Storm over Dumas, Hartley County, Texas, May 2021

Spoke at Extreme Weather and Inequality: A Day of Discussion, November 5, 2022

In my capacity as director of the Center for History and Culture at Lamar University, I enjoyed the privilege of working with Kate Williams and Abdul Alkalimat of Ancient to the Future in hosting Extreme Weather and Inequality: A Day of Discussion. Kate and Abdul organized, and the Center hosted this in-person and streaming conference that brought together community, labor, and business leaders together with scholars and scientists to discuss the impact of extreme weather on Southeast Texans. I spoke to the audience about the environmental fallacies portrayed in science fiction film and the historical lessons about addressing environmental problems. The Ancient to the Future website includes a recording of the streaming feed (here), including my talk "The Only World within Our Reach" at the 01:37.09 mark (here). 

Presented at the Western Literature Association Meeting, Santa Fe, October 21, 2022

Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico, October 2022

New Mexico is beautiful anytime of the year but especially so in October. I enjoyed presenting some of my current research at the Western Literature Association annual conference in Santa Fe and learning about many exciting new work in the literature and culture of the US and greater Wests. My paper, "The Clashing of Stones: The Ecogothic and Empire in Henry R. Schoolcraft's Transallegania (1820)," will likely serve as the basis of a sub-chapter in my current book project This Empire Grim. Schoolcraft is better know as one of the early practitioners of ethnography. He and his Ojibwe-Irish wife Jane Johnston collected, translated, and published indigenous oral traditions that influenced many writers of their time including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha" (1855). Although trained in the glass-making trade, Schoolcraft longed for literary fame, and  the epic poem Transallegania  was one of his earlier productions. In this narrative poem, the King of Metals, alarmed by “the migratory rage,” convened a congress of minerals in Missouri. The tumult of their deliberations—“Such horrors arose from the clashing of stones”—generated the New Madrid earthquakes (1811-1812). Schoolcraft created an unusual example of the ecogothic by portraying the trauma and torment suffered—and the wrath expressed—by minerals instead of the more common representations of monstrous fauna and flora. Schoolcraft as author and Transallegania as narrative, however, offer contradictory messages of subversion and disassociation at this cataclysmic intersection of empire, environment, and gothic storytelling.

Research at the Massachusetts Historical Society Library, August 1, 2022

Reading room at the Massachusetts Historical Society Library

I spent two productive weeks at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston as partial fulfillment of the Malcolm and Mildred Freiberg Fellowship. I will complete the fellowship remotely over the next several weeks. Thanks to Dr. Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai for the hospitality and to the entire staff for their professionalism. The research will contribute significantly to my book This Empire Grim by illuminating the connections and conversations between the authors and poets who expressed their shared anxieties about US empire through gothic storytelling. In the reading room, I worked under this banner that celebrated the work of William Lloyd Garrison and his newspaper The Liberator, an apt reminder that many of the authors and poets who questioned US expansionist policies were also ardent abolitionists.

The Center Hosts the Greater Gulf Symposium, April 19, 2022

Back standing L to R: Michael Bailey, Brendan Gillis, Jimmy Bryan, Jeff Forret, Rachel Stephens. Front L to R: Jane Plummer, Kayci Merritte, María Hammack.

Since announcing my appointment as director of the Center for History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast at Lamar University, I have been preoccupied with learning my new duties and have not posted any news. While keeping me busy, I have found rewarding this work with a wide range of scholars, students, and community leaders. A highlight of the Center's year was hosting the inaugural Greater Gulf Symposium at Lamar University. We enjoyed the opportunity to spend the day with five scholars and workshop their essays that investigated different aspects of slavery, abolition, and emancipation in our region. Thanks to Symposium Fellows Michael Bailey (Boston College), María Hammack (McNeil Center for Early American Studies), Kayci Merritte (Brown University), Jane Plummer (Texas Christian University), and Rachel Stephens (University of Alabama) for sharing their research and engaging in convivial and rigorous discussions with me, assistant director Brendan Gillis, and Lamar history professor Jeff Forret. The Symposium Fellows will revise their essays based on these workshop discussions and submit them for review in an upcoming volume of The Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record.