Upcoming

Conference on Families in Early American and Atlantic Worlds

Thursday, April 15 2027 at 09:00 AM
Hosted by the JCB.
Sign up now
Conference poster for the Conference on Families in Early American and Atlantic Worlds featuring an image of birds and an image of a nest in a tree as well as the JCB logo and text.

Co-chairs Julie Hardwick and Karin Wulf

This conference reflects generations of research and scholarship on women, gender, and families, and celebrates the fresh methods, questions, and sources that continue to demonstrate the centrality of these histories to understanding the early Americas and Atlantic including West Africa and Europe. A clear trajectory has been to explore the many ways that the diversity of women’s and family experiences illuminate traditional systems of cultural, economic, social, and political power, and show us entirely new ways of understanding the formation and impact of gender and power across many topics. We welcome papers that center family history in innovative ways to engage a wide range of topics: these might include, for example, environmental and affective dimensions of daily life, structures of law and spiritual practices, expansive experiences of gender, dynamic kinship and sexuality expressed in contexts of joy and violence, and the navigation of military and political formations amidst colonizing empires and old and new nations. 

We invite proposals for individual papers, full sessions, and roundtables, anticipating a day and a half of plenary sessions. We expect, and will design sessions and breaks to facilitate, engaged, intense exchange among audience and panelists throughout the conference. 

For us, working with many colleagues and students starting decades ago, this conference is an opportunity to highlight some of the ways that this expansive and energetic field and approach have reshaped early modern Atlantic and vast early American histories. 

Our previous iterations of this kind of collaborative convening resulted in publications in History Compass (2011) and a special issue of the William and Mary Quarterly (2013).  We expect a journal special issue will be one outcome of this conference as well.

We anticipate that the conference will provide accommodations in Providence (as well as a modest travel stipend for graduate students and independent scholars) for all participants on the program.

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS:  October 1, 2026.  Please send a short (max 2 page) cv, and a single page proposal for papers; for panels, title and abstract plus single paragraph for each paper. Please use this link.

REGISTRATION TO ATTEND: We welcome colleagues to join us in the audience and participate in these dialogues and will circulate a registration link when the program is finalized.