historical Quakerism. In this session, Esther Sahle will revisit what we know on the development and significance of Quaker business networks, contextualizing them within broader social and economic developments of the long eighteenth century. Michael Suarez will discuss the essential role played by Transatlantic Quaker networks in the campaign to abolish the slave trade, c.1787–1807. James Truitt will introduce participants to Friendly Networks, an online project that maps social networks within archival sources using the journals of eighteenth-century New Jersey minister John Hunt together with EAC-CPF and TEI, widely-used standards for authority control and text encoding.

CQHA: The biennial CQHA Business Meeting will follow the presentation. 

Please see CQHA’s website for full information, or contact the organizers by email at [email protected].