Events

2009

February

Karin Wulf, associate professor of history and American Studies at the College of WIlliam & Mary, will speak on "Bible, King and Common Law: Genealogical Literacies in Colonial British America," at 3 p.m. Tuesday Feb. 10 in the Burgess Room on the ninth floor of Batten Arts & Letters. Refreshments will be served at 2:30.

People across cultures may be interested in their family's past, but the form and content of their genealogies reflect the traditions and expectations of the societies in which they live. Creating genealogies is an intimate practice among individuals and within families; it is also an instrumental practice with political origins and purposes. In the eighteenth century, genealogical fascinations in America took on particularly British and specifically colonial qualities. British American were literate in three interlaced genres of genealogy, all promoted by the state: religious (via the Bible), government (especially the monarchy), and the common law (of property). In each case these institutions promoted a reverence of genealogy, and required individuals and families to produce genealogical information. Genealogical didacticism and the imperative for genealogical production created a highly genealogically literate culture-- and a populace attuned to the colonial uses of teh British-style authority of (patri)lineage.
Karin Wulf earned her PhD from Johns Hopkins in 1993. Before coming to WIlliam and Mary, she taught for ten years at American University. Wulf has produced two colalborative editions, Milcah Martha Moore's Book: A Commonplace Book from Revolutionary America (with Catherine Blecki, published by Penn State in 1997) and The Diary of Hannah Callender, 1758-1788 (with Susan Kelpp, forthcoming). Her book, Not All Wives: Women of Colonial Philadelphia was published by Cornell University Press in 2000, and issued in paper by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2005. She currently at work on a study of the relationship between genealogical practives and political culture: "Lineaage: The Politics and Poetics of Genealogy in British America, 1680-1820."
-Tuesday, February 10, 3 p.m. Burgess Room (BAL); refreshments at 2:30 p.m.

2007

February

Presidental Lecture by Camilla Townsend (Rutgers University) on "Pocahontas as Broker: Risks and Rewards for Native Women at Contact"
-Thursday, February 8, 2007 at 8pm, Mills Godwin 102

Lecture by Dr. Lauranett Lee (curator of African American history, Virginia Historical Society) on Jamestown and the African American experience.  Sponsored by Phi Alpha Theta.
- Friday February 23, 2007 at 7pm, Webb Center.

March

"Very Virginia Beach Distinguished Lecture" by Peter Stewart (professor emeritus, Old Dominion University) on "Forgotten Facts and Hidden History of Virginia Beach, Virginia"
-Monday, March 19, 2007 at the Virginia Beach Higher Education Center

April

Maritime history lecture by Zoltán Biedermann (PhD Paris/Lisbon, currently Getty Fellow at Clark Library, UCLA) on "How an Ocean Shaped an Empire: The Indian Ocean and the Portuguese Networks in Asia during the Early Modern Period." Sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Arts and Letters.
- Thursday April 12, 2007 at 12:30pm, BAL 9024.

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