Past Events
PAST EVENTS are
Be sure and have a look at our MULTIMEDIA section for interviews with guest speakers (from the CCHS YouTube channel), as well as a video archive with films of past lectures and panel discussions
2023-2024
In 2023-24 the Center organized its first faculty CONFERENCE on "The Stories in Our Histories: Historians Confront Themselves” (convened by Prof. Leslie HARRIS)—May 9-10, 2024 in Harris Hall 108 (Leopold Room), 1881 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL. See program here.
- Thursday, May 9 at 5 p.m. Conference keynote conversation
- Friday, May 10—all-day conference
CCHS Graduate Conferences
The T.H. Breen Graduate Fellows of the Center have organized one or two one-day conferences bringing together panels of graduate student papers with an eminent keynote speaker from outside NU and faculty commentators to discuss important topics in history. These workshops are free and open to the public.
2022-2023
“Commercial Networks: Connections, Conflicts, Exchanges”
conference convened by Claire ARNOLD—Friday, June 2, 2023.
Keynote speaker: Professor Sarah PEARSALL (Johns Hopkins U), author of the award-winning Atlantic Families: Lives and Letters in the Later Eighteenth Century (2008) and Polygamy: An Early American History (2019). External commentator: Professor Peter THILLY (U of Mississippi), a historian of China and the opium trade.
2021-2022
- “Global Perspectives on the Prison and Systems of Punishment ” with Prof. Clare ANDERSON (U of Leicester, UK) as keynote speaker, convened by Chernoh BAH—Friday, April 8, 2022
- “When They Became Pests: Human and Nonhuman Species as Vermin in History” with Prof. Susan JONES (University of Minnesota) as keynote speaker, convened by Guangshuo YANG—Friday, April 29, 2022.
2020-2021 conferences (via Zoom) in Spring 2021
- "History of the Self"—Friday, April 16, convened by T.H. Breen Graduate Fellow Ruby DAILY
- "The End of the World as They Knew It: Crisis and Collapse in History"—Friday, May 14, convened by T.H. Breen Graduate Fellow Sian OLSON DOWIS
2019-2020 Conferences: cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic
- “The Politics of Progress: Growth in and throughout History”—convened by T.H. Breen Graduate Fellow Sean HARVEY—Friday, May 1, 2020 with keynote speaker Lily GEISMER (Claremont McKenna College)
- “All in a Day’s Work: Labor in History”—convened by T.H. Breen Graduate Fellow Laura McCOY—Friday, May 22, 2020 with keynote speaker April HAYNES (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
RECENT PAST EVENTS
2020-21
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic 2020-21 events took place online via Zoom.
The CCHS co-sponsored History Department Zoom events for Northwestern historians and the Northwestern community under the rubric Historians at Home or H@H. See Co-sponsorships.
Events are RECORDED and can be viewed on YouTube on our MULTIMEDIA page.
winter 2021
Samuel MOYN (Yale University), author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (2018)—Thursday, Feb. 25 lunch lecture from 12:30 to 2 p.m.—with Daniel Immerwahr, on "The Coming of Humane War."
See also Historians @ Home events.
spring 2021
Sophia ROSENFELD (University of Pennsylvania), author of Democracy and Truth: A Short History (2019)—Thursday, April 29 from 12:30 to 2 p.m.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two FRIDAY all-day graduate conferences (via ZOOM):
APRIL 16—"History of the Self" convened by T.H. Breen Graduate Fellow RUBY DAILY, with keynote speaker Professor Judith COFFIN (University of Texas-Austin), author of Sex, Love, and Letters: Writing Simone de Beauvoir, 1949-1972 (2020)
MAY 14— “The End of the World as They Knew It: Crisis and Collapse in History” convened by T.H. Breen Graduate Fellow SIAN OLSON DOWIS, with keynote speaker Professor Kate BROWN (MIT), author of Manual for Survival: An Environmental History of the Chernobyl Disaster (2019).
For more information, see Conferences.
FaLL 2020
Lara PUTNAM (U of Pittsburgh), author of Radical Moves: Caribbean Migrants and the Politics of Race in the Jazz Age (2013)
- Thursday, October 1 from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.—Roundtable with NU historians Lina BRITTO, Paul GILLINGHAM, and Lauren STOKES, as well as special guest Bernard REILLY (former President of the Center for Research Libraries): “History in a Digital Age: Why Our Ethical and Evidentiary Paradigms Need to be Rebuilt, Fast”
Reading: Lara Putnam, “The Transnational and the Text-Searchable: Digitized Sources and the Shadows They Cast” https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/121/2/377/2581842
- Friday, October 2 from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.—A conversation with Peter SLEVIN (Medill School of Journalism): “From the Women’s March to Black Lives Matter: Citizen Activism and the 2020 Campaign
Co-sponsored by the Medill School of Journalism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James MILLWARD (Georgetown University), author of The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction (2013)
- Thursday, October 22 from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.—roundtable with Northwestern historians Melissa MACAULEY and Haydon CHERRY: "China as Polylith: It's Time for a New Paradigm in Chinese History"
For reading and to receive Zoom invitation, please e-mail chs@northwestern.edu
- Friday, Oct. 23 from 1 p.m.to 2:30 p.m.—a conversation with Peter CARROLL (History) and William HURST (Political Science) on the crisis in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
To register for the event, go to http://planitpurple.northwestern.edu/event/56807
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In collaboration with the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern (HEFNU)
Erin McGLOTHLIN (Washington University, St. Louis), author of Second-Generation Holocaust Literature: Legacies of Survival and Perpetration (2006) and the forthcoming The Mind of the Holocaust Perpetrator in Fiction and Nonfiction (2021)
- Thursday, November 19 at 1 p.m.—a talk on "Claude Lanzmann's Shoah and Its Outtakes: The Ethics of Perpetrator Representation"
To register for the event, go to http://planitpurple.northwestern.edu/event/568083
SPRING 2020: events cancelled due to conronavirus pandemic
- Maureen HEALEY (Lewis and Clark College), author of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (2004)—Tuesday, April 7—lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)
- Ira KATZNELSON (Columbia U), author of Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time (2013)—Tuesday, April 28—lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)
- Graduate conference: “The Politics of Progress: Growth in and throughout History” (convened by Breen Fellow Sean Harvey) with keynote sepaker Lily Geismer (Claremont McKenna College),—Friday, May 1 (all day)
- Graduate conference: “All in a Day’s Work: Labor in History” (convened by Breen Fellow Laura McCoy) with keynote speaker April Haynes (U of Wisconsin, Madison)—Friday, May 22 (all day)
WINTER 2020
- Gray Boyce Memorial Lecture in Medieval History: Tamar HERZIG (Tel Aviv University), author of A Convert's Tale: Art, Crime, and Jewish Apostasy in Renaissance Italy (2019)—Thursday, February 6 at 4:30 p.m. (reception to follow), speaking on her book.
- Joint CCHS/CAAH Distinguished lecture on African American History: Ibram KENDI (American University), author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (2016) and How to be an Antiracist (2019)—Wednesday, February 26 lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.) in Hardin Hall in the Rebecca Crown Center, 633 Clark St., Evanston—note venue! Lecture on “How to Be An Antiracist”
- Joint CCHS/University Libraries Lecture on the History of the Book—with the collaboration of CNAIR (Center for Native American and Indigenous Research): Michael KELLY (Special Collections, Amherst College)—Tuesday, March 3 at 4:30 p.m. (reception to follow)—lecture on “The Materiality of Native American Literature: Decolonizing the History of the Book”
FALL 2019
- Marisa FUENTES (Rutgers U), author of Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive (2016)—Tuesday, October 15—lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.) on "Refuse Lives, Disposable Bodies: A History of the Human and the Transatlantic Slave Trade" and meeting with graduate students
- In collaboration with the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern (HEF): Dariusz STOLA (Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences), Director of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, author of Patterns of Migration in Central Europe (2001)—Tuesday, October 22 at 7 p.m. (reception to follow). Lecture on "Polin: Museum of Life / Holocaust Site"
- Ann FABIAN (Rutgers U), author of The Skull Collectors: Race, Science, and America’s Unburied Dead (2010) and editor of Race and Retail: Consumption across the Color Line (2015)—Tuesday, November 12—lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.) on “The Herpetologist and the Arctic Explorer: Science and Passion at the American Museum of Natural History”
SPRING 2019
- Joint CCHS/University Libraries Lecture on the History of the Book: Matthew KIRSCHENBAUM (U of Maryland), author of Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing (2016) on Thursday, April 4 at 4:30 p.m.: "Codex Redux: The Post-Digital Book"
- Stephen KANTROWITZ (University of Wisconsin), author of More than Freedom: Fighting for Black Citizenship in a White Republic (2013) on Thursday, April 11—lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.): "A Ho-Chunk History of Citizenship"
- Graduate CONFERENCE on “Walls and Bridges: Migration and Its Histories” (convened by Breen Fellow Aram SARKISIAN) on Friday, April 12 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with keynote speaker: Erika LEE (University of Minnesota), author of The Making of Asian America: A History (2015)—keynote lecture on "A Nation of Xenophobia."
- Gray Boyce Memorial Lecture in Medieval History: Edward MUIR (NU), author of The Culture Wars of the Late Renaissance: Skeptics, Libertines, and Opera (2007) on Thursday, April 18 at 4:30 p.m.: "Could a Woman Be a Citizen in the Middle Ages?"
- Todd SHEPARD (Johns Hopkins U), author of The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France (2006), as well as Sex, France, and Arab Men, 1962-1979 (2017) on Thursday, May 2—lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.): “’Affirmative Action’ and the End of Empires: ‘Integration’ in France and Algeria and the Race Question in the Cold War World”
- Graduate CONFERENCE on “Back to the Future: Visions of Tomorrow in History” (convened by Breen Fellow Kevin BAKER) on Friday, May 3 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with keynote speaker: W. Patrick McCRAY (U of California, Santa Barbara), author of The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnology, and a Limitless Future (2013)—keynote lecture on “Memories of the Future: Past Visions of Limitless Tomorrows (And Their Relevance Today)”
WINTER 2019
- Carla NAPPI (U of Pittsburgh), author of The Monkey and the Inkpot: Natural History and its Transformations in Early Modern China (2009) on Tuesday, January 15–lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.): "Bodies in Translation: The Manchu Anatomy and Reading as Historical Practice"
-
Joint CCHS/CAAH Distinguished lecture on African American History: Daina Ramey BERRY (U of Texas at Austin), author of The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation (2016)—Wednesday, February 20 lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.): “‘I Was One of the Chosen Ones’: Slavery & The Valuation of Souls”
- For History Department faculty and grads: Book launch to celebrate History Department books recently published (2018-2019) in conjunction with the History Department reception for prospective graduate students—Friday, March 8—reception from 4 to 7 p.m., book presentations at 4:30 p.m.
FALL 2018
This year a major conference on "WRITING HISTORY THROUGH CHILDREN" (Oct. 5-6) kicked off our Fall Quarter events.
- Sandra GREENE (Cornell U), author of Slave Owners of West Africa: Decision Making in the Age of Abolition (2017) on Tuesday, October 9—lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.): “Uncommon Topics/Uncommon Engagements in 19th-Century African History”
- In collaboration with the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern (HEF): Deborah DWORK (Clark U), co-author of Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews 1933-1945 (2009) on Thursday, October 18 at 5 p.m.—lecture:“Saints and Liars: American Relief and Rescue Workers during the Nazi Era”
-
For History faculty and graduate students—faculty work-in-progress workshop: Geraldo CADAVA—Monday, October 29 (a light catered lunch at 12 noon, discussion at 12:30 p.m.) on "Naturalborn Republicans: The Untold History of Hispanic Conservatism"
-
- Daniel RODGERS (Princeton U), author of Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (1998) and Age of Fracture (2011) on Tuesday, November 13—lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.):—“As a City on a Hill: How an Unknown Text Became a Foundation Stone of American National Identity”
-
For History faculty and graduate students—faculty work-in-progress workshop: Peter CARROLL—Monday, November 19 (a light catered lunch at 12 noon, discussion at 12:30 p.m.)—'"Turning to Face the Shore': Buddhist Responses to Suicide during the Republican Period"
-
Spring 2018
For History faculty and graduate students—faculty work-in-progress workshop
Sean HANRETTA—topic tba—Monday, April 9 (catered light lunch at noon, discussion at 12:30 p.m.)
Joint CCHS/CAAH Distinguished lecture on African American History
Claude
- "Hope and Fury: Toward a History of African Americans during the Obama Years"
Gray Boyce Memorial Lecture in Medieval History (co-sponsored with the History Department)
Joel KAYE (Barnard College), author of A History of Balance, 1250-1375 (Chicago UP, 2014)—Thursday, April 19 at 4:30 p.m. (with
- "Reconceiving the World and Its Workings: The Impact of a New
Model of Balance on Medieval Thought, 1250-1350"
Graduate CONFERENCE on “Resistance in History: From Transgression to Transformation” (convened by Breen Fellow Bonnie ERNST)--Friday, April 20 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Keynote speaker: Paul ORTIZ (History, U of Florida), author of Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920 (2005) and the forthcoming An African American and Latinx History of the United States (January 2018)
- Keynote talk: "Talking Revolution Again: Political Struggles and Organizing in the Era of American Carnage"
Lynn THOMAS (University of Washington), author of Politics of the Womb: Women, Reproduction, and the State in Kenya (2003)—Tuesday, April 24—lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)
- "Consumer Culture and 'Black is Beautiful' in Apartheid South Africa and Early Postcolonial Kenya"
Prasenjit DUARA (Duke University), author of The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future (2015)—Tuesday, May 1—lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)
- “The Art of Convergent Comparison—China and India in Modern Times
”
Lina BRITTO—“Hurricane Marijuana: A New History of Colombia's First Drug Paradise”—Monday, May 7 (catered light lunch at noon, discussion at 12:30 p.m.)
Graduate CONFERENCE on “Generations in History: Youth, Age, and Metrics of Cultural Change” (convened by Breen Fellow Emily Curtis WALTERS)--Friday, May 11 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Keynote speaker: Sabine FRÜHSTÜCK (Anthropology, U of California Santa Barbara), author of Playing War: Children and the Paradoxes of Modern Militarism in Japan (2017)
Winter 2018
Anne HYDE (University of Oklahoma), author of Empires, Nations, and Families: A New History of the North American West, 1800-1860 (2011)—Thursday, January 11–lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)—"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Woman, Poor Woman, Beggar Man, Thief”: The Fortunes of Half-Breed Life in the U.S. West”
Joint CCHS/University Library Lecture on the History of the Book:
Janice RADWAY (NU), author of A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle Class Desire (1999)—Thursday, February 22 at 4:30 p.m. (lecture with reception to follow)—“Girl Zines, the 1990s, and the Challenge of Historical Narration”
Special event: "Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War: A Discussion with Two Historians and a Filmmaker"--Michael J. ALLEN (NU History), Mark Philip BRADLEY (U of Chicago History) and Kyle HENRY (NU Radio/TV/Film) discuss the PBS documentary--Tuesday, February 27 at 4:30 p.m. with reception to follow
Special event co-sponsored with the History Department and the Kaplan Institute for the Humanities
Nancy MACLEAN (Duke University), speaking on the subject of her new book—Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (2017)—Wednesday, September 27 at 4:30 p.m.
Lynn HUNT (UCLA), author of Writing History in the Global Era (2014)
Tuesday, October 10, 2017--lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)—“Tea, Women, and the 18th-C.
Scott SOWERBY—“The Confessional State and the Fiscal-Military State in Early Modern Europe”—Monday, October 16 (catered light lunch at noon, discussion at 12:30 p.m.)
In collaboration with the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern (HEF)
Jan GRABOWSKI (University of Ottawa), author of Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland (2014)—Monday, October 23 at 5 p.m. (with reception to follow)—“Polish ‘Blue’ Police & the Extermination of Polish Jews, 1939-1945”
Jane KAMENSKY (Harvard University), author of A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley (2016)
Thursday, November 9—lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)—“The Republic of Letters and the Empire of Pictures: John Singleton Copley and the Problem of Provincialism
Sarah MAZA—"The Kids Aren't All Right: Historians and the Problem of Childhood"—Monday, November 20 (catered light lunch at noon, discussion at 12:30 p.m.)
Fall 2016
In collaboration with the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern (HEF)
Paul JASKOT (DePaul University), author of The Nazi Perpetrator: Postwar German Art and the Politics of the Right (2012)
Tuesday, September 27--lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)
“A Plan, A Testimony, and a Digital Map: Architecture and the Spaces of the Holocaust
History Faculty work-in-progress workshops convened by Daniel Immerwahr
Kate MASUR work-in-progress WORKSHOP—"Free Black Sailors, Personal Liberty, and the Antebellum Constitutional Order"
Monday, October 10 (catered light lunch at 12 noon, discussion of pre-circulated text at 12:30 p.m.)
Tara ZAHRA (U of Chicago), author of The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II (2011)
Tuesday, October 18–lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)
“The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World
Louis HYMAN (Cornell University), author of Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink (2011)
Thursday, October 20--lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)
"From Personal Credit to Market Debt: How Loans Became Commodities
Thursday, November 3–lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)
“ISIL and the Global Past: A Deep History of the Caliphate”
Winter 2017
"The Republic of Letters and the Empire of Pictures: John Singleton Copley and the Problem of Provincialism"
Thursday, January 12–lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)--rescheduled for November 9.
Joint CCHS/CAAH Distinguished lecture on African American History
David
"Writing the Life of Frederick Douglass--Why and Why Now? The Post Civil War Years"
Thursday, February 16 at 4:30 p.m. (lecture with
Joint CCHS/University Library Lecture on the History of the Book:
ERIC SLAUTER (U of Chicago), author of The State as a Work of Art: The Cultural Origins of the Constitution (2009)
"Walden's Carbon Footprint: People, Plants, Animals, and Machines in the Making of an American Classic"
Tuesday, February 21 at 4:30 p.m. (lecture with
Spring 2017
Anand YANG (University of Washington), author of Bazaar India: Markets, Society, and the Colonial State Bihar, 1765-1947 (1998)—Tuesday, April 4—lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)
“Empire of Convicts: Indian Bandwars in Indian Ocean Penal Colonies in the Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries"
For History faculty and graduate students—faculty work-in-progress workshop
Laura HEIN—“Post-Fascist Political Culture in Japan”
Monday, April 10 (catered light lunch at noon, discussion of pre-circulated text at 12:30 p.m.)
Graduate CONFERENCE: “THE POPULAR AND/IN HISTORY”
Friday, April 14 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (convened by Breen Fellow Mariah Hepworth)
Keynote speaker: T.J. Jackson Lears (Rutgers U), author of Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920 (2009)
Keynote lecture: "The Wild Card: Animal Spirits and the Calculating Self"
- Global Graduate Exchange: graduate students from Queen Mary University London and from Hong Kong University take part in this conference as part of the CCHS global
graduate exchanges .
The GRAY BOYCE Memorial lecture:
Brian CATLOS (University of Colorado), author of The Victors and the Vanquished: Christians and Muslims of Catalonia and Aragon, 1050-1300 (2004)—Wednesday, April 26 at 4:30 p.m.
“Foreigners in their Own Lands: The Muslims of Medieval Europe”
Cynthia RADDING (UNC), author of Landscapes of Power and Identity: Comparative Histories in the Sonoran Desert and the Forests of Amazonia from Colony to Republic (2005)—Thursday, May 11—lunch lecture (12:15 to 1:50 p.m.)—note change of date!
“Indigenous Landscapes and Contested Boundaries: Reading Nature into Colonial Archives”
- Global Graduate Exchange (for History graduate students): Hong Kong University History Department Spring Symposium, May 11
For History faculty
Michael ALLEN—“The Arrogance of Power”
Monday, May 15 (catered light lunch at noon, discussion of pre-circulated text at 12:30 p.m.)
Graduate CONFERENCE: “PUNISHMENT AND ITS DISCONTENTS”
Friday, May 19 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (convened by Breen Fellow Matthew June)
Keynote speaker: Heather Ann Thompson, author of Speaking Out: Activism and Protest in the 1960s and 1970s (2010)
Keynote lecture: "Blood in the Water: Attica and Prisoner Rights Past and Present."
There are no upcoming events at this time.