Held jointly by the CQHA/CRQS/QSRA, the Fox at 400 conference held this past June included the 2024 George Richardson Lecture. Historian Nigel Smith presented “Back to the Light: A Fresh Approach,” examining Quaker activity from its origins to the early 18th century. Past lectures are on Woodbrooke’s website, and those interested in Smith’s talk can view it below.
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 PrintWednesday, 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 ConversationWednesday, 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 NetworksWednesday, 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].
Please join the Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists (CQHA) on three days in June, for a set of virtual sessions foregrounding expanded approaches to the study of Quaker history and culture. Registration for the June sessions is now open. Sessions are free to attend but you must be registered via Eventbrite to access the Zoom details.
CQHA’s June sessions have been chosen with a methodological focus in mind. The sessions are scheduled for June 14, 22, and 28, each at 12:30-2:00 pm EDT. They are:
Researching Quaker History Online: A WorkshopTuesday, June 14, 2022 | 12:30-2:00 pm EDT
Presenters: Mary Crauderueff, Susan Garfinkel, Emily Higgs Kopin
Research in the digital age increasingly requires new tools, methods, and sources. Presenters in this hands-on session will demonstrate some of the most useful tools for conducting Quaker history research online. Speakers will cover scanned Quaker meeting records available through Ancestry.com; architectural survey of Quaker meeting houses in the Historic American Buildings Survey; contemporary born-digital online resource; and, archived websites in the Internet Archive.
History from Things: Quaker Material and Visual CultureWednesday, June 22, 2022 | 12:30-2:00 pm EDT
Presenters: Laura Keim, Isabella Rosner, Anne Verplanck
Attention to material and visual culture extends our ability to understand the past as lived experience. Presenters in this session share case studies from their research that profile material and visual culture artifacts and methods to shed new light on Quaker history: Quaker material life at Philadelphia’s Stenton, home to six generations of the Logan family; a seventeenth-century needlework suite from London’s Shacklewell School; and, applying methodological tools for interpreting Quaker portraiture.
Quakers in the Field: Ethnographic and Oral HistoriesTuesday, June 28, 2022 | 12:30-2:00 pm EDT
Presenters: Alex Primm, Rebecca Hamilton-Levi, Oscar Lagusa Malande
Oral histories, interviews, and ethnographic research present rich opportunities to work closely with living informants to collect and preserve first-hand accounts of recent and current events. Presenters in this session share background and methods used in contemporary contexts: oral history projects including early work with elder Friends and current research in the Ozarks; the QuakerSpeak bi-weekly video series featuring first-person narratives by and for contemporary Friends; and, ethnographic fieldwork among Kenyan Quakers in the post-missionary/colonial era.
Please see CQHA’s website for full information, or contact the organizers by email at [email protected].