by Karin Wulf Over the life of the Omohundro Institute, the staff here in Williamsburg produced resources with the aim of helping scholars to navigate the early American field. Like the Carnegie Guides I discussed in a previous post, these inevitably reflected a contemporary understanding of “the field” as well as the communication capacity and… Read More »
Welcome to 2017, where the past is always urgent. There are times when the present and future seem like all we can handle, but to paraphrase Santayana repeating the past is not the real danger of neglecting history. It is that our understanding or misunderstanding of history is always, explicitly or implicitly, even when it’s… Read More »
Today’s post comes from Christopher Heaney, Assistant Professor, Penn State, 2016-2018 Barra Postdoctoral Fellow, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, and WMQ author (October). “Do we really need a ‘Peruvian Atlantic’ … ?” asked Reader B. For the sake of my argument, I couldn’t help but agree. The original subtitle of what became my essay in this… Read More »
Today, Karin Wulf kicks off a new feature on the Omohundro Institute’s Uncommon Sense blog. #vastEAsources will feature early American historians talking about the place of archival work in their own research and about the little-used or under-publicized archives they love. If you are working with an archive you would like to discuss with the wider… Read More »
Last month I wrote about the extraordinary range of subjects, chronologies and geographies encompassed in the field of early American scholarship. As the OI’s support for and investment in interdisciplinary work, and gatherings such as last year’s joint annual conference with the Society of Early Americanists suggest, we should add methods and theoretical approaches to… Read More »
Karin Wulf begins 2016 with a call to look at and look for #VastEarlyAmerica. Join in the search!
ICYMI, we direct your attention to Scholarly Kitchen Chef and OI Director Karin Wulf ’s reflection on Hamilton, the lyrics that ask one of the fundamental questions facing historians, and the real work of writing history in today’s Scholarly Kitchen.