Abstracts

A1: Workshop Session, (Re)Claiming the Story: Shaping the Local Narrative through Ethnic Studies &
Youth Participatory Action Research (Creative Arts 112)

Kassandra Talbot, San Francisco State University

Youth voice, a potent tool in counter storytelling and Ethnic Studies, shapes the cultural compass for
the future. By directing YPAR (Youth Participatory Action Research) towards capturing local histories
across diverse dimensions, youth gain empowerment spanning race, gender, class, sexuality, disability,
and language. This workshop highlights Y.P.A.R. projects from 8th-grade students in a rural school in
unincorporated San Mateo County, predominantly Latine/x. Their journey into the community through
YPAR involves diverse methods like archival research, survey analysis, murder mysteries, and
interviews, revealing thought-provoking inquiries.

These projects delve into reflections on community membership, the power of youth research, critical
consciousness, and interrogating local issues. Presentations not only showcase findings but also
emphasize the profound impact on fostering community connection in our diverse rural space.
Complemented by access to supplemental resources, the workshop provides insights into
methodologies. It is an opportunity to explore the power of youth-driven research, promoting critical
awareness and emphasizing community engagement in addressing local challenges. The workshop
speaks to the collective strength of youth shaping, challenging and contributing to their community's
narrative.

A2: Panel Session, The Vietnam War in World History (HYBRID) (Creative Arts 154)

Chair: Marc Jason Gilbert, Hawai’i Pacific University

Any work in history can be made relevant in terms of both increasing our understanding of micro- and
macro-historical processes, and also contributing to classroom instruction and curriculum development.
This is especially true of this subject, “The Vietnam War in World History.” As the field of World History
came into its own in the 1980s and 1990s, a number of world historians, especially those with
backgrounds in Southeast Asian Studies, applied themselves to that task. Yet, this work is incomplete.
Too much research on the subject retains a singular focus on American experiences and policies.
Though school curricula in Vietnam does include a course on “Vietnam and the World," its scope favors
the former over the latter. Also, teaching resources often still address competing views on the war
perspectives to avoid falling victim to wartime apologetics.

The four contributors to this panel offer new ways to examine the war via world history approaches.
Bram Hubble offers the means to more effectively bring the global Vietnam War (The Second Indochina
War) into the world history survey. Trieu Huy Ha notes the existing obstacles to teaching the Vietnam
War in Vietnam and examines the means necessary to more fully bring this critical historical phase of
Vietnamese history into its classrooms.

“Goodbye Vietnam, Good morning Indochina: Teaching the Indochina Wars in World History in
American Classrooms”
Bram Hubbell, Liberating Narratives

It is still common to see "the Vietnam War" on syllabi and in textbooks. This label often means only the
American involvement in Vietnam from 1954 to 1975 with little attention to prior or subsequent events in
the region. This talk will focus on how to reframe the teaching of the Vietnam War as the Indochina

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 Wars in world history courses. Using textual and visual primary sources, we can help students view
these wars through the lenses of Decolonization, the Global Cold War, and the roles of women.

“Teaching the Vietnam War in Vietnamese Higher Education: Problems and Prospects”
Trieu Huy Ha, The University of Management and Technology, Ho Chi Minh City

This presentation deals with the current teaching-and-learning background of the Vietnam War teaching
in Vietnamese higher education. It proposes some recommendations to improve the quality of the
teaching in Vietnam. With some glaring illustrations of cases at public schools and private colleges,
along with an in-depth interview method and surveys, I argue that teaching this topic is highly
problematic in Vietnam. Undergraduate students with general education perceived the Vietnam War at
a superficial level, and this topic is designed in the Vietnamese Communist Party history courses or
propaganda and training programs of a school. Meanwhile, undergraduate students with professional
education mainly approached this topic without accepting a diversity of political viewpoints and cast the
war as a product of American imperialism. Besides, the position of anti-communism is disregarded, and
the role of the Republic of Vietnam is scarcely mentioned as an argumentative topic in most classes.
There are some causes to explain this situation. First, that probably originates from the firm political
guidance of the Vietnam Communist Party in Vietnamese education. Second, teachers' and student's
reticence resulting from fear of presenting a contrasting viewpoint to national history, which might lead
to trouble. Hence, this presentation proposes some essential suggestions to make a radical reform of
teaching the Vietnam War as a critical historical phase of Vietnamese history.

“Teachable Moments in the World History of Exceptionalism: Failures to Perceive Points of View by
Combatants from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan.”
Marc Jason Gilbert, Hawai’i Pacific University

A3: Roundtable Session, New Currents in Graduate Education (Creative Arts 135)

Chair: Eileen Luhr, California State University, Long Beach

This roundtable examines the pathways (or currents) that lead prospective students into graduate
programs, the curriculum that structures their requirements, and their post-degree trajectories. As case
studies we present options from three graduate history programs—CSULong Beach, which offers a
terminal MA, UCIrvine, which offers both an MA and a PhD, and UC Davis, also MA and PhD. All
programs have restructured curricular offerings to recruit candidates for graduate work, help candidates
diversify their career paths, and/or to improve their existing professional practice through alternative
capstone projects. At CSULB, a program that draws many secondary History/Social Science teachers,
History 605 (Research in History Teaching, Learning, and Cognition) provides a pathway to a capstone
project where MA students create a unit of study for classroom use; the course has also become
popular as an elective for candidates seeking jobs as community college instructors or in museum
work. Both UCI and UCD changed course offerings, adapted content in some courses, and developed
experiential learning in addition to teaching assistantships. The participants include MA and PhD
candidates who have taken the new courses who will surface their thinking about how coursework,
alternative capstone projects, or other opportunities broadened their approach to post-graduate
careers. The session asks how programs—through coursework or capstone projects—might
productively re-think the required elements of graduate work to suit student needs in a changing social,
economic, and higher education landscape.

Laura J. Mitchell, University of California, Irvine

Regan Cameron, California State University, Long Beach
Daniel Castaneda, University of California, Davis
Muhammad Rafi, University of California, Irvine

A4: Meet the Editors: The Cambridge World History of Sexualities

(Creative Arts146)

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Merry Wiesner-Hanks, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Mathew Kuefler, San Diego State University

The Cambridge World History of Sexualities, forthcoming in spring 2024, is a four-volume collection of
more than eighty chapters that examine sexualities across time and around the world at varying
geographic and chronological scales. The first volume offers historiographical surveys along with
general overviews of important topics. The second contains chapters on sexuality in systems of thought
and belief, from early humans to contemporary theory. The third includes chapters that target specific
locations at different times to more closely investigate the lived experience of individuals and groups.
The fourth examines the intersection of modernity and human sexuality on issues such as colonialism,
migration, and consumerism. Contributors include scholars from more than twenty countries worldwide
in a number of disciplines, representing the cross-disciplinary approach that characterizes the history of
sexuality as a field.

The collection aims to be a resource on how to globalize the history of sexuality and how to integrate
the history of sexuality into world history narratives. In this session, the editors will discuss their
conceptualization, describe the challenges that developed in the five-year life of the project, and reflect
on some of the common themes that emerged. We will invite chapter authors to join us, some of whom
often attend the WHA and may be at the San Francisco conference.

A5: Panel Session, Mobility and Migration in World History (Creative Arts 115)

Chair: Nicole Magie, The University of Olivet

“Labor Flows and Shipping Services: Migration from South India to Penang, c. 19th Century”
Sundara Vadlamudi, The American University of Sharjah

In 1786, the English East India Company (EIC) established a settlement in Penang, an island located in
the northern end of the Straits of Melaka. The Company acquired Penang from the Sultan of Kedah for
the twin purposes of serving as a naval base and for procuring goods for the Company’s trade with
China. Gradually, Penang emerged as a regional entrepôt to exchange goods. Migrants flocked to
Penang, chiefly from India, China, and the neighboring Malay states. Even after the establishment of
Singapore in 1819 and its meteoric rise as a trading hub in the Straits of Melaka, Penang remained an
important entrepôt and also served as a feeder port to Singapore. This paper examines the flow of
migrant labor and their role in providing shipping services in Penang. As an entrepôt, Penang’s port
handled a multitude of vessels that needed various types of services, such as loading/un-loading,
provisioning, and lighterage. The paper focuses on patterns of labor migration from South India to
Penang from the early nineteenth century and the roles of migrants as boatmen, lightermen, dock
handlers, and stevedores. By studying the nexus between migrant labor and shipping services in
Penang, this paper achieves two objectives. First, it highlights the importance of Penang as an
important transshipment hub in the northern Straits of Melaka. Second, the paper provides a new
understanding of the flow of laborers from South India and their role in Penang’s history, moving
beyond the often-studied participation of Indian migrants in maritime and retail trade.

“Immigration and Acculturation in Contemporary Germany”

Johann Reusch, University of Washington, Tacoma

This paper examines the broadly-cast conservative and right-wing criticism of immigration and refugee
accommodation policies that are opposed by social and political groups in contemporary Germany.
Whereas much of the discontent focuses on perceived threats to German culture and identity,
acculturation has already progressed and created a hybrid and syncretic culture that has, in fact,
become a new national identity. Evidence of cultural production against various migrant and refugee
backgrounds is examined to establish that the "new" national identity that has been shaped by
intercultural cohabitation, acculturation, and recent history. This, in fact, has realized a long-standing

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 German belief in cosmopolitanism and advanced a modern identity that is in keeping with Germany
global aspirations.

A6: Panel Session, History for the 21st Century: New Student-Centered Lessons for the Intro World
History Class (Creative Arts 152)

Chair: Brenna Miller, Washington State University

In 2021, the World History Association partnered with a faculty-led afford to support student-centered,
inquiry-driven, and active learning in introductory college history classrooms, called History for the 21st
Century (H/21). Under the leadership of Director Jesse Spohnholz and Associate Director at
Washington State University, in 2024 our third new batch of new 2-week teaching modules are coming
out. We have asked three of our new module authors – Eric Nelson, Sixiang Wang, and Devin Thomas
Leigh – to explain their module and its pedagogical goals (with an eye toward its backward design and
student-centered learning), and to discuss parts of the writing or production process that helped them
or the module (this is meant to be a collaborative faculty project, so we want to highlight the process as
well as the product). We thus aim for this panel to be an introduction to the H/21 project, but also to an
exciting way of providing cross-institutional support for one another to help students in all of our
introductory world history courses.

“A History of the World in Two Weeks”

Eric Nelson, Missouri State University

This paper introduces a new H21 module that challenges students to connect the dots between their
day-to-day lives and large scale developments in cosmic and human history. It focuses specifically on
the module’s primary source activities that are designed to develop skills in historical empathy by
encouraging students to explore how the lives of individuals from earlier periods of human history were
both similar to and different from their own. The paper also explores how a module that examines the
full sweep of cosmic and human history provides an opportunity for students to develop skills in
constructing historical narratives and how an instructor can use this module to help their students
create an historical grid on which students situate other H21 modules in their world history course.

“Negotiating the Imjin War: Simulating Early Modern East Asian Diplomacy”
Sixiang Wang, University of California, Los Angeles

The Imjin War (1592--1597), also known by a variety of names such as the Great East Asian War, was
a major, protracted conflict that involved directly, or indirectly, all the major powers in northeast Asia. It
began with an invasion of Chosŏn Korea (1392–1910) by the armies of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who had
recently unified Japan. The Japanese armies quickly overran Chosŏn's defenses and defeated the
Korean royal army, but a combination of stiff local Korean resistance and military aid from Ming China
(1368–1644) kept the Japanese at bay. The conflict ground to a stalemate by the spring of 1593. The
next few years saw Ming and Japan entering negotiations to end the war, while the Chosŏn court
worked hard to ensure that any peace settlement would ensure no Japanese troops remained on the
peninsula. The negotiations failed and a second period of hostilities broke out in 1597, which ended in a
Japanese defeat. This simulation invites students to take the roles of major diplomatic and political
actors during the negotiation period. The experience introduces students to concepts, institutions, and
practices in international relations as exercised by East Asian states in the early modern period (ca.
1300–1800). It also challenges students to experience the social and political dynamics that undergird
diplomatic activity in general and provides a broader context for international relations history in East
Asia.

“The Most Secret Weapons: Sex and Gender as Tools of Resistance to Settler Colonialism in Africa”
Devin Leigh, University of California, Berkeley

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 When students today think about anti-colonial resistance after WWII, and independence struggles in
Africa more specifically, they tend to think about movements led by great men like Nelson Mandela,
Jomo Kenyatta, and Kwame Nkrumah. However, women not only participated in these movements for
independence, but they performed essential roles that men could not perform due to colonial
assumptions about the intersection of race, sex, and gender. This presentation will examine the lives
and work of three such women who played foundational roles in their respective nations’ wars against
settler colonialism in the 1960s by understanding Western stereotypes about sex and gender and using
them to their advantage. Zohra Drif of Algeria, Wambui Waiyaki Otieno of Kenya, and Miriam Makeba of
South Africa performed Western assumptions of women as naïve, innocent, and sexualized to advance
their peoples’ struggles for independence. By understanding and performing Western notions of
femininity, these women were able to infiltrate colonial spaces undetected, smuggle arms and
information from the opposition, plan and stage attacks on enemy targets, and draw sympathetic
international attention to their cause. Their work was vital to advancing the war aims of their respective
anti-colonial movements, namely to force colonizing powers to reckon with the increasing financial,
psychological, reputational, and human costs required to maintain colonial rule. As subjects of historical
study today, women rebels like Drif, Otieno, and Makeba force us to rethink our understanding of
“soldiers” and the “front lines,” and to grapple with the unacknowledged ways that ideas about gender
have shaped the history of the modern world.

A7: Panel Session, Going Global in the First Millennium: Transmissions of Material Cultures and
Practices across Premodern Afro-Eurasia (Creative Arts 147)

Chair: Mark K. Gradoni, University of California, Irvine

In the northern steppes of Eurasia, a noble was buried with an Iranian silver vessel bestowed upon him
at the behest of the king of kings. In Sicily, animals from inland Africa were transferred between ships
before final journeys to arenas in the cities of the Roman Empire. And, in Xinjiang, fears of hostile
magic were assuaged with the invocation of the great dagger of Moses. This panel engages with some
of the linkages of material culture and cultural practices that connected the distant corners of
Afroeurasia during the first millennium of the common era. The three papers presented here focus on
connections, both tangible and intangible, that integrated the ancient world via networks of the
exchange of commodities as well as concepts. Our authors highlight these entanglements via evocative
case studies that demonstrate that, although differing in matters of scale and speed of communication,
globalization is by no means a modern phenomenon.

Engaging with currents in the study of the premodern world, the papers presented here employ
methodologies and analytic frameworks of world history to highlight the constitutive connections
attested to and preserved in archaeological finds, both material and textual. In turn, the global and local
interweave, mutually constituting one another across all three papers in a manner that shatters notions
that anything, from the bodies to the polities, was fundamentally parochial in the first millennium.

“King of Kings, Lord of the Seven Climes: Sasanian History as World History”
Mark K. Gradoni, University of California, Irvine

At its height, Sasanian Eranshahr, or “the empire of the Iranians,” stretched from the Euphrates in the
west to the Oxus or Amu Darya in the east. However, Iranian material culture far surpassed these
boundaries. From hanging crowns in Visigothic Spain to ceramics in the South China Sea to silverwork
in the steppe to torpedo jars across the Indian Ocean, Sasanian material culture stretched across
nearly the whole of Afroeurasia. In spite of this, studies of connectivity in Late Antiquity have privileged
the Roman world and its artistic production at the expense of the world beyond the shores of the
Mediterranean. This paper proposes the study of Sasanian Iran in Late Antiquity (third to eighth
centuries CE) through the analytical lens of World History and Eurasian Late Antiquity as a corrective to
the historical exceptionalism that long afflicted the study of the ancient world.
The ways in which Iranicists position the study of the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE) to both Late
Antiquity and World History have shifted dramatically over the past two decades. Earlier debates

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 contested whether Sasanian Iran could even be part of a “Late Antique” world history. Expanding upon
the work of Morony, Daryaee, and Rezakhani have argued forcefully for the inclusion of Sasanian Iran
in an increasingly global field of Late Antiquity. This paper builds upon that paradigm, as well as the
legacy of Hodgson, by recentering the Iranian expanse as the pivot of Afroeurasia.

“Symptoms of World History: The Suffering Body and the History of Global Knowledge Exchange”
Leighton Smith, University of California, Irvine

During the European Middle Ages, a difficult to quantify but not insignificant quantity of the spice
imported from Southeast Asia was sent not to the kitchen but to the apothecary, with the spices prized
as medical substances and even listed as key ingredients in cures for the famous Bubonic Plague.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Afro-Eurasia, the nebulous and mysterious harms of hostile sorcery
and other bodily ailments drove the scribes of Manichaean monasteries in modern-day Xinjiang to tap
into their familiarity with the unfamiliar, with invocations from Jewish magic and Buddhist yakṣa lists.
Similarly, the Manichaeans held that their founder Mani’s “Babylonian” proficiency in expelling demons
and fevers afforded him proximity to the rulers of the Sasanian Empire.

While the focus has fallen mainly on the exceptional mobility of these materia medica and magica in the
global Middle Ages and Late Antiquity, the presumed but forgotten common factor underlying these
moments is the suffering body. In this paper, I move past a concern with trade networks and
transmission to an interest in the demand for these unfamiliar things – be they spices or “Babylonian”
expertise or powerful incantations – through a focus on somatic pain as a dis-orientating, dis-lodging
force which makes space for the unfamiliar in shaking up the familiar. In this way, this paper expands
studies of the pre-modern globe beyond a study of trade and connection to a more sensitive attention to
the consumption of globalized goods and the subject who consumed them.

“Commerce, Spectacle, and Empire: Unveiling the Extent of Roman Animal Trade in Late Antiquity”
Melissa DePierro, University of California, Irvine

In the center of Sicily lies the late-antique Villa of Piazza Armerina, which boasts a grandiose visual
dedication to the Roman animal trade: the Great Hunt Mosaic. The mosaic is just one crucial example
of the sophisticated transport of animals carried out throughout the Roman Empire. This paper
intricately explores the expansive network of the Roman animal trade in Late Antiquity, utilizing
evidence from both Roman works of art and contemporary documents. The focus lies on unraveling the
symbiotic relationship between Roman society and the animal trade, elucidating the nuanced
processes involved in their acquisition, transportation, and utilization in spectacles. The stabilizing effect
of spectacles in times of strife fomented immense wealth and importance for those involved in the
animal trade

By examining the interconnected threads of commerce and spectacle, this research contributes to a
deeper understanding of Late Antique Roman life. The analysis underscores the integral role animals
play in addressing societal challenges. It reveals the adaptive strategies employed by the Romans
during crises, providing a unique perspective on the far-reaching impact of animal trade within the vast
expanse of the Roman Empire.

Incorporating insights from historical documents such as trade manifests and administrative records,
this study employs a multidisciplinary approach to illuminate the economic dimensions of Roman
animal commerce. By emphasizing the strategic role of animals during the gradual decline of the
Roman Empire in the third and fourth centuries CE, this paper showcases the extent of the empire’s
reliance on animals for public spectacles, serving as a means of diversion and fostering social cohesion
amid turbulent periods.

A8: Panel Session, Maritime Currents in World History [HYBRID] (Creative Arts 136)

Chair: David Neumann, Cal Poly Pomona

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 “Islamic and China Trans-Oceanic Maritime Trade on the West Coast of Sumatra”
Tori Nuariza Sutanto, Sultanate Institute*

This research investigates the intricate network of trans-oceanic maritime trade between the Islamic
world and China during the 7th to 10th centuries AD, focusing on the west coast of Sumatra. Situated
strategically at the confluence of the Malacca Straits and Sunda Straits, Sumatra played a pivotal role
as a nexus connecting the Indian Oceans, encompassing Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, to
the Far East and the Pacific region. Muslim seafarers dominated this trans-continental trade,
establishing a vast maritime network that facilitated the exchange of commercial cargo between the
Islamic world and China's Tang Dynasty. This study, employing an archaeological-historical approach,
centers on the Bongal site in Sumatra, where significant artifact assemblages have been unearthed.
The archaeological findings at the Bongal site reveal a complex array of artifacts, with a particular
emphasis on the prevalence of Early Islamic Coins (Umayyad-Abbasid) and Tang Dynasty Chinese
Coins (Kaiyuan Tongbao) from the 7th to 10th century. The abundance of these coins serves as a
tangible manifestation of the intense trans-oceanic maritime trade, supported by the discovery of
diverse cargo including pottery, ceramics, and glass. Radiocarbon dating and meticulous artifactual
analysis at the Bongal archeological site further confirm the existence of a prominent emporium
spanning from the 6th to the 10th century AD, attesting to its role as a global port hub for trans-oceanic
trade between the Islamic world and the Tang China Empire during the specified timeframe. This study
employs an archaeological-historical approach, combining artifactual identification with a
comprehensive literature review to enrich the analysis and interpretation of historical contexts of
archeological findings. It contributes a descriptive-analytical perspective, which aims to explain the
causal aspects and presenting historical evidence of early global maritime trade between the Islamic
world (Umayyad-Abbasid) and China's Tang Dynasty on the west coast of Sumatra from the 7th to 10th
century.

Abstract Keywords: (1) Islamic World and China, (2) Maritime Silk Roads, (3) Bongal Site, (4) Indian
Ocean World, (5) Trans-Oceanic Maritime Trade.

“The Wealth of Santa Marta: (Dis)Connected Peripheries and the Revitalization of the Spanish Empire
during the Late Eighteenth Century”
Ernesto Bassi, Cornell University

During the late eighteenth century, the province of Santa Marta, in the viceroyalty of New Granada,
was a triple periphery: it was a marginal province in a secondary viceroyalty of an empire in
decline. Its peripheral status, however, did not entail isolation. The province’s geographical location
allowed it access to commercial circuits that weaved together the early modern world. Access
begot knowledge; knowledge was key to making the case for Santa Marta’s wealth and its potential
contribution to the revitalization of the Spanish empire. What was Santa Marta’s wealth? Who knew
about this wealth? How did they acquire this knowledge? How did they endeavor to transmit this
knowledge? I focus on these questions to argue that Santa Marta, despite its peripheral status,
was connected enough to Atlantic and global circuits of trade and information for its promoters to
know what the province could offer to the world. Similarly, promoters of Santa Marta had access to
economic ideas circulating throughout the Atlantic, yet they did not have the power to use these
ideas to benefit Santa Marta. Amidst the spirit of imperial renovation that characterized the late
eighteenth century Spanish empire, these promoters also saw an opportunity to transform Santa
Marta into the prosperous province that they thought it could become. Looking out from Santa
Marta, thus, reveals the workings of an early modern globalization that allowed peripheral places to
be connected enough to access and produce useful knowledge, yet disconnected enough to turn
that knowledge into material prosperity.

“Natural Knowledge, Global Trade, and Translation: Mapping Asbestos Textiles in Eighteenth-Century
Japan”

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 Sijia Li, Stanford University

Withstanding the destructive power of fire, asbestos—a fibrous mineral substance—has been shrouded
in puzzles since ancient times. In East Asia, asbestos textiles have been known as fire-proof cloth (Ch.
huohuanbu; J. kakanpu 火浣布. It was believed that, whenever a piece of fire-proof cloth becomes
soiled, just throw it into the flames, and the fire will “cleanse” it and remove all the stains. Despite its
early emergence in textual sources, fire-proof cloth remained a rarity in Japan because of the lack of
raw materials and technical limitations. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, a monk cartographer
located the African land as its place of origin, followed by an encyclopedist who noted the method of
making forgeries. Such a passionate enthusiasm toward the wonderful cloth reached its climax in 1764
when the naturalist, Hiraga Gennai (1728–1779) announced his reinvention of fire-proof cloth with
indigenous materials. Gennai then commodified and published his discovery, celebrating his superiority
over the Chinese and Dutch contemporaries both in terms of natural knowledge and manufacturing
techniques. Under the support of the authorities, he further envisioned a larger market in China through
maritime trade, which, yet, called for a recalibration of his commodities according to the inherited
imagination of fire-proof cloth as tailorable for a garment. Tracing the trajectories of the wonderful cloth
in eighteenth-century Japan, this article reveals a more connected early modern world through the
tension between globalization and indigenization, tradition and innovation, and fancy and reality.

B1: Meet the Author Session, Ten Notable Women of Modern Latin America (Creative Arts 112)

Suzanne Litrel, Kennesaw State University

As co-author of Ten Notable Women of Colonial Latin America (2022) and Ten Notable Women of
Modern Latin America (2023), I will provide a brief discussion of how a biography-driven approach can
serve as a method for teaching world history. I’ll also highlight how the Notable Women books,
specifically Ten Notable Women of Modern Latin America, intentionally include teachable “moments”
and routes to understanding Latin America in World History.

To that end, this Meet the Author session will include strategies in teaching about Latin America in
World History through the lens of women’s experiences. Drawing from the books, this session will
include (but are not limited to) new interactive approaches to teaching about Black social mobility on
the Brazilian frontier; Peru’s guano boom-and-bust, forced migration of Chinese laborers, and the War
of the Pacific; populism, propaganda, and production in twentieth-century Latin America.

Participants will be provided with handouts and/or links to resources on Latin America in World History.

B2: Workshop Session, The Forgotten Currents of Jolo: A Workshop Examining the Demise of
Southeast Asia’s Capital of Commerce (Creative Arts 135)

Derek Dwight Anderson, Marin Academy Library

In the late 18th century, Jolo, the capital of the Sulu Sultanate, stood at the center of Southeast Asia’s
trade networks. It attracted British, Chinese, Dutch, Filipino, Javanese, and Malay merchants, who
traded in everything from bird nests to sea cucumbers, from spices to slaves. Much of the trade was
legal, but piracy also played an important role.

Using a collection of primary documents and statistics, workshop participants will seek to determine
why Jolo thrived and why it subsequently lost its commanding position as a commercial center,
eventually falling into obscurity.

The format for the hands-on session will include some brief orienting comments from the organizer,
time to read the documents and to discuss them in pairs, and time for the all participants to analyze the
findings collectively. We will conclude by discussing what Jolo’s experience means in the broader scope
of world history and look for historical parallels. All participants will leave the session with a

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 well-developed lesson plan and the materials to implement that lesson at either the high school and
college level.

B5: Panel Session, Transforming Environments in World History (HYBRID) (Creative Arts 154)

Chair: Cynthia Ross, Texas A&M University - Commerce

“Translating Theory: Bridging Disciplines in Environmental History”

Surabhi Baijal, Ambedkar University, Delhi*

This paper examines the evolving landscape of environmental history through the lens of
interdisciplinary theory appropriation, particularly from philosophy, ethics, literary, postcolonial, and
disability studies. The environmental historical narrative, traditionally driven by metaphors such as
'collapse,' is undergoing a paradigm shift towards concepts like 'care,' 'reworlding,' and 'ruination.'
These concepts, affective and speculative in nature, redefine how we perceive and engage with
historical narratives, moving away from strictly temporal or processual frameworks. One of the key
theoretical shifts discussed is the adoption of "The Plastic Turn" from literary and cultural studies
into environmental history. This concept exemplifies how materials like plastic, representative of
broader ecological and societal trends, can offer a fresh perspective on historical analysis. The
plastic turn's application in environmental history is not just a methodological innovation but a
philosophical reorientation, where the materiality of the past intersects with ethical and ecological
considerations of the present and future. The paper also addresses the challenges and potential
pitfalls of such interdisciplinary translations. While these new theoretical approaches offer valuable
insights, there is a risk of anachronism, misinterpretation, or oversimplification when applying
concepts across disciplines. The paper argues for a disciplined and nuanced approach to
integrating these theories into environmental history, ensuring that they enrich rather than distort
our understanding of the past. In conclusion, the paper underscores the importance of critical
engagement with these theoretical shifts, advocating for a balance between innovative thinking and
methodological rigor in the field of environmental history.

“Transformation and Re-use of Roman Baths in Late Antique Asia Minor”

Sara Champlin, Independent Scholar

In the second century A.D., there was a major wave of public bath constructions in all parts of the
Roman Empire. Many of the baths that were built during that wave continued to be maintained for
hundreds of years. This was especially true in the east, where many cities continued to flourish into
the 6th and 7th centuries A.D. Some of the baths that continued to be used for such long periods of
time – in some cases four or five hundred years – were transformed or used differently over time.

The transformations and late antique histories of Roman public baths have been overlooked in
scholarship until recently, due to the overwhelming majority of 19th and 20th century historians and
archaeologists characterizing the most visible signs of re-use – limekilns or secondary walls built to
divide rooms that were previously monumental in scale and decoration -- as evidence of social and
economic decline. Beginning in the 1970’s, more positive interpretations that emphasized
continuity, innovation, and resourcefulness emerged, and today there is generally more awareness
and effort to avoid value laden associations with re-use.

This paper, which is drawn from research that I conducted for my doctoral dissertation, argues that
there were many social and environmental factors that contributed to cities’ decisions about how to
maintain or repurpose their bath(s). Some of the factors include the rise of Christianity, military
attacks, disruptions in trade networks, people moving from cities to the countryside, and natural
disasters such as severe earthquakes, fires, floods, and outbreaks of plague.

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 “Impact of Natural Disasters on School Attendance: A Comparative Study from Colonial Jamaica”
Joel Huesler, University of Bern

This paper investigates the impact of hurricanes on school attendance in Jamaica from 1892 to
1942, a period marked by significant natural disasters, including four category two hurricanes and
a major earthquake. In this regard, the paper analyzes the effect of hurricanes on school
attendance by integrating monthly school attendance data from the fourteen Jamaican parishes
with an assessment of the potential destruction wrought by these storms. The average effect of a
category two hurricane was a 9.1% decrease in school attendance in the month of the hurricane,
followed by decreases of 8.6% and 7.2% in the following two months. Therefore, almost 400
children miss school for one month and more than 310 miss school for three months. Furthermore,
a mediation analysis reveals that these hurricanes also significantly impacted school performance,
with about 40% of the effect on performance being indirectly attributed to fluctuations in school
attendance. This paper highlights the lasting impact of hurricanes on educational outcomes,
especially in countries with agrarian economies and underdeveloped education systems.

“Making the Tianjin Harbor: The Coastal Environmental Transformation in Modern China”
Iris Wang, Winona State University

This paper investigates the impact of hurricanes on school attendance in Jamaica from 1892 to
1942, a period marked by significant natural disasters, including four category two hurricanes and
a major earthquake. In this regard, the paper analyzes the effect of hurricanes on school
attendance by integrating monthly school attendance data from the fourteen Jamaican parishes
with an assessment of the potential destruction wrought by these storms. The average effect of a
category two hurricane was a 9.1% decrease in school attendance in the month of the hurricane,
followed by decreases of 8.6% and 7.2% in the following two months. Therefore, almost 400
children miss school for one month and more than 310 miss school for three months. Furthermore,
a mediation analysis reveals that these hurricanes also significantly impacted school performance,
with about 40% of the effect on performance being indirectly attributed to fluctuations in school
attendance. This paper highlights the lasting impact of hurricanes on educational outcomes,
especially in countries with agrarian economies and underdeveloped education systems.

B6 Panel Session, Designing the Un-Survey: New Approaches to the Introductory World History
Syllabus (Creative Arts 115)

Chair: Steve Harris, San Francisco State University

Introductory world history courses purport to familiarize students with the events and trends of scores of
societies/polities/economies, comprising tens of billions of people over either 60,000 (World History
101) or 600 (World History 102) years. It is, of course, an impossible task. The embedded model
prioritizes breadth over depth, pays obeisance to the (pedagogic or state-mandated) gods of
“coverage,” and goes by the name: “survey.” In designing a course that runs less than 40 classroom
hours, instructors must be severely selective or, more likely, rely on textbook authors who have made
their own choices.

For instructors who believe that “surveys” don’t serve students well, the prospects of designing an
alternative are often daunting. Even the availability of self-contained teaching modules, projects,
games, and new media do not translate simply into a course that accommodates the instructor’s
pedagogical perspective, university or other coverage requirements, skills scaffolding, and some
degree of course coherence and continuity.

This panel will provide four specific examples of how instructors have wrestled with this problem. Each
will offer a detailed syllabus and describe their goals, process, and outcomes of their course design.
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 They will discuss the trade-offs they considered, issues of geographic and chronological “balance,”
whether to build a course around a theme, whether and how to connect modules, and coverage
compliance.

“Teaching World History as a Set of Debates”

Nicolas Proctor, Simpson College

This course presents world history as an introduction to key debates and moments of global history in
the modern era (ca. 1500-present) through immersive role-playing historical simulations. Themes and
topics covered each semester will vary, but may include the relationship between tradition and
modernity, the development of human rights, revolutions and social change, and the tensions between
national sovereignty and global community.

“A Skeptical and Guerilla Survey of World History Utilizing AI”

Trevor Getz, San Francisco State University

Early in 2024, a group of high school teachers and university faculty tried out a means of integrating AI
into enquiry-based teaching and learning in the world history survey. Our approach was based on three
principles: First, students can benefit from learning to engage potentially-useful AI tools ethically,
thoughtfully, and effectively. However, the hazardous and novel nature of the technology means that
they need mentorship and guardrails to do so Second, , teachers are the most important guides and
mentors to students in the development of these skills. Finally, one proven way to develop
competencies in complex situations is through a teacher-guided, classroom context and through a
project-based curriculum. This approach necessitates a disruption of the ‘coverage’ model of world
history teaching, but it turns out that it also offers opportunities to meld ‘coverage’ and ‘uncoverage’ in
ways that are student driven and offer opportunities for students to become contributors as well as
consumers of world history material. Still ,there are many dangers and challenges to the strategy, and
they deserve discussion.

“History for the 21st Century: Using Backwards Design and Inquiry Driven “Deep Dives” to Bridge the
Content/Skills Divide”
Brenna Miller, Washington State University

In introductory World History courses, among the most anxiety-producing fears of abandoning the
“coverage” model is that students will miss out on content considered fundamental to understanding
global history. While “deep dives” and active in-class learning provide opportunities for students to
practice and habituate skills of historical thought, the concern that these practices require time that
limits students’ exposure to broader meta-narratives often results in a familiar debate between whether
these courses should privilege “content” or “skills.” However, while the scope of “world history,” time
constraints, and the knowledge that this may be the last history class our students ever take often
creates a sense of urgency that sometimes leads us to see these two goals at cross points, using
backwards design to structure our classes around inquiry driven historical case-studies can in fact help
us place these objectives in harmony with one another. This presentation will examine an effort to
achieve this in one introductory World History course (HIST105: Roots of Contemporary Issues), taught
at Washington State University, using teaching modules developed by History for the 21st Century - a
collaborative project of the World History Association and faculty-led effort to develop open access,
expert-written, inquiry driven teaching modules for introductory World History courses. By selecting and
arranging modules chronologically as ‘lenses’ on history, the course aims to provide both overall
narrative structure, alongside space for students to see how historians really work and practice those
skills themselves.

“Reacting Games in Intro World History Courses”

John O’Keefe, Ohio University - Chillicothe

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 This paper will discuss the use of Reacting to the Past in the World History Survey, arguing for the
value of deep dives into specific periods, getting students to engage in deep learning. In particular, it
will make the case for using several shorter games to cause students to evaluate how at different times
in world history, different societies engaged in diplomacy, warfare, and negotiation. Weighing options in
Warring States China, ancient Athens, and between Dutch settlers and Khoe communities in Southern
Africa, this paper will emphasize the lasting effects of Reacting Games, and their ability to cause
students to reflect critically on their own assumptions, while re-evaluating the sources and issues they
come across in non-game portions of the class. Furthermore, the paper will engage in critical
approaches to Reacting Games, highlighting the need for more games that center women’s
experiences in the emerging global south.

B7 Panel Session, Post-Colonial Currents in World History [HYBRID] (Creative Arts 152)

Chair: Shawna Herzog, Washington State University

“On Overcoming Colonialian -- a Dual Case Study”

Michael Walters, New Jersey City University

What makes people display their humanity by seeking freedom? The Irish, and abducted Africans and
some of their descendants in Saint Domingüe, both faced extreme colonialism. From the barbaric
oppression of French slaves on Saint Domingüe Haiti was born; twenty years after the Good Friday
Agreement ended The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Irish Peace Process faces its largest threat in
Brexit. The overt oppression faced by these two island populations link humanism to nationalism,
displaying how the most subjugated may rise against severe oppression.

“Women of Partition 1947: Aftermath Lives in Pakistan”

Rukhsana Iftikhar, University of the Punjab
Noreen Fatima, University of the Punjab*

Partition 1947, if one side provided salvation from prolonged colonial rule of India, other side it brought
mass level displacement. Beside male, females were the major sufferer of this forced migration of 1947.
A marginalized group which has been historically neglected by scholars. Countless maiden turned into
mother; bridal become widowed. Drawing on previously untapped and rich unpublished memoire,
including, Archival data, vernacular old newspapers, Assembly debates, declassified documents, this
paper considers the aftermath life of assaulted women. It explores the role of state, society and
charitable institutions in the aftermath lives of assaulted women. Moreover, it intends to analyze the
way women self-identity was targeted not only once but twice during recovery. In this way they had to
bear physical, mental, psychological and emotional torture too. It highlights, how respect of state
prioritized over female self-respect. Additionally, it explores the circumstances which they had to face
after abduction and their destiny took ironic turned. Further, this research answers the questions how
beside the state, male strata of society, charitable institutions took keen interest on humanitarian
ground for permanent shadow to assaulted ladies. Related with these philanthropic steps what sorts of
socio-economic security was grunted to destitute ladies. This article argues that acceptance ratio,
sympathy, consolation and cooperation for destitute women was larger in West Punjab as compared to
East Punjab. Furthermore, it articulates that early days compassionate laid the modern benevolence in
the early years of Pakistan.

“Imperial Traces in an Era of Ongoing Decolonization Movements: Stubborn Strands of World-Historical

DNA”
Andrew Wender, University of Victoria

Ongoing decolonization movements, fervent and contested across diverse worldwide settings of
politics, culture, and geography, imply that empire is an historical phenomenon capable of being
undone and progressed beyond, both normatively and chronologically. Alternatively, even contemporary
powers like Russia, China, Turkey, and Iran that might be perceived as unapologetically championing

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 the reclamation of empire (their own, at any rate) suggest a stop-and-start temporality whereby empire
had been stanched or extinguished, and can now be revivified. Moreover, there is the case of
assiduously self-denying, if persisting empires like the United States. And as is exemplified in the
Israeli-Palestinian tragedy, former imperial holdings are all too often sites for ethno-nationalist
bloodletting, infused with ideological and religious zeal, in scenarios that are variously assessed as
struggles embroiling the extension of, and resistance to neo-colonialism. Amidst this global
environment of imperial traces that some seek to eradicate, and others aim to rebuild, might empire
instead be stubbornly present in strands of world-historical DNA that, whatever one’s normative
posture, are not so readily subject to temporal negations like “de-” and “post-”, nor resurrections like
“neo-”? As Thomas Barfield argues in Shadow Empires: An Alternative Imperial History (Princeton
University Press, 2023), “the DNA of [imperial] origins” remains within today’s forms of power and world
order. What interpretive as well as pragmatic challenges does such a potential historical reality pose for
decolonizing aspirants in pursuit of justice, as well as those who might be nostalgic for empire as an
imagined source of order, if not glory?

B8 Panel Session, Activism and Protest in World History (Creative Arts 147)

Chair: Vera Parham, American Military University

“Moral Vigilance and National Formation: Women’s Activism in Early Twentieth Century South Africa”
Corina Gonzalez-Stout, Northwest Vista College

Female associations and moral reform groups throughout South Africa emerged in the first two
decades of the twentieth century to combat government sanctioned prostitution, modern syphilis
prevention approaches, sexual traffic, and greater protection for women and girls. The female social
purity activists at the Cape actively coordinated and led many of these efforts (international social
‘currents’) through their global networks and close association with activists in Britain. Attitudes toward
the role of women in shaping national policy changed dramatically from 1902 to 1919. During this
period, powerful men in government went from dismissing women’s policy efforts and activism in
hygiene and public health at the start of the century, to requesting their participation in the making
South Africa’s first public health act in 1919. In the end, female moral reformers were often challengers
to state power, but also abettors in the government’s control of marginalized people. In order to
effectively analyze the global ‘currents’ inspiring female activism and moral vigilance efforts in the
making of South Africa’s first public health act, this paper integrates sources from three different
archives spanning two continents: The Western Cape Archives, the National Archives of South Africa,
and the Women’s Library at the London School of Economics.

“Four Leaders, One Cause: Seattle's Gang of Four and the Movement for Social Change”
Vera Parham, American Military University

Bernie Whitebear (Sin Aikst), Roberto Maestas, Bob Santos and Larry Gossett Jr., Seattle's Gang of
Four worked from the 1960s-1990s to illuminate the inequalities in Seattle's educational, political,
judicial, labor and cultural institutions. Through active protest, the leaders of these four marginalized
communities utilized collective action to apply pressure to Seattle and Washington State leaders for
successful change. Whitebear led the United Indians of All Tribes, Maestas led the El Centro de la
Raza, Gossett led the Black Student Division and Santos led the Asian Coalition for Equity. Working
together, their protests drew international attention through not just their headline grabbing tactics, but
for their unique coalition. These leaders parlayed their community and media success into political
power by working with city and state politicians who believed in social equality. In looking at the
coalition building, it is important to address the limitations placed upon those claiming a specific identity
in order to gain support for their community. These four leaders came from international immigrant
backgrounds, homelands that had been claimed and named by different colonial powers, and an
African diaspora created by the Atlantic slave trade. They may have represented specific entities, but
together they projected the complex interplay of identity and politics in the 20th century world. In

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 essence, the many currents of their lives, their experiences, and their histories connected with the
currents of social discontent and protest empowerment flowing in Seattle during their lives.

“Feminism in Anti-nuclear Movements: Nucliteracy in India”

Asako Moody, University of Hawaii at Manoa

By analyzing different responses to India’s 1998 nuclear tests, this paper argues that discussing and
historicizing nuclear security and proliferation in a less positivist way is crucial for its abolition. India’s
involvement in nuclear disarmament negotiations such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
contrasted by their nuclear testing in 1998 is an important event for contemporary anti-nuclear
discourses. This paper uses feminist criticisms of rationality to discuss how the fetishization of nuclear
security in already patriarchal institutions hinder nuclear disarmament campaigns and anti-nuclear
movements. Though there were only a few feminist-driven anti-nuclear movements in India, the All
India Democratic Women’s Association’s (AIDWA) engagement with issues such as domestic abuse,
militarism and economic globalization exemplifies women’s historical agencies. These issues discussed
by AIDWA within India in 1998 reveal linkages between national security, nuclear proliferation and
feminized violence that India’s nuclear tests grew from. Following feminist discursive methodologies,
the anti-nuclear discourse in India comprised of different political parties reveal issues of
exceptionalism, secularism and democracy to be explored as foundational understandings for
nation-building and national security. This paper argues that these political ideologies can inform other
institutions of international relations that often hinder the negotiation processes for nuclear
disarmament. With the guidance of feminist methodologies that prioritize the socio-economic harms of
nuclear proliferation, the discourses in India during its 1998 nuclear tests are important contributions for
future efforts for international nuclear disarmament.

“ACT UP New York: A New Approach to Global Health Activism”

Nicolas Demjan, University of Pittsburgh

This paper considers a pivotal moment in the history of 20th century global health activism through
an analysis of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP) in New York. The paper’s primary
focus is on the period from the group’s emergence in 1987 to 1992, when the group splintered into
ACT UP New York and the Treatment Action Group (TAG). The research emerged from my senior
thesis at the University of Pittsburgh, a larger project titled “The Preservation of Bodily Integrity:
ACT UP as Patient’s Rights Advocacy.” Even though much of this work centers around the New
York branch of the organization, it is impossible to sever ACT UP’s work from a national and global
perspective due to their significant demonstrations in other areas of the country and the
subsequent emergence of global ACT UP chapters, not to mention the global nature of the AIDS
crisis. ACT UP’s struggle is unique because the core of their mission required that they,
predominantly laypeople, become experts in the science of the disease. As a group intended to act
from the perspective of people who were living with HIV/AIDS (many of whom actually were), they
challenged the existing structure of patients’ rights: as people living with AIDS, they themselves
had to become their best advocates and take patient agency into their own hands. My work opens
the door to new approaches to considering the history of the nature of health activism world-wide.
The conference theme of “Currents” is especially relevant when examining ACT UP New York due
to the organization's role and influence in global AIDS activism and policies. In my paper, I
emphasize how the group challenged the scientific and medical establishment, and the global
implications of these challenges in light of the group’s influence over various international
HIV/AIDS-related conferences. This consideration of political activism from the late 20th century
US points to global questions of how social movements such as ACT UP spearheaded the effort in
ending the AIDS epidemic. It also can serve to highlight the global effects of AIDS stigma as a “gay
disease,” and how this exacerbated governmental negligence.

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 C1 Special Session, A Quick Immersion: The 1968-1969 San Francisco State College Student-led
Strike for a College of Ethnic Studies

Meredith Eliassen, San Francisco State University

Special Collections & Archives in the Special Collections Reading Room, LIB 460
*This room has limited capacity, please fill out this form to reserve your place ahead of time!

Walking tour to follow (around 2:15), beginning at the Special Collections Reading Room, LIB 460

This will be a hands-on session with primary documents and objects in the SFSU Library.
San Francisco State University was established in 1899 as a normal school for future teachers with
curriculum related to individualized instruction. As it transformed from a normal school to liberal arts
college located in the city’s Western Addition, it drew students from diverse communities. After
moving to its current location at Lake Merced campus in the southwest corner of the city in the 1950s,
San Francisco State College had a new state-of-the-art facility, but its diversity diminished. During the
1960s students increasingly demanded educational equity within the context of world social
movements. This session will look at ephemera from the 1968-1969 student-led strike in the SF State
Strike Collection in the University Archives to explore documents revealing point of view that are used
for teaching university history across curriculum. Participants can view an exhibit produced by a San
Francisco State University history student called “Gator Activism” tracing student activism back to the
1930s. The session will culminate with a walking tour of the Quad where protests occurred and
remember the Speaker’s Platform, the first college sanctioned free speech platform in the nation.

C2 Panel Session, Inequality, Justice, Hope, and the Currents of World History (Creative Arts 112)

Chair: Kerry Ward, Rice University

The three papers for this panel consider how scholars have reckoned with questions of inequality,
justice, and hope in the context of world history. Paul Kramer proposes the writing of “self-consciously
critical global histories” that move beyond historical narratives that privilege stories of connection or
“globalizing” without reckoning with the sources of global inequality. Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia
considers how historians should engage with contemporary debates over reparations, especially in the
context of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, slavery, and colonialism. Aims McGuinness addresses the
global history of municipal socialism and explores the relationship between Shelton Stromquist’s
conception of the “trans-local” and workers’ understandings of temporality, hope, and the future.

“Global History in an Unequal World”

Paul A. Kramer, Vanderbilt University

This paper presents a genealogy of global/transnational histories and argues for the interpretive,
political and ethical value of critical approaches centered on the historical production,
contestation and transformation of geopolitical and imperial inequalities, and the making of an
unequal world. It will discuss the intellectual currents that flowed into dominant, present-day
understandings of global/transnational history, and re-specify leading historiographic paradigms
(especially as reflected in Anglophone methodological and historiographic arguments) as
“connectionist”: as primarily concerned with the reconstruction, description and narration of
long-distance, cross-boundary and “global” connectivities, mobilities, linkages, circulations and
interactions.

But these have never been the only approaches to global or world histories, or histories that do
not presume national “containers.” There have long been self-consciously critical approaches
that, in different ways, and more and less successfully in specifically historiographic terms,

15
 embark less from the question of when and how the world became connected—when and how
our presumptively “globalized” world came into being—than from the question of how an
unequal, integrated world became unequal in the ways that it is. While these critical approaches
were in many ways interpretively powerful, they were also both flawed on their own, and
inconsistently in dialogue with each other. In conclusion, this paper will explore their relative
strengths and limitations, and what a forward-looking agenda for a self-consciously critical
global histories might look like, ones that are in dialogue with (but not organic to or derivative
of), our moment’s global justice politics.

“The Judgment of History: World History and the Reparation Debates”

Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia, Montclair State University

The rise and fall of colonial empires and two world wars resulted in great
turmoil and violence during the first half of the twentieth century. Conflict
between different societies was not new to this era, what was new,
however, were the attempts to create legal systems by which a
“community of nations” could hold individuals, states, and non-state
actors accountable for committing acts of violence. These mechanisms
were, at first, focused on investigating and judging relatively recent events
such as the Holocaust and other acts of genocide committed in the recent
past. But increasingly, we have also seen a growing debate as to whether
“the judgement of history” is no longer sufficient to to hold states and non-
state actors responsible for their participation in historical processes such
as the trans-Atlantic slave trade, slavery and colonialism; and, more
specifically, whether the descendants of former victims are owed
reparations for the harm endured by their ancestors.

The role of historians as “judges” of past evils could be seen either as a

tried cliche, or a serious philosophical question; in both cases, an
academic and inconsequential exercise. This paper will argue that recent
debates on reparations require that historians in general, and World
Historians in particular, examine the role that historiography could or
should play in informing these debates, and, the extent to which questions
about reparations should influence historical scholarship.

“Currents and Eddies: Global Narratives of Municipal Socialism”

Aims McGuinness, University of California, Santa Cruz

In Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers' Fight for Municipal Socialism (Verso, 2023), Shelton
Stromquist explains how socialists in disparate cities on different continents invented a new form of
“trans-local” politics that empowered workers and challenged urban elites in the period between roughly
1890 and 1930. Part of what united municipal socialist politics across space in this period was a
teleological and fundamentally optimistic vision of history, one that assumed or at least hoped that
history was moving toward a more just future, that would be better for workers and humanity in general.
But what happens to socialist politics when hopes for a better world wane?

The paper examines how this question was confronted by Frank P. Zeidler (1912-2006), the third of the
three socialist mayors who governed Milwaukee in the period between 1910 and 1960. When first
elected as mayor in 1948, Zeidler sought to give a new birth to the principles and practices of his
municipal socialist predecessors. By Zeidler’s own account, however, these efforts to renew socialist
politics in Milwaukee and the United States were largely a failure. Although Zeidler won re-election in
1952 and 1956, Zeidler became increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for socialism and
humanity as a whole, and he declined to run for a fourth term. Yet his pessimism, Zeidler continued to
be a prominent and inspiring activist in socialist, environmentalist, labor, and internationalist politics until
his death in 2006. What can we learn from Zeidler’s socialist life about the possibility of a trans-local

16
 socialist politics based on some premise other than hope or the expectation that a better future awaits
the world?

C3 Roundtable Session, Contemporary Currents of Research in History Education: Combining

Historical Thinking and Culturally Responsive & Sustaining Pedagogies (Creative Arts 135)

Chair: Tim Keirn, California State University, Long Beach

This roundtable examines how a graduate-level history pedagogy class altered both student thinking
and classroom practices by addressing contemporary “currents” of research in history education to
meld the now-established focus on historical thinking with the recent attentiveness to culturally
responsive pedagogic practices in the scholarship of teaching and learning. The session includes two
instructors of a graduate pedagogy class as well as students who used the class to generate new
classroom material. It has multiple implications for WHA audiences: first, it demonstrates the value of
graduate-level history pedagogy courses by arguing that such techniques reinforce both substantive
and strategic thinking that remain hidden even in MA-level coursework; second, it shows how such a
course weds historical thinking concepts to culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies; and third,
it offers examples of the impact of such a class on teaching methods of both secondary teachers and
introductory-level college courses by reviewing specific ways that the course helped both secondary
and aspiring post-secondary instructors create inquiry-based units of study that embedded alternative
and global perspectives as well as historical thinking in culturally responsive ways. Finally, the panel
questions how graduate programs might continue to engage in-service teachers while also preparing
aspiring educators, whether at the secondary or post-secondary level.

Eileen Luhr, California State University, Long Beach

Julie Haltom, California State University, Long Beach
Kaden Matheson, California State University, Long Beach
Sage Larson, Fremont High School

C4 Innovative Session, Introducing Sourcery -- Redefining Remote Research (Creative Arts 154)

Amanda Breeden, Greenhouse Studios, University of Connecticut

The needs of archivists and researchers have never changed as quickly as they have in the past three
years: travel restrictions, financial pressures, health and safety concerns, and more have shifted how
we navigate both the physical and digital spaces of reference and research. These changes have
highlighted the need for improved digital infrastructure, not only for the duration of the pandemic but
also afterward, especially for people who rely on digital infrastructure such as those with disabilities or
without the means to travel. Meeting the growing demand among remote patrons for reference scans of
archival documents is one area in which this situation is especially acute. Sourcery is a mobile
application that aims to supply a better way for researchers to request reference scans and archivists a
better way to fulfill them. Sourcery provides archivists with a streamlined reference scanning workflow,
payment processing services, and rich usage analytics. It provides researchers with a single interface
for placing document requests across multiple remote repositories. Project lead Amanda Breeden will
give an overview of the app and lead a conversation as to how Sourcery can become a dynamic tool for
both researchers and repositories, and how it may be better tailored to the needs of institutions in the
future.

C5 Panel Session, Representations of Style in World History (Creative Arts 146)

Chair: Morgan Lemmer-Webber, World History Association

“Behind Unchanging Styles: Women’s Clothing and the Transformation of the Southwest in Late
Imperial China”
Yue Meng, Sichuan University/University of Wisconsin - Madison

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 As dressmakers, breadwinners, and occasionally tribal leaders, the majority of indigenous women in
the southwestern regions of late-imperial China were deprived of social recognition and personal
expression against continuous Confucian civilizing projects by successive courts. The repeated records
by male writers on their strange and static dressing styles suggests a lack of a clothing system to
recognize women’s roles and achievements, rather than a mere absence of fashion. Despite the
fashion-less rhetoric, there are still images and textual clues about innovative designs, delicate
craftsmanship, and partial conformity to the dressing norms of mainstream culture overtime among
those women. The struggles, tastes and coping tactics of indigenous women in the Southwest shows
how underprivileged people responded and even adapted, in terms of clothing, to an overwhelming
social transformation.

“Fashioning an Empire of Enlightenment: European Women’s Dress in the Age of Revolution,

1789-1815”
Rhiannon Hein, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

In 1800, a fashion correspondent for the Weimar-based Journal of Luxury and Fashion reported that the
turban à la Caravan was now in vogue amongst Parisian ladies. In the wake of Napoleon’s expedition in
Egypt, the currents of fashion had brought the Near East to European doorsteps. When French (and
following them, English and German) women paired these stylized accessories alongside the popular à
la grecque gown, they brought into symbiosis two seemingly opposed political principles at the turn of
the century: Enlightenment notions of universal freedom and agency inspired by Greco-Roman
antiquities on the one hand, and imperial imaginaries evidenced in hieroglyphic rings, turbans, and
Mameluke robes on the other.

In the following paper, I chart the movement and mutation of the à la grecque and à la Mameluke styles
from their origins in contemporary Egypt and the ancient Mediterranean to their reinterpretation upon
revolutionary European women’s bodies. Analyzing these styles' emergence, form, and resonance in
enlightened cosmopolitan culture sheds light not only on the role that women played in directing
discourses of sovereignty and self-actualization through the à la grecque gown, nor how they generated
support for European imperial expansion through the adoption of the à la Mameluke accessories. My
presentation also, and perhaps more importantly, demonstrates how foreign material cultures,
transfigured by their passage over time and space, became staging sites for Europeans to negotiate
conflicting ideals of Enlightenment emancipation and global dominance upon the world stage.

C6 Panel Session, Gendering Atlantic World History: Correcting the Thefts of the Past
(Creative Arts 115)

Chair: Candice Goucher, Washington State University

Discussant: Alan Karras, University of California, Berkeley

This panel asserts that the practice of making gender an essential part of historical analysis can
transform our understanding of world history. In particular, the three papers will examine the political,
technological, and sociocultural history of the Atlantic world from a gendered perspective. We look at
three centuries and three specific case studies.

Historian Suzanne Litrel explores the 17th-century Brazil, where race and gender collide in the creation
of a political elite that employs the power of daughters to overcome racial bias. The project is part of a
larger body of work on women’s contributions to Latin American history and her next book Negotiating
Dutch Brazil: Portuguese Atlantic Resistance and Renewal (University of New Mexico Press).

In the 1780s, African-derived metallurgical expertise was exploited at the site of John Reeder’s Foundry
in Morant Bay, Jamaica, excavated by Candice Goucher in the 1980s and 1990s. The invisibility of
women’s contributions to technology has been underscored by ignoring women’s labor and the furnace

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 and forge as female domains controlled by men. Candice Goucher uses archaeology, ethnohistory, and
archival sources to correct the historiography of this site within the global industrial revolution.

Historian Daniel Kotin uses music as a window on the intersection of gender and power from the
popular American folk music of Pete Seeger to the social commentaries of Trinidad’s calypsonian “Atilla
the Hun” in the 1950s and 60s. Kotin documents written correspondence recording Seeger’s borrowing
of the calypso, finding common political ground in their opposition to gender and racial inequalities.

“Henrique Dias and His Daughters: Black Social Mobility in the Seventeenth Century Portuguese
Atlantic World”
Suzanne Litrel, Kennesaw State University

In 1657, Henrique Dias, Governor and Commander of all Negroes and Creoles of Brazil, travelled to
Lisbon to claim his just rewards. He had long fought for Portugal in the Luso-Dutch challenge for Brazil
and the South Atlantic, first offering his military services in 1633. He and his men—they would come to
be known as the Henriques—helped stem and turn the tide of Dutch advance. In the twenty-one years
that followed, he and his regiment of mostly Black soldiers helped defeat the commercial-military Dutch
West India Company. For his efforts, Dias would earn multiple accolades, wide public praise.

Philip IV of Spain and Dom João IV of Portugal nominated Dias to coveted military orders of merit, but
these his “tainted blood”—that is, African descent—barred him from receiving. How then did an unlikely
soldier—perhaps a once-enslaved man on the run—earn enduring acclaim and honor? How did he and
other nonwhite men build fortunes and extend social status through their daughters?

This paper takes a gendered approach to Black social mobility in the Portuguese Atlantic world to
examine how Iberian inheritance law offered opportunity for marginalized men. The case of Dias and
his daughters highlights freedoms available to not only to women but also to Afro-descended freed men
in the Portuguese Atlantic world. By leveraging Portuguese law, tradition, and personal networks,
Henrique, his sons-in-law, and his daughters not only protected the legacy of the first Black
Commander of Brazil—but also their own position in the highest levels of privilege, power, and wealth.

“Gender and Technology: Black Metallurgists and the Global Industrial Revolution”
Candice Goucher, Washington State University

This paper explores the impact of African metallurgical expertise in the history of the global Industrial
Revolution. Recently, a theory was put forward that a key innovation was stolen from Jamaican
ironworkers at John Reeder’s Foundry, an eighteenth-century site that I identified and then excavated
between 1988 and 1996. My multiple publications on the history of the site have used archival sources,
oral histories, and archaeological analysis (published between 1990 and 2018) to emphasize the
importance of the African contributions.

I argue that the evidence does not prove this specific theft by the Englishman Henry Cort nor does it
support that innovations using grooved rollers or puddling (technologies associated with Cort’s patent)
were developed by Africans or any metallurgists in Jamaica. The foundry remained the domain of
British metallurgists, who were brought to Jamaica to train enslaved workers. There is evidence to
suggest the significance of both African expertise and the invisibility of women’s contributions to the
conceptualization and support of African industry. Female furnaces fed by women’s labor and “mothers”
of the forge persisted across the African diaspora.

The story of theft and African technology did not end in the 1780s. Excavated materials housed by the
University of the West Indies were stolen from the campus storage office sometime before 2010. While
we may never know the full extent of information about John Reeder’s foundry site, it is possible to
appreciate the African contributions by using the wider lens of a gendered world historical approach to
its past.

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 “The Letters of Pete Seeger and Attila the Hun: Race, Gender, and Power in Trinidad Calypso and
American Folk Music”
Daniel Kotin, Washington State University

In 1956, the American folk musician and activist Pete Seeger sent a letter to the calypso musician and
Trinidadian politician Raymond Quevedo (sobriquet Atilla the Hun), thus initiating a correspondence
that would continue over the next several years until Quevedo’s death in 1962. Seeger was particularly
interested in learning the melody for Atilla’s song titled “Guardian Beauty Contest,” a scathing
commentary on race relations, especially views of Black women, in the British colony of Trinidad &
Tobago. The lyrics so resonated with Seeger that he used Atilla’s calypso as a protest song in the
emerging American Civil Rights Movement. My paper explores how the relationship between the two
musicians arose from a broader network of musical connections among artists living in New York. I
argue that their correspondence reveals shared concerns about deeply-rooted biases against Black
women in white-dominated societies in the U.S. and British West Indies.

Unlike in the infamous example of the Andrews Sisters stealing the calypsonian Lord Invader’s “Rum
and Coca Cola” in 1945, Seeger’s use of Atilla’s song can be viewed as an example of borrowing, not
thievery. Seeger valued Atilla’s commentaries on race and gender inequalities because he saw them
reflected in his own country. Seeger also sought to elevate Atilla’s voice in the U.S. because he viewed
calypso as “people’s music” akin to American folk music and felt the ailing calypsonian was not being
adequately recognized for his long career as an advocate for self-determination for Black people living
under oppressive colonial regimes.

C7 Panel Session, New Currents in the History of Global War (Creative Arts 152)

Chair: Justin Simundson, United States Air Force Academy

“Nazi Orientalism and the 'Asiatic’ Race”

Christopher Shinn, Howard University

Nazi Orientalism took many forms—on the one hand, a way to distinguish Aryanism from racial foreign
and alien blood among Jews and Russians (“Jewish-Asiatic Bolshevism”) and, on the other hand, a
means to expand Aryanism into South and East Asia and beyond. Nazi Orientalist discourse drew at
times on Eastern and Oriental mysticism, looking to find the lost City of Atlantis in the mountain of Tibet
(the SS Ahnenerbe or Bureau of Ancestral Heritage), while other times, declaring racial kinship with
Imperial Japan, the so-called “Aryans of the East” (Karl Haushofer). This paper will address the concept
of Nazi Orientalism, arguing that “Asiatics” and “Asia” represented not marginal races or geography but
remained at the very core of some of the most conflicting, divisive, and contradictory discourses of
race, religion, and empire among the Nazi elite, involving Alfred Rosenberg, Heinrich Himmler, Hans J.
K. Günther, Joseph Goebbels, and Adolf Hitler. The paper further discusses Houston Stewart
Chamberlain and his influence on Nazi racial ideology. The word “Asiatic” was imprecise: it could be a
marker of race, people, region, and origin—of yellowness from East Asia; Mongols, and Mongoloid; the
darkness from the Near East; the Mediterranean and Orientalism in general; as well as a reference to
an entire mysterious “Eastern” continent. At the same time, its constant variability meant that it was
strategically useful and able to be deployed for cross purposes politically even as it pitted Himmler,
Rosenberg, Hitler, Goebbels, and Chamberlain against each other ideologically.

“Pearl Harbor Attack in Japanese Imagination (1941-1945)”

Masako Racel, Kennesaw State University

Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously called “Dec 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.” Japanese
media presented the day as the day of glorious victory. About three months later, The Imperial General
Headquarters of Japan recognized the special contributions made by nine deceased members of the
midget submarine unit. Known as the “Nine Warrior Gods,” their stories were told and retold through
newspapers, books, poems, and songs. In reality, nobody knew when, how, or if they died. What

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 everyone understood was that this special unit was on an extremely dangerous mission with little
possibility of coming back alive. My presentation will explore the ways the Japanese imagined the
events of Dec 7, 1941.

“World War and Population Issues: Women, Family Size, and Reproductive Rights, 1940-1945”
Kathleen Tobin, Purdue University

Notable research in birth control history has been conducted in recent years, particularly on the struggle
to legalize contraceptives in the early decades of the twentieth century and on matters of the birth
control pill and sexual revolution in the latter decades. Little has been done on the mid-century years,
however, and this is a dynamic period for women, childbearing, and pregnancy prevention. This story is
not simply one of women’s rights or women’s choice. It is shaped by the end of the Great Depression,
wartime tensions, and concerns of population replacement. This paper examines the circumstances of
this period as they relate to women and family size before what came to be known as the “baby boom”
– recent legalization of contraceptives, advancements in birth control instruction in U.S. medical
schools, transition of the American Birth Control League to the Planned Parenthood Federation of
America, social science research on the family and impact of family size, and population theories
related to economics and international conflict. This work lays the foundation for further research on the
late 1940s and 1950s.

“On the Treaty of Peace in San Francisco”

Theodore J. Drizis, Independent Scholar

It presents the background and the course of action of the conference of Treaty Peace with Japan
in 1951 in San Francisco.

C8 Workshop Session, What Is Generative AI and How Does It Affect World History (Creative Arts 147)

Jack Norton, Normandale Community College

Faculty across the K-16 history world struggle to understand how Generative AI works, what it can and
can not do, and how it will influence our classrooms and research. This workshop will help participants
understand, using plain language, the statistical and linguistic models behind Generative Ai, what Gen
Ai's limitations and capabilities are, and what impact Gen Ai has and may have on our classrooms and
research. Participants are encouraged to bring questions and examples of Ai usage from their home
campuses to discuss in our group. The learning outcome for the workshop is for participants to be able
to accurately define Ai, delineate what policies they wish to include in their courses, and demonstrate a
greater familiarity with the capabilities of the most popular generative Artificial Intelligence applications.

D1 Workshop Session, Use ChatGPT to Integrate Digital Humanities into the World History Classroom
(HYBRID) (Creative Arts 147)

Chair: Jack Norton, Normandale Community College

Shu Wan, University of Buffalo

Based on ChatGPT-themed pedagogical experiments in history courses at the University at Buffalo, this
workshop demonstrates how to use the innovative technology in integrating Digital Humanities (DH)
into the world history classroom.

When teaching the course “China and the World” in the summer of 2023, I assigned students to take
distant readings of China-related documents in The Foreign Relations of the United States series with
the aid of ChatGPT. The introduction of Word2vec and other popular Natural Language Processing
(NPL) algorithms generated by ChatGPT enables students without strong coding skills to analyze the

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 documents quantitatively. The advancement of Generative AI facilitates the integration of DH into
traditional world history classrooms.

The second half of this workshop will be an interactive and instructional section. It will give
hand-by-hand instructions on how to use ChatGPT in introducing DH into the world history classroom.

D2 Panel Session, Straight from the Source: Incorporating Student Perspectives in Teaching World
History (Creative Arts 112)

Chair: Amy Pozza, Saint Mary’s Hall High School

This panel engages with opportunities for educators to respond to changing cultural currents among an
increasingly diverse student population. The panelists will present their findings of various
methodologies for collecting and incorporating data on student perspectives into the lesson planning
process in world history courses at both the college and high school levels. Topics discussed will
include course design and structure, the use of smaller-scale Google Form surveys as well as lengthier
interviews to build cultural competency, and new possibilities for the adaptation of computer
programming and AI language tools in the student feedback process. Each of the papers considers a
different framework, discusses the results from data collection, analyzes the strengths and limitations of
the methodology, and ends with a discussion of potential challenges in responding to student needs in
lesson plan design.

“Creating Space for Student Voice in Teaching South Asian History”

Anne Hardgrove, University of Texas at San Antonio

This paper discusses teaching the history of the Indian subcontinent at the University of Texas at San
Antonio, a subject that learners reasonably have not been exposed to in K-12 education. I take special
steps in how I teach the material to help students' comfort levels and confidence to learn new content. I
have endeavored to produce classes that are of a high caliber of learning and incorporate some of the
proven best practices of teaching and learning. This paper discusses some of those approaches with a
focus on course structure and design in a way that allows students to adopt a growth mindset in a
welcoming, low-stakes environment that encourages student participation and builds student comfort
and confidence in learning world history topics.

“Building Cultural Competency Among World History Teachers Through Student Surveys”
Rusham Goyal, Saint Mary’s Hall High School

This paper began with an investigation into how South Asian students feel about the representation of
their culture and history in the 9th and 10th-grade world history survey course at a K-12 private school.
The methodology of the study employed three strategies: 1) short Google Form Surveys at various
stages of lesson implementation, 2) semi-structured lengthy interviews with a set of preliminary
questions, and 3) participant observation of group Harkness discussions followed by an informal
conversation. This paper will discuss the usefulness of each of these methods for generating helpful
feedback for teachers seeking to craft more culturally responsive lessons and build their own cultural
competency.

“An Exploration in Computer Modeling Using Student-generated Dictionaries”

Helen Trottmann, Saint Mary’s Hall High School

This paper will begin by presenting findings from computer modeling with the development of a code
that analyzed well-known world history textbooks for language that favored an imperialist narrative of
European colonization. It found a preponderance of language in support of England for the section on
British colonization of India and serves as a “proof of concept” that computational analysis can help
teachers and students alike identify the thematic dynamics that underlie textbooks. However, this basic
tool also draws attention to the necessity of more sophisticated tools and the need to make the existing

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 algorithm more robust via a deep dive into dictionary-making. Because learning is a collaborative act,
the paper discusses the result of using current classes to make the lexicon process collaborative, with
the hypothesis that a crowd-sourced effort will allow more detailed analysis and add “weight” to
individual words and phrases.

D3 Roundtable Session, A Festschrift Honoring Howard Spodek (HYBRID) (Creative Arts 154)

Chair: Marc Jason Gilbert, Hawai’i Pacific University

The World History Association is proud to announce a Festschrift panel to honor the remarkable
contributions of Howard Spodek, a distinguished figure in the study of Indian history, world history,
urban studies, and a tireless advocate for Indian studies in the United States will be held at the WHA
Annual Conference in San Francisco, California, June 27-29, 2024.

As a former professor at Temple University and the Shrenik Lalbhai Professor at Ahmedabad
University, Howard’s work, which stretched over five decades, has left an indelible mark on the
academic world, particularly in understanding Gujarat's socio-political dynamics and urban
development.

Howard’s engagement with Ahmedabad's history, his role in translating Indulal Yagnik's
autobiography, and his influence in shaping world history education through his textbook, The World’s
History, reflect his diverse scholarly interests and significant impact across the academy. His
dedication to mentoring scholars, both in the U.S. and India, and his contribution to the study of urban
violence and communal tensions in Ahmedabad: Shock City of the Twentieth-Century India (2011),
highlight his commitment to providing both local and global audiences with innovative and nuanced
scholarly research.

Pat Manning, University of Pittsburgh

Anand Yang, University of Washington
Friends and Colleagues of Howard Spodek

D4 Innovative Session, Meet the Editor: World History Connected (Creative Arts 135)

Cynthia Ross, Texas A&M University - Commerce

Attendees will be introduced to the new Editor of World History Connected. We will offer an introduction
to the journal and discuss publication requirements and opportunities.

D5 Panel Session, State Transformation and Revolution in World History [HYBRID] (Creative Arts 146)

Chair: Matthew Bell, Crystal Springs Uplands School

“The Monetization of Taizhou During the Song, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties”
Ke Zhao, University of California, Santa Cruz*

The democratic system in the contemporary world is often attributed to the overthrow of absolutist
monarchies or seen as a revival of ancient Greek traditions in the early modern Europe. In Chinese
historical narratives, democracy is commonly perceived as a Western import resulting from
19th-century global colonization. Nevertheless, recent research suggests that early modern
grassroots associations in Europe embraced democratic principles before they became
institutionalized as state regimes. This prompts the question: Could pre-modern grassroots
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 associations in the different societies have already cultivated rudimentary forms of democracy? A
comparative study between the confraternities of France and China's She (社) reveals that the
medieval grassroots associations, despite differing religious and cultural backgrounds, shared a
preference for fostering equality among members and establishing a "democratic" framework. This
democracy is particularly evident in the adoption of representative systems, annual elections for
leaders and councilors, and the overarching authority of general member meetings. Through these
"democratic" mechanisms, grassroots associations effectively engaged people of various profiles
into mutual assistance communities and mobilized non-governmental social resources. They
functioned as unofficial instruments through which people coped with crises collectively instead of
individually. By doing so, these associations filled the gaps of official authority in social protection.
Consequently, both Europe and China experienced forms of democracy before the modern era,
driven by a grassroots-level aspiration to create complementary solidarity in the face of individual
vulnerabilities posed by disasters of times and personal accidents.

“The Manchu Militarization of China: The Spread of the Qing Dynasty’s baojia System for Registration
and Surveillance, 1644-1695”
Charles Argon, Princeton University

This paper, adapted from my second dissertation chapter, investigates how population registration
and surveillance transformed in seventeenth-century China. The seventeenth century, often seen
as one of “global crisis,” witnessed seismic political shifts in East Asia. Mongolian and Manchu
groups united into powerful new confederacies which attacked Korea, toppled the Chinese Ming
Dynasty, and installed themselves as the Qing Empire. Their armies and the societies which
supplied them were organized using distinctively Asian systems of registration and surveillance.
Scholars have shown how, as they conquered China, the Qing repurposed baojia, a tool of Ming
self-defense, into an aid to territorial conquest. But why did the Qing adopt baojia, a Ming system
for household registration and mutual responsibility? How did their version of it vary from Ming
precedents, and why? I extend prior arguments by considering more carefully baojia’s antecedents
across East Asia. Unlike prior systems for registration and taxation, baojia emphasized control and
defense. In implementing it, the Qing empire reorganized Chinese society in the image of the
Manchu eight banners, setting local government in China on a path different from that of Japan or
Korea. The paper first surveys household registration systems in East Asia around 1630; second,
examines cases of mid-century baojia implementation in China; third, analyzes how these
experiences informed the standardized baojia system coalescing around 1700; and finally,
compares baojia to systems in Japan and Korea. It offers a globally inflected history of an
institution with lasting influence in modern China.

“Norms, Entitlements, and Rural Revolution: Elite Modernization and Peasant Interpretations, Russia
1917”
Peter Fraunholtz, Northeastern University

Based on a provincial study of Penza in the middle Volga region of European Russia, this paper
examines the dynamic interaction between modernizing Russian bureaucrats and agricultural experts,
striving to use rationalizing means to improve the foundations of peasant household economy, and
peasant grain producers, accustomed to decades of top-down reform agendas and bearing the heavy
burdens of wartime mobilization and crippling economic collapse. Once both groups were liberated
from tsarist rule their respective agendas overlapped and collided in the midst of the revolutionary ethos
of 1917. While peasant actions during 1917 have long been attributed to the twin historic motives of
land and freedom, this paper considers the ways specific pre-war era reformist thrusts, accelerated by
the revolutionary change in 1917, shaped and were shaped by peasant efforts to survive multiple
material challenges resulting from war, revolution, and drought.

D6 Panel Session, Maritime San Francisco: From Local Niche to Global Reach (Creative Arts 115)

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Chair: Arturo Giraldez, University of the Pacific

“World History Is Maritime History: Lessons from the San Francisco Maritime Research Center“
Gina Bardi, San Francisco Maritime Research Center

“San Francisco and the Rise of a Maritime Global Health (1850-1930)“

François Drémeaux, University of Angers and University of Hong Kong

“In the Shadow of Golden Gate Bridge: Teaching Maritime History from Stockton, California“
Kris Alexanderson, University of the Pacific

D7 Panel Session, Imperial Currents in World History (Creative Arts 152)

Chair: TBA

“From Exeter to Hong Kong: The Radical Imperialism of John Bowring”

Ben Cardo, Queen’s University

This paper examines how John Bowring (1792-1872) articulated and applied his unique free trade
ideology throughout the world in the nineteenth century in an effort to fulfill his vision of a global
commercial network governed by the British Empire. Bowring was a founding member of the London
Greek Committee, the first editor of the Westminster Review, a nominal politician, and former Governor
of Hong Kong. Bowring was one of the most influential radicals of the mid-nineteenth century, and
alongside Richard Cobden (1804-1865), was Britain’s leading free trade proponent. From the ports of
Exeter, to the Queen’s Square Place home of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), to the Governor’s office in
Hong Kong, Bowring traversed social, political, and national borders to share his vision of a world
united by the mutual benefits and interdependence of free trade. A unique interpretation of free trade
shaped by his Unitarian faith, radical politics, and Benthamite education, Bowring’s application of his
‘pacific principle’ contributed to the Second Opium War, a national election in Britain, and the
establishment of a new government agency in China. This paper traces the consequences and afterlife
of Bowring’s free trade ideology across an array of nineteenth century intellectual trends, political
movements, and economic conflicts, at a regional, national, and international level.

“Masonic Light in India: Freemasonry, Western Education, and Civic Virtue in Nineteenth-Century
British India”
Vahid Fozdar, California State University, East Bay

This paper examines how John Bowring (1792-1872) articulated and applied his unique free trade
ideology throughout the world in the nineteenth century in an effort to fulfill his vision of a global
commercial network governed by the British Empire. Bowring was a founding member of the
London Greek Committee, the first editor of the Westminster Review, a nominal politician, and
former Governor of Hong Kong. Bowring was one of the most influential radicals of the
mid-nineteenth century, and alongside Richard Cobden (1804-1865), was Britain’s leading free
trade proponent. From the ports of Exeter, to the Queen’s Square Place home of Jeremy Bentham
(1748-1832), to the Governor’s office in Hong Kong, Bowring traversed social, political, and
national borders to share his vision of a world united by the mutual benefits and interdependence
of free trade. A unique interpretation of free trade shaped by his Unitarian faith, radical politics, and
Benthamite education, Bowring’s application of his ‘pacific principle’ contributed to the Second
Opium War, a national election in Britain, and the establishment of a new government agency in
China. This paper traces the consequences and afterlife of Bowring’s free trade ideology across an
array of nineteenth century intellectual trends, political movements, and economic conflicts, at a
regional, national, and international level.

“The Colonial Police Balance Sheet and Indigenous Policing in Africa, the Afikpo Experience”

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 Chukwuemeka Oko-Otu, University of Buckingham

This paper argues that colonial policing is not merely of historical interest but also has material,
ongoing effects on policing in Africa. The impact of colonial policing on Indigenous peoples has not
been well captured in mainstream history. Among the Afikpo, it is often confined to footnotes in
some leading political, social, and military history textbooks. A common experience in post-colonial
communities in Africa includes police brutality, extortion, bribery, a lack of police accountability, and
a widening lacuna in police-community relations. These experiences emanate from colonialism and
the profound disruption it caused to pre-existing norms in indigenous societies. The gradual
erosion of indigenous punishment and justice systems, the obliteration of indigenous policing
instruments, the redefinition of crime and criminality, and the monetization of policing under
colonialism are important in explaining the destruction of police-community relations in Africa. The
resistance to colonial internal control systems among indigenous communities in Africa is an
indication of the desire for self-actualization and emancipation from a colonial-imposed system.
The paper draws from the Afikpo village group's experience to explain that the contemporary
issues of policing indigenous communities in Africa need to be contextualised within the broader
framework of the impacts of colonial policing.

“Screening Photographs: A Look at Global Tourism, Cultural Heritage, and Economic Encounters in
South India”
Gita V. Pai, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Through mid-nineteenth- to early twentieth-century photographs by European and south Indian

photographers as well as present-day photographs by the author, this paper examines the
transformations of the Pudu Mandapam (Tamil, ‘new hall’), an early modern, richly-sculpted pillared
hall at the celebrated Minakshi-Sundareshvara temple complex in Madurai, southeastern India—a
region that is today, Tamil Nadu. It considers the twentieth-first century, tourism-driven plans to
change the purpose and function of the site. This initiative is spearheaded by Tamil Nadu state
government officials in the capital city of Chennai who are interested in capitalizing monetarily on
the flow of tourists to the temple town in south India, particularly from international visitors. In their
desire to make themselves and their town appear less ‘backwards’ and more ‘modern,’ the local
boosters in Madurai, primarily its educated middle- and upper-class residents, are also pushing for
a globally determined format of ‘heritage’ at the temple, motivated by their own bid to accumulate
cultural and social capital. An effort that seeks to utilize the Pudu Mandapam to tap into revenue
from a globally burgeoning ‘heritage tourism’ industry would not only redefine and recast the
pillared hall’s identity but would affect how its interior space gets used, too. In addition, such a
move would alter who has access to enter the place, thereby impacting and regulating the flow of
traffic through its stone-carved walls and on its cobbled-stone floors.

D8 Panel Session, Currents of the Ancient World (Creative Arts 136)

Chair: TBA

“Greek Mythology and Archaeology: Heroes Motivate Students”

Sanford Holst, Independent Scholar

The currents of time bring teachable moments from Greek mythology and archaeology to today’s
students in inspiring ways. The mythology-driven archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann unearthed the
cities of Troy and Mycenae, showing legends about the Trojan War seemed to be based on actual
events and real people. The gods in those myths embodied people’s fears, hopes and motivations,
moving among them and pushing them forward. Similar excavations revealed the city of Tiryns
which was central to the labors of Hercules (Heracles to the Greeks). Pictures of these actual
places enhance this lesson planning. The magnificent deeds of Hercules capture young

26
 imaginations and allow learning about different cultures and diversity. Students benefit significantly
when these lessons are brought into the classroom.

“Grace and Courage: Celebrated Women in Ancient China”

Yufeng Wang, Sinclair College

In the early Twentieth century, European and American engineers devised a series of engineering
ideas on transforming the environments in Tianjin, a coastal city of North China. The purpose was
to create a suitable environment for steamship navigation and transportation. Their ideas on
environmental change, such as cutting the sharp river bands and building dikes on the coastal
sandbar, witnessed a global exchange of engineering ideas on nature and initiated the creation of
modern concepts of river conservancy. These ideas and projects were also frequently challenged
by the changes of political and economic conditions, the resistance of Chinese authorities and local
communities, and natural disasters. This paper analyzes the European ideas on nature and
modernity in twentieth-century China and argues that the Hai River Conservancy Commission, led
by European and American engineers, competed with the Chinese sovereignty for controlling water
resource and rights for navigation. Through the establishment of joint water control commissions
with the Chinese engineers, the request for environmental change and influences of Western
cultures then extended to the inland water systems over the North China Plain. The joint
commissions experimented projects for flood control and the management of water resources.
Water, riverbanks, and silts became the new arena for competing sovereignty and negotiating the
various needs for environmental change.

“Global Commercial Networks and the Increasing Power of the Church in Late Antiquity”
Rebecca A. Devlin, University of Louisville

This paper will examine the intersection of commercial and religious currents in the late antique
world, and the potential role the Church had in the global exchange of enslaved individuals. The
period under investigation, ca. the fourth through the sixth century, was one of great religious and
political transformation; the western Roman world collapsed and was overtaken by “Germanic”
kingdoms, while bishops went from serving congregants at the outskirts of society to holding
significant social, economic and political power, and managing extensive estates and large
numbers of enslaved and freed persons and families. However, these historical developments
were not a direct consequence of each other.

Using an interdisciplinary approach that analyzes written and archaeological evidence, it will be
shown that regions previously thought to be isolated were connected through long-distance
commercial exchange. In particular, the networks of ecclesiastical leaders in Gallaecia, a Roman
province of the northwestern Iberian Peninsula, will be traced to elucidate the roles bishops had in
facilitating the movement of commodities and luxury items among Eastern Mediterranean, Holy
Land, African and North Atlantic locations, and how this contributed to their increasing authority
among their local communities. The frequent and often violent conflicts among ecclesiastical
leaders over so-called heretical beliefs will be assessed within their social and economic contexts.
In a time of blurred distinctions between secular and sacred customs and obligations, accusations
of heresy were as much about building global alliances and the important material and societal
benefits they offered as they were about doctrine.

E1 Workshop Session, How to Write a Good Book Proposal (Creative Arts 112)

Maddie Smith, Bloomsbury Press

In this workshop Maddie Smith, Publisher for World History at Bloomsbury, will talk participants through
how to write a good book proposal for an academic monograph. Whether you are thinking about how to

27
 turn your PhD thesis into a book, or starting to work on your second or third project and want to write
the best proposal possible, this workshop will tell you what publishers are looking for. With lots of tips
and tricks, and information what not to write too, it is aimed particularly at early career researchers and
those new to the publishing industry.

E2 Panel Session, Narratives, Sources, and (Anti-/Inter-)Disciplinarity in the High School World History
Classroom (Creative Arts 135)

Chair: Sabahat Adil, Menlo School

This panel considers how world history teachers might frame their courses in the high school setting.
Our collective aim is to explore the intellectual and pedagogical “currents” that inform our instruction as
we seek to elevate student learning and inspire curiosity. To navigate world history, a sprawling object
of inquiry, we offer a set of papers that alternatively propose anchors in narrative and scholarly debate,
but also map learning that flows through culture and challenges to traditionally disciplinary training. The
first paper, “Centering Narrative Cohesion in High School Global History Courses,” evaluates narrative
arcs in textbooks and source texts in order to argue for their importance in student learning, as they
help avoid a piecemeal approach to content. The second paper, “Cultural Studies & Students’
Experience,” also considers narratives, but from a cultural studies perspective, focusing specifically on
women’s and queer histories, in order to highlight multifaceted sources of evidence like art and
manifestos alongside theoretical texts. The third paper, “Introducing Scholarly Literature in High-School
World History,” argues for the centering of scholarly source material in secondary-level courses. As
world historical inquiry over the decades has drawn from several fields, our panel considers
disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, while we note how disciplines do not always serve our pedagogical
needs. The fourth paper, “Antidisciplinarity and the Foundation for Historical Thinking,” considers how
we might work with high school-aged students to develop a sense of history that is less
methodology-driven, and more focused on critical historical thinking and encouraging student curiosity
about the past.

“Centering Narrative Cohesion in High School Global History Courses”

Sabahat Adil, Menlo School

This paper will explore issues surrounding the chronological and thematic scope of historical survey
courses at the high school level. In practice, some such courses emerge as far more cohesive than
their counterparts. This paper will examine the constitutive principles of narrative cohesion in the study
of history at the high school level by examining several textbooks and source texts. Admittedly, there
are ample differences among educators in terms of what constitutes an appropriate narrative arc in the
study of history, and educators often find themselves unable to reach a consensus on what that
narrative should be, sometimes opting instead to piece together their own content for the purposes of
classroom delivery. Yet this approach is misguided because it reduces history to historical facts where
the discipline of history is far more than simply an abstract constellation of details. Bringing texts
together with history courses such as a world history survey course targeting 9th graders and an
advanced survey elective focusing on pre-modern Middle Eastern and North African history, this paper
argues that teaching these histories through the framework of a broader historical narrative, even if
aspects of the narrative are deemed to be worthy of critique, is necessary to weave cohesion in the
courses. Through such an approach, students will be able to both grasp a dynamic understanding of
the past and become critical consumers and producers of knowledge and ideas, historical or otherwise,
as they finetune their academic skills.

“Cultural Studies & Students’ Experience”

Matthew Nelson, Menlo School

Drawing upon the curriculum and student experience in an advanced history seminar, Gender & Queer
Studies, this paper will explore the virtue of a cultural studies approach to the history of women and
persons of non-normative gender and sexuality. Cultural studies moves beyond traditional

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 historiography by taking an interdisciplinary approach regarding how the human story and identities are
shaped by various power relations and discursive practices within and across cultures throughout time.
Such a course beckons students to think critically about the foregrounded metanarrative offered in the
course, and elicits students to construct one that they deem more consistent with their experience in
the world. Eschewing causality, this kind of academic inquiry looks at how culture – art, religious
expression, rhetoric/speech acts – patterns actions the results of which are social and political
movements, the creation of laws and policies, economic upheavals, and conflict and its cessation.
Cultural studies methodologies help us introduce such vital questions as: Which valid narratives should
be considered in a historical survey course? Whose histories are centered and whose are othered, and
why? How can students generate meaning and purpose for their lived experience in the unfolding of
history? Students thereby grow in empathy for historical subjects as agents who are active, creative,
and reflexive – people who are proactive to influence history rather than have history acted upon them.

“Introducing Scholarly Literature in High School World History”

Ben D'Harlingue, Crystal Springs Uplands School

This paper argues for foregrounding scholarly source material in high school-level world history
instruction, for both survey and special topics courses. Attention to canonical and cutting-edge research
scholarship can complement and enrich ready-made lessons for history teachers that center largely or
exclusively on primary sources. Supplementing textbooks, other tertiary materials, or primary sources
with excerpted or lengthier selections of scholarly works can be a powerful way of introducing students
to relevant historiographic debates, theoretical vocabulary, analytic frameworks, and schools of thought
in history or related humanities and social sciences fields. The introduction of scholarly source material
does more than equip students with tools for understanding world history; it also shows students how
field formations shape academic knowledge production. This paper engages with instructors’ how-to
manuals on world history course design, in order to consider how to choose, place, and scaffold
scholarly texts within courses. Example lessons and texts will curate currents of gendered identity
formations under varied colonialisms. Moving beyond some recent course design instructional
literature, this paper also reflects on how scaffolding scholarly texts into world history courses can link
to, clarify, and strengthen the broader array of course offerings within a history or social studies
program. Amidst varied disciplinary and interdisciplinary specializations typically found amongst any
department’s faculty, deliberations over what scholarly selections to introduce in a foundational course
or within a program’s scope and sequence can allow faculty the occasion to think collectively and
intentionally about their department’s intellectual investments and how those affect students’ learning.

“Antidisciplinarity and the Foundation for Historical Thinking”

Jason Chang, The College Preparatory School

This paper invites reflection on the ‘where,’ ‘when,’ and ‘what,’ of disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and
transdisciplinary knowledge in relation to what I argue are the ultimate goals of a high school ‘history’
education: First, a basic understanding of ‘history’ as a specific site and form of knowledge production,
valuable because of the generative insights it yields about the world and humanity’s place in it. Second,
a sense that history and related fields in the critical humanities are potential areas where college-bound
students might find an intellectual home as they seek answers to questions about the world they might
otherwise believe are solely the province of other disciplines like economics, political science,
psychology, and so on. This paper offers up a model for approaching curriculum design that inverts the
standard idea that students ‘build upon what you know,’ and suggests instead that history teachers’
goal should be a very intentional process of ‘building up to what you know.’ This slight shift in
perspective affords teachers greater leeway in relation to disciplinary methodologies that remain central
to the historical practice, while also allowing instructors to cultivate and sustain students’ broader
curiosity about the past’s relevance to our contemporary world. We should focus less on sending
potential history majors to college with an already-strong sense of disciplinary rules (that will come in
college), but rather aim to graduate students who remain curious about the past and understand how its
study can illuminate the road ahead as they help shape our future world.

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E3 Roundtable Session, “Spatial History at the Global Scale” (HYBRID) (Creative Arts 154)

Chair: Ruth Mostern, University of Pittsburgh

Spatial history is a program of historical research focusing upon the processes by which places,
landscapes, and their relationships emerge, collapse, and change, seeking to explain how geography
reflects past human activity and how spatial arrangements and spatial representation contribute to
processes of social transformation. The field attends to processes by which people attempt to exercise
power over one another and over the non-human world from the perspective of spatial arrangements
such as built environments, territorial boundaries, and ocean currents. Spatial history has been a
creative and vital field of inquiry since the 1990s, evolving in tandem with the rise of computational tools
and methods like geographic information systems and geospatial databases.

However, although both print and digital spatial history publications constitute a robust bibliography of
exemplars, few spatial history projects are global in scope. At first glance, this seems ironic. After all,
world history itself constitutes a spatial proposition about scales of human activity. On the other hand,
spatial history research, which seeks to reconstruct and understand past landscapes, can be
exceptionally difficult, especially when it comes to digital projects that rely upon databases and
shapefiles that must be sufficiently geospatially precise to support mapmaking. Such projects can be
difficult to scale up to global frameworks, and spatial documents and epistemologies are also often
cultural and historically specific. Data linking software platforms, which facilitate large-team projects
spanning diverse expertise, are still somewhat experimental.
This roundtable is a conversation among a group of experienced spatial historians, working at the
global scale, to share conceptual and methodological challenges, insights, and possibilities for a robust
engagement between world history and spatial history.

Raja Adal, University of Pittsburgh

James Bennett, University of Washington
Keila Grinberg, University of Pittsburgh
Manjusha Kuruppath, Huygens Institute
Maxim Romanov, Universität Hamburg
Karl Ryavec, University of California, Merced

E4 Workshop Session, Using Effective Literacy Practices in World History Classrooms

(Creative Arts 146)

Eric Beckman, Anoka High School

This session will explore answers to the question: How do we apprentice historians into the world of
literacy? Participants will apply literacy strategies that promote engagement with primary and
secondary source readings in world history classes. These strategies supplement, rather than replace,
disciplinary reading practices. Readings used will span World History topics and time periods.

E5 Panel Session, Cultural Currents in World History (Creative Arts 115)

Chair: Phillip A. Cantrell, Longwood University

“Cultural Fusion and Technological Diffusion: The Birth of Blue-and-White Porcelain in Mongol Yuan
China”
Yuegen Yu, Central State University

The Mongol Empire (1206-1368 CE) was the largest contiguous land empire in world history,
covering over 23 million sq. km. and with a population of over 100 million people. It was a time of
astonishing conquest, slaughter, and destruction, but also an age of Pax Monolica (“Mongol
Peace”), when Mongol rulers embraced cultural and religious diversity and promoted economic
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 and technological development across their vast Eurasia empire. The birth of Blue and White
Porcelain in Mongol Yuan China (1279-1368 CE) exemplified how cultural fusion and technological
diffusion could lead to new discoveries.

China is known as the land of porcelain in the world, and Blue-and-white ware is often regarded as
its “national porcelain.” It is generally agreed that porcelain, a white vitrified translucent ceramic
that requires the kaolin clay and heating temperatures of 1,200 to 1,400 °C, originated in China.
Nevertheless, scholars used to believe that blue-and-white porcelain was not developed until the
Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 CE). After John Alexander Pope of the Freer Galley established without
doubt in 1952 that blue-and-white ware were common in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368 CE),
Chinese historians now often argue that it was discovered earlier in the Song (960-1279 CE) or
even Tang (618-907 CE) dynasties.

Based on the latest studies on the etymology and archaeology of Chinese porcelain, and field
studies in Jingdezhen, China, the birthplace of porcelain, this paper examines the development of
porcelain in general, and blue-and-white ware in particular, during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. It
argues that porcelain was first produced by using a “binary formula” of mixing china stone with
small amount of gaolin in the early 1300s, a formula finalized by a Mongol official Du Run. With the
introduction of cobalt oxide blue pigment from Persia, blue-and-white ware was created by
applying Chinese blush painting and under-glaze techniques. The paper concludes that
blue-and-white porcelain was born in Mongol Yuan China as the result of cultural fusion and
technological diffusion of Chinese, Mongol, and Islamic origins.

“The Frustrating Persistence of History: An Ideological Current Undergirding Oppression in Rwanda”

Phillip A. Cantrell, Longwood University

This paper embraces the theme of “Currents” by arguing that historians of any region must search
for persistent cultural ideas and institutions which shape the history and politics of any nation or
region. This is especially necessary when considering any nation or region embroiled in conflict or
seeking to recover from recent conflict. For this paper, Rwanda will serve as an example of why
such inquiries into the past currents of history are necessary and critical for any post-conflict
society.

When the first king of Rwanda consolidated power in the 1600s, he used an indigenous belief
system known as the Gihanga Cult to legitimize his authority. In the 1700s, another king drew
legitimacy from a belief system known as the Ryangombe Cult to legitimize his own rule. These
activities provide the first illustrations of a reoccurring narrative (or, “current”) throughout Rwanda’s
history: during periods of political turmoil, the ruling elites have repeatedly adopted spiritual
systems to affirm their legitimacy.

When Christianity entered Rwanda in the early 1900s, the elites leveraged the faith to secure their
status in the face of change. The paper argues that the ruling authorities in Rwanda are embracing
the same pattern by leveraging the churches to shore-up a totalitarian regime, with potentially dire
consequences. The Rwandan example demonstrates why historians must seek to understand the
various and unique historical ideas and currents which shape contemporary political debates and
become barriers to social progress.

“Cultural Quandary in Baluchistan; Intra-Provincial Conflicts and CPEC Growth”

Iram Ahmad, Forman Christian University

Baluchistan is experiencing a state of conflict since the partition. With the formation of Baluchistan
as a full province, the focus of conflict changed towards Baloch cultural nationalism that directed
insurgencies between 1973 and 2004. In this context, this research strives to figure out that how
31
 the government of Pakistan claims that all the waves of insurgencies have significant financial
support by rival states. It sparked Baloch ethnic nationalism and once again caused intra-provincial
conflicts that resulted in Pashtun-Brahui, Brahui-Baloch, and Baloch-Pashtun divisions. There are
still some concerns for insecurity and expected economic adversity in the province. This study
delves into the indigenous predicament and national insecurity among the people of Baluchistan.
Keeping in view, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that how this mega infrastructural
project is aggravating the concerns of local people in Baluchistan. Further, the study has employed
the theoretical framework of nontraditional security challenges for modern states and Thomas
Pikety’s views on rising inequality across the globe. Besides, the data for this research has
collected from the interviews with local Balochi people and from the official statements and
agreements regarding the CPEC project. Overall, this study is essential because it examines the
CPEC project with a critical lens that investigates whether it would benefit the local people or serve
as an elite project.

Keywords: Baluchistan, CPEC, Inequality, Culture, Security

E6 Panel Session, New Directions in the Discourse on Transnationalism in Ghana (Creative Arts 152)

Chair: Ebenezer Mintah Danquah, University of Wisconsin-Madison

With the bolstering of the discourse on globalization at the turn of the 21st century came discourses on
transnationalism and the south-north/south-south movement of people and ideas. In Africa, these
conversations have coalesced around globalization’s implications on Africa’s politico-economic and
cultural spheres. Ghana, the first nation in sub-Saharan Africa to attain independence, has had its own
share of globalization, the height of which came in the 20th century with its championing of the global
movement for Pan-Africanism. Ghana, thus, became the beacon of Black internationalism, earning it a
crucial spot in the historiography on globalization in Africa.

While the trajectory of this historiography has been buoyant, it has missed many alternative
reverberations of the global flow of ideas and peoples within the continent. This panel expands the
discourse on globalization in Africa by centering the collective and individual agencies of Africans
whose positions have been approached as tangential to the conversation. Fauziyatu Moro’s work on
intra-Africa migrants living in Accra’s largest trade diaspora explores the connection between internal
African migration and the everyday manifestations of a kind of global Black solidarity that troubled the
Pan-African agenda of the 20th century; Ebenezer Mintah Danquah presents Kru migrants living in the
Gold Coast in the 20th century as pacesetters of global Black self-determination who challenged racial
categorization in British West Africa; and Gloria Lamptey reimagines Pan-African youth movements in
Ghana as proof of citizens’ claims to redefine the post-independent African identity against the
backdrop of the Cold War era.

“Nima: An Unsung Node of Afropolitanism in 20th Century Accra”

Fauziyatu Moro, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Two decades before Ghana attained independence, Nima, an internal African trade diaspora emerged
on the outskirts of the capital, Accra, as a destination for migrants from various African countries. The
transmigrants who settled in the town carved a distinct cultural identity that emphasized their
transnational connections to their homelands and simultaneously mirrored the growing calls for global
Black solidarity in the 20th century. In spite of this, they have been absent in the histories of Accra as a
cosmopolitan hub. In this paper I employ Nima as a case study to explore the connections between
intra-African migration and the African cosmopolitan zeitgeist– which I label here as Afropolitanism–
that came to define Accra in the 20th century. In it I ask, and attempt to answer, the salient question: is
there something to be learned about the global ethos for Black solidarity when we shift our analytic
focus from the nation-state to the everyday social imaginations and choices of intra-Africa migrants who
lived in Nima in the 20th century? Drawing on this notion of Afropolitanism, my paper unpacks the

32
 potentials and limitations of the socio-cultural engagements between intra-Africa migrants to our
understanding of Black solidarity. It complements the few works that have approached the Afropolitan
as both a historical and contemporary subject through a historical assessment of Nima’s migrants and
the praxis that informed their Afropolitanism, particularly their affective exchanges with fellow Africans,
others subalterns, and the world at large.

“Indirect rule, Racialization, and the Politics of Kru Diaspora in Southern Gold Coast (Ghana), 1927 -
1950”
Ebenezer Mintah Danquah, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Kru migrants from the Republic of Liberia created communities in many parts of urban British West
Africa known as Kru towns by the mid-twentieth century. In many British West African colonies, indirect
rule policies invented the racial category of ‘nativeness’ to separate indigenous Africans, including
migrant communities like the Kru, from European and other non-African migrants. Labour historians
have examined these Kru diasporas in West Africa only as an outcome of labor migration ignoring the
politics of Kru diaspora in British West Africa and how Kru migrants challenged racism of British
colonialism. This paper expands the scholarship on Kru labor to examine the politics of Kru diaspora in
British West Africa; specifically arguing that the Kru diaspora in British West Africa used the unique
political status of their homeland to challenge racial hierarchies and categorization in British West
Africa. The Kru used the unique political status of independent Liberia to negotiate a particular but
limited kind of citizenship within the system of indirect rule in the Gold Coast which exempted them
from the racial categorization of ‘nativeness.’ Subsequently, the Kru diaspora in the Gold Coast
transformed indirect rule into a space of political experimentation – one which had within it global ideals
such as democracy and republicanism. The republican and democratic tendencies of Kru diaspora
across British West Africa first challenged indirect rule’s racialization and secondly, reflects the political
imagination of the Kru as a counterpoint to their exclusion from Liberian democratic governance in their
homeland.

“Decolonization through the Lens of Young Cold Warriors: International ‘Youth Culture’ and Pan-African
Perspectives in Nkrumah-Era Ghana”
Gloria O. Lamptey, University of Ottawa

The formation of transnational networks of knowledge creation and exchanges in the 1960s created an
intertwined global Cold War connection that shaped the African imaginations of the post-independence
era. Crucial to the development diplomacy campaign of African state leaders who envisioned education
and nationalism as powerful tools to decolonize the continent was the training of African youth. A new
emancipated youth was to overcome colonialism’s legacy of racism, discrimination, and paternalism
and instill nationalist values in the population. Inspired by Israel's Gadna, the Soviet Union's Komsomol,
the British Boy Scouts, and China's Red Pioneers, the establishment of the Ghana Young Pioneers
(GYP) was a true fusion of international ‘youth culture’, political education, and a desire to foster
patriotism. Despite the commitment of the Young Pioneers as agents of change, a common focus on
their trajectory often subordinates their perspectives to that of the nation-state, political leaders, and
their Cold War leanings. Less studied are ways that these young cold warriors became “new men for
the new nation” and the ways their association with the ancien régime represents a bellwether of
Africa’s post-colonial politics. This paper explores the intertwined global connections that formed the
Cold War international youth culture and how Pan-African youth perspectives articulated national ideas
for decolonization. A study of the micro history of the GYP foregrounds their agency, ties discourses on
nationalism and identity politics, and sheds new light on areas of the Cold War that are only beginning
to be discussed from an African perspective.

E7 Panel Session, How Women Changed the World (Creative Arts 147)

Chair: Laura J. Mitchell, University of California, Invine

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 This session uses biographical examples of women from the recent four-volume reference work,
Women Who Changed the World Their Lives, Challenges, and Accomplishments through History
(ABC-CLIO, 2022), a survey of 200 women’s lives across forty centuries of world history, to consider
the ways in which women’s lives changed the world. The women featured in the set cover the full
sweep of history, from our ancestral forbearer "Lucy" to today's tennis phenoms Venus and Serena
Williams. The emphasis on women’s gendered experiences in the classroom can open students’ eyes
to the major roles that even the most marginalized played as individuals, in groups linked to others,
across generations, and across the world. In the classroom, biography as a comparative exercise
resonates with familiar concepts of “network” and “influencers.”

“‘You will find the spirit of Caesar in the soul of a woman’: Transnational Networks of Women’s
Knowledge in the Seventeenth Century”
Merry Wiesner-Hanks, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

This paper examines the lives of three European women of the seventeenth century, the Italian painter
Artemisia Gentileschi, the English playwright and author Aphra Behn, and the English poet, essayist,
playwright, historian, biographer, philosopher, and scientist Margaret Cavendish. Through their written
and visual works, all of them challenged deeply-held views that women were inferior. The quote that is
the title of this session comes from a letter Artemisia Gentileschi wrote to one of her patrons, refusing to
reduce the price for a painting as he had requested. Although they are often discussed only within the
literary and cultural traditions of their home countries, all of them traveled extensively and were part of
transnational networks of women’s knowledge and cultural production. Artemesia Gentileschi moved to
London in 1638, where she painted works for Queen Henrietta Maria and other patrons, returning to
Italy in the 1640s because of the turmoil of the English Civil War. Margaret Cavendish was at that point
a lady-in-waiting to Henrietta Maria, and in 1644 she and the rest of the queen’s household were forced
into exile in France. Aphra Behn traveled to the Dutch colony of Surinam as a young woman and set
many of her plays in exotic locales. She was also caught up in English politics, as in 1666, King Charles
II recruited her to gather intelligence for him among disgruntled English exiles in the Netherlands. Their
experiences as outsiders gave them a distinct perspective, just as they do for those who move across
borders today.

“Maria Montessori: Scientific Pedagogy and Child-Centered Education”

Linda Jones Black, Texas A&M University- Central Texas

This paper examines the life of a 19th century woman who still exercises a significant impact on the
education of children in the 21st century, Maria Montessori. While many may be familiar with the
Montessori schools and perhaps some of the ideas espoused in the Montessori Method, even those
whose children attend Montessori schools may not know much about the woman herself and her
struggles to succeed in 19th century Italy. Challenging the gender conventions of her time and facing
harassment by students and faculty alike, a young Maria Montessori, who loved math and science,
entered a technical secondary school, usually open only to boys, to study engineering and, later
attended the University of Rome’s medical school. She became Italy’s first degreed female physician in
1896. As a physician observing and treating children in the poorest area of Rome, many of whom had
developmental delays, she developed her theory of child development and scientific pedagogy.
Although Montessori became known for her educational theories about children, she was also active in
both the woman’s movement of the early 20th century as well as the peace movement initiated by
Ghandi. One of the most influential educators of the 20th century and known for breaking barriers, her
insights about teaching children contradicted traditional pedagogy and paved the way for later
educators and the theories of the child-centered and student-centered classrooms of today.

“Subversive Thinkers and Peaceable Transgressors”

Candice Goucher, Washington State University

The paper explores the individual lives of four women, whose common global context led to vastly
different outcomes in the first half of the twentieth century. Women writers, suffragists and social

34
 reformers, scientists, and peace activists were inspired by the same events and transnational dynamics
of the new twentieth century. Among the women discussed, Emily Balch, Rachel Carson, Naomi
Mitchison, and Ichikawa Fusae, were influenced by war and faced powerful limitations yet sought to
confront the world’s dilemmas with direct action. While shaped by global conflict, their responses in
words and actions also forged new opportunities for other women in their struggles for environmental,
social, and economic justice.

Among the most significant of modern social movements were the struggles to achieve national
sovereignty, justice, equality, and peace. Their collective message that it is impossible to understand
history or chart the future without the inclusivity of the broadest human experience and the greatest
diversity of multiple perspectives has never been more important. In this respect, the history of these
and other women viewed in aggregate can be a classroom tool for changing the world in an age of
conflict and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Their stories also reflect the risks faced by women
who have dared to be “subversive thinkers and peaceable transgressors.”

E8 Panel Session, Trade Networks in the Global South [HYBRID] (Creative Arts 136)

Chair: Amy Pozza, Saint Mary’s Hall High School

“Nishapur's Maritime Nexus on the West Coast of Sumatra: An Indian Ocean Trade Network”
Tori Nuariza Sutanto, Sultanate Institute*

This research delves into the maritime connections between Nishapur and the Bongal Site on the
west coast of Sumatra, situated within the intricate framework of the Indian Ocean Trade Network.
Focusing on the Early Medieval period of Nishapur (8-12th AD), a prominent Abbasid metropolis
and cultural hub in northeastern Iran, this study serves to illuminate the historical dynamics of
maritime trade during specific epochs. Employing a rigorous data analysis approach, the
investigation centers on artifacts such as pottery, glass, precious metals, medical instruments,
beads, and inscribed seals.

Artifacts excavated from both Nishapur and the Bongal Site constitute the foundation of this
research, providing insights into the complexities of maritime trade networks and cultural
exchanges. Stylistic influences and manufacturing techniques evident in the pottery reflect
cross-cultural interactions, while glass artifacts contribute to our understanding of technological
diffusion and aesthetic preferences. Precious metals, serving as pivotal markers of economic
exchanges, offer insights into the prosperity and wealth of the trading communities involved. The
unique category of medical instruments offers glimpses into healthcare practices, highlighting the
exchange of knowledge and expertise. Beads, often overlooked yet culturally significant, contribute
to unraveling the social and religious fabric of the communities engaged in trade. The study places
particular emphasis on inscribed seals, deciphering the linguistic and cultural imprints they bear,
providing clues to the identities and affiliations of traders and merchants.

The archaeological findings at the Bongal Site in Sumatra reveal a complex artifact assemblage,
illustrating significant interactions across the Middle East, Eastern Asia (China), and South Asia
(India). Radiocarbon dating of organic materials and artifactual analysis confirm the existence of a
prominent entrepot at the Bongal Site from the 7th to the 10th century AD.

This research employs an archaeological-historical approach, integrating artifactual identification

with a comprehensive literature review to enrich the analysis and interpretation of historical
contexts of archaeological findings. It contributes a descriptive-analytical perspective, seeking to
elucidate the causal aspects and present historical evidence of early global maritime connections
between Nishapur and the Bongal archaeological site on the west coast of Sumatra. Through
meticulous data analysis of these diverse artifacts, this research aims to construct a
comprehensive narrative of the maritime connections between Nishapur and the Bongal
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 archaeological site, thereby enhancing our understanding of the historical intricacies within the
Indian Ocean Trade Network

“African Entrepreneurial Activity at the Early British Cape Colony: Reading Against the Currents of
Colonial Archives, 1806-56”
Leigh Muffet, University of Cambridge*

World history has little to say about 19th-c. Africa beyond slavery or West African
commerce. It conceptualises the Cape of Good Hope Colony (southern Africa) as a transit point for
ships on North to North routes, a place to be circumvented, and generally overlooks its local
peoples. Thus, the Cape Colony becomes in world history a terra nullius and appendage to the
Northern Hemisphere. New research based on port data shows that, in reality, it transformed from a
transit point under the Dutch, to a global entrepôt and colony in its own right within decades under
British governance, with thousands of Northerners migrating South and thousands of ships arriving
at its ports. Indeed, Northerners have been historically understood as the Cape’s earliest founders.

But as the Cape reached the heights of its development, Northerners in competition with
Africans denigrated them as simpletons with little involvement in global trade after the abolition of
slavery. When comparing their writings against quantitative analyses of navigation, one can observe
discrepancies and the emergence of an alternative narrative of 19th-c. trade globalisation. It reveals
that Africans and people of colour worked as artisans, interpreters, navigators, traders and
entrepreneurs, and they built the Cape’s foundations and networks that made possible entrepreneurial
activity. Through quantitative analyses and ‘reading against the currents’ of colonial archives, I argue
that Africans and Southerners facilitated the Cape Colony’s development over the nineteenth century
and had more diversified roles in global trade than has been historically appreciated.

“Under the Market: Reform and Opening Up, 1982 Debt Crisis, Balance of Payment and the Limited
Promotion of Sino-Latin American Trade via the Case Study of Sino-Chilean Trade (1982-1985)”
Jiuzhen Zhang, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University*

This paper will discuss the interrelations among reform and opening up, 1982 debt crisis and its
impact and resolutions, balance of payment between China and Latin American countries like Chile
and the limited promotion of Sino-Latin American Trade. Through the literature review, it can be
found that most of the works focusing on 1982 debt crisis lack of the analysis of the connection
between the crisis itself, its impact on balance of payment and its resolutions related to China and
most literatures about Sino-Latin American (Chilean) trade focus little on the period of time
between 1982 and 1985, which shows the research gap this article may fulfill. Case study will be
deploy in this article and Chile will be chosen to represent the Latin American states to be
discussed when it comes to the trade relations with China. Moreover, the interaction between
China and Chile will be revealed via the analysis based on the related columns of People’s Daily of
China from 1982 to 1985. In addition, the negative factors setting obstacles toward Sino-Chilean
trade development will be shown. Finally, a succinct conclusion will be displayed.

F1: Meet the Author Session, The Scandal of Cal: Land Grabs, White Supremacy, and Miseducation at
UC Berkeley (Creative Arts 112)

Milton Reynolds in conversation with Tony Platt, University of California, Berkeley

F2 Panel Session, Studies of the Promises, Perils, and Practices of Historical Inquiry in Classrooms
(Creative Arts 135)

Chair: Bob Bain, University of Michigan

36
 Inquiry plays a vital role in world history as a discipline, establishing the methodological procedures by
which historians construct knowledge of the past. And it has become an essential organizing principle
in history education worldwide. Documents that frame history education in pre-collegiate and higher
education classrooms place inquiry at the center of teaching and learning. Although central to the
discipline and at the heart of school history, we know little about how history instructors use inquiry to
teach or how students take up inquiry to learn history. This session's three research, theory, and
practice-grounded papers seek to add to our understanding of inquiry’s role in history classrooms.

Drawn from two current, peer-reviewed books -- –History Education and Historical Inquiry (Information
Age, 2024) and Teaching Data Literacy in Social Studies (TC Press, 2024) --, these three research,
theoretical, and practice-grounded papers seek to enrich our understanding of inquiry, helping further
develop our ways to use inquiry to meet the many challenges in teaching and learning history. Each
offers frameworks and suggestions for instructors and researchers on classroom-based historical
inquiry. In addition to presenting classroom or curricular case studies, they propose new ways to frame
inquiry in instruction and ways to prepare history instructors to use inquiry. The session challenges us
to think anew about teaching students how to build knowledge and skills through inquiry. Each paper
offers evidence of inquiry’s positive impacts on teaching and learning, pointing to significant challenges.

“‘Bounded’ Historical Inquiry in History Classrooms”

Daisy Martin, University of California, Santa Cruz

How is inquiry brought into the crowded history curricula meaningfully? While recommended and
prescribed by professional organizations, states’ standards, and most reformers, it is not clear how
teachers working in K-12 or undergraduate contexts manage historical inquiry’s complexity. In those
survey courses, what should and can look like? However, the concept of “bounded inquiry” frames
inquiry to make it manageable. Developed through an analysis of four widely used published U.S.
curricula -- National History Day, C3 Teachers materials, SHEG’s Reading Like a Historian curriculum,
and Digital Public Library of Primary Sources -- this paper discusses and defines bounded inquiry and
explains how it might serve as spotlight and scaffold for practitioners and researchers. Using specific
examples, we will look at how the concept of bounded inquiry illuminates and surfaces what we value
and practice in classroom-based historical inquiry. The paper argues that instructors or curricula can
(should) constrain inquiry to make it accessible to learners by separating elements such as questioning
and evaluating the credibility of a limited number of sources while discarding more complex
components entailed in conducting a complete investigation as historians might. We will also explore
the way teachers take up inquiry, compare historical inquiry with ideas and practices from science
education, and look at inquiry as a set of processes rather than a set of prescribed steps.

“Foregrounding Data Literacy to Support Inquiry in World History”

Tamara Shreiner, Grand Valley State University

Data visualizations, including maps and graphs, are essential for understanding the global past. They
aggregate and compress data to make otherwise invisible patterns and relationships clear, and they
can be used to make connections between local and global, to make comparisons between regions or
time periods, or to illuminate global patterns. It is little wonder, then, that data visualizations play a
prominent role in world historical texts, digital projects, and instructional materials—a role that is likely
to increase given the availability of large-scale datasets and advancements in computer technologies.
Given this prominent role in world history, students must be equipped to make sense of data
visualizations and construct, interpret, and critically analyze historical arguments that use them.
Research suggests that working with data visualizations can enhance students' historical reasoning
skills by helping them better contextualize historical events, prompting them to consider causal factors
related to events or illustrating change over time. However, effectively reading, analyzing, and using
data visualizations does not come naturally to students. This paper summarizes students’ challenges
and offers practical strategies for teaching data literacy in world history classrooms. It argues that data
literacy should not only be foregrounded in world history instruction to support historical inquiry but that

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 world history teachers offer unique knowledge and insight to prepare students to critically analyze the
data and data visualizations they will encounter in their everyday lives

“Peering at the Practices and Possibilities of Historical Inquiry in International Classrooms”

Bob Bain, University of Michigan

Inquiry plays a vital role in history as a discipline that constructs knowledge about the past, and it is a
vital organizing principle in history education in many countries around the world. Inquiry is also much
debated. While it has prominent contemporary advocates worldwide, it also has prominent critics. The
paper explores the role of historical inquiry in history curricula and in history classrooms based on the
findings of seventeen research studies from eight different international contexts: England, Sweden,
Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Singapore, and the U.S. These studies addressed a series of
linked questions such as: What forms does classroom-based historical inquiry take in different
contexts? What do we know about the affordances and constraints associated with inquiry-based
learning in history? And what is the evidence of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of inquiry-based
historical learning?

The findings will interest world history teachers at all levels, curriculum designers, teacher educators,
and history education researchers by adding to our knowledge about teachers’ thinking and inquiry
practices and our understanding of the value of inquiry in developing students’ historical learning. This
paper also provides examples of successful practices and ways teachers in different contexts have
managed the challenges of using inquiry with learners.

F3 Roundtable Session, Let the Currents Carry Us: How Travel Can Inspire World History Students and
Scholarship (Creative Arts 146)

Chair: Nicole Magie, University of Olivet

As world historians, we frequently have great opportunities for national and international travel. Over
the course of our careers, these produce a metaphorical suitcase full of travel stories, experiences, and
insights into the world. More often we unpack this suitcase around the dinner table or social media, but
not enough in the classroom or our scholarship. This roundtable considers how we can rethink this
divide. The participants have begun to experiment with how we can bring “travel” into our scholarship
and teaching. We collectively hope to do so more frequently and effectively, as well as to dialogue
about the importance of such endeavors. Sharika Crawford discusses the joys and pitfalls of short-term
cultural immersions programs as an approach to expose undergraduate students to world history. Brian
Holstrom uses his own travel narratives and those of famous historical travelers to engage students in
historiography, diverse perspectives, and intersectionality. Bram Hubbell focuses on taking the students
into the world and bringing the world into the classroom. Nicole Magie has also begun weaving travel
stories and photos into her teaching and is exploring a similar book project. After briefly sharing our
own ideas and experiences, we’ll open the discussion to the audience as a next step in weaving these
conversations into our academic lives more frequently.

Sharika Crawford, United States Naval Academy*

Brian Holstrom, Salpointe Catholic High School
Bram Hubbell, Liberating Narratives

F4 Innovative Session, The Changing Landscape of Social Media and its Impact on Public History and
History Organizations (Creative Arts 115)

Morgan Lemmer-Webber, World History Association

Thanasis Kinias, Western Colorado University and World History Association

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 How have the increasing monetization, marketing strategies, and data policies of corporate social
media and the subsequent push for decentralization changed the social media landscape in the past 5
years? What impact does this have on how the public interacts with history online? How do these
trends affect organizations such as the WHA? Where do we go from here?

F5 Workshop Session, Developing Historical Empathy Through Primary Sources (Creative Arts 152)

Sharon Berube, Webb School of Knoxville

Our world is both enriched and confused by copious amounts of information. Yet our understanding of
the world is too often narrowed by the limited sources that we choose to inform us. What if we could
dynamically broaden our students’ historical understanding by breathing life into the people and events
of the past, building a more human connection between nations and cultures of the past and the
present? As educators, we can expand the scope our high school students’ understanding by allowing
the past to speak for itself through a more dynamic use of primary sources.

This workshop, designed for secondary education but appropriate for higher education, focuses on the
use of primary sources (to a lesser extent secondary sources) to contextualize history, making it
relatable and human in scope. In this workshop, educators will be provided with source materials from
around the world. They will be challenged to discover how students can more thoughtfully explore ideas
and topical issues that represent a continuity in time and place as well as change.

Through the use of primary source materials, educators will workshop how to:
• Contextualize historical events to better understand individual/societal actions in context
• Enrich student experience by enabling them to see through the eyes of people from the past
• Investigate connections between past events and actions to today’s world
• Empower students to experience history through the lens of primary sources
• Develop empathy toward others through the connections that bind people around the world
• Encourage civil discourse

F6 Panel Session, Relevancy and Learning: Comics in World Historical Settings (Creative Arts 147)

Chair: Maryanne Rhett, Monmouth University

This panel goes beyond the simple questions of "should comics be used in history education," or "how
can comics be used in history education," to explore nuanced examples of where comics both write
history and or shape audiences' understanding of history. Lawrence Abrams' paper focuses on the
classroom setting and explores how students read and respond differently to sources present in comic
and graphic novel formats. Kaleb Knoblauch's paper argues that the "social relevance turn" largely
associated with "Bronze Age" US comics remains a critical feature of both comics from within, and from
without, the borders of the US. Maryanne Rhett's paper offers an account of early twentieth newspaper
comics which imparted food history long before the field of food history had really been developed.
These works weave together varied elements of history comics studies (that is history as comics and
comics as history) setting further foundational analysis for the richness of the field.

“Students of Comics: Learning Outcomes of Graphic Sources”

Lawrence Abrams, Portland Public Schools

It has long been a watchword for comics advocates that graphic novels and comics are of material
benefit for student learning outcomes. The vast majority of study in this regard though has been
focused on early primary school literacy learning, English Language Learner remedial tools, or Special
Education practices. These studies for the most part take for granted that the benefits of comics
reading are extensible to secondary or later learning, but they do not as a rule incorporate the simple
premise that desired learning outcomes are subject specific in later education.

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 Among the key takeaways that remain underexamined is how students treat historical trends and
currents of geographic and media exchange both in comics’ primary narratives, and in the interstitial
materials such as advertisements, editor letters, and other assorted marginalia. This paper is born from
a small effort to help bridge the gap in analysis of secondary and postsecondary student learning
outcomes using comics as a tool for the study of history. In the main it will address actual student usage
data and feedback to instructors about how students read historical documents and how they
responded differently to primary and secondary sources in comic and graphic novel formats.

“The Relevance Age?”

Kaleb Knoblauch, Independent Scholar

The so-called Bronze Age of comics covers the 1970s up to the mid-1980s, with traditional bookends of
the publication of Green Lantern #76 (1970) and Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns (1986).
Among other changes to comics publication and storytelling during this period, American superhero
comics introduced their readership to real-world issues, including economic inequality, racial injustice,
drug use, and other “socially relevant” themes. Editor of DC Comics at the time, Julius Schwartz,
gambled that this shift toward gritty storytelling would improve the company’s flagging sales—by 1973,
however, Schwartz was already saying that “Relevance is dead.” Rather than accepting social
relevance in comics storytelling as a flash-in-the-pan gamble of late-twentieth century American
superhero floppies, by giving close readings of examples from American, francophone and Japanese
comics, I will argue that “social relevance” has been a critical element of comics narratives throughout
the twentieth century and beyond the borders of the United States—an element that reflects an inherent
didactic impulse in comics publishing across these three regions and helps to retain the attention of
older readers, even in comics genres that explicitly appeal to younger audiences.

“Eating the Panels: Paul Berdanier and Early Food History Comic”
Maryanne Rhett, Monmouth University

Food History is one of the most meaningful ways historians have for drawing in readers, students, and
enthusiastic audiences. We all eat and we all have connections to food (and drink) that make our
grappling with complex historical phenomena more tangible. Food History as such, is a relatively new
subgenre of the field. John C. Super traces the foundations of modern Food History to a series of
articles appearing in the Annales, économies, sociétes, civilisations in the 1960s. Yet when comics
creators from the 1900s through the 1930s dove into historical topics and historiographic trends, so too
did some set an example for what would become the field of food history. Paul Berdanier, a
distinguished artist of the early 20th century was described once as having interests beyond “delving
into the origins of things for ‘How It Began,’ … [including] good French cooking.” Of the hundreds of
comic explorations Berdanier offered, many focused solely on the history of food or drink. These early
examples of Food History offer a rich addition to the general food history historiography and help us
better integrate history comics (and comics history) into more "traditional" methods of doing and reading
history.

F7 Panel Session, Migration and Identity in World History (Creative Arts 136)

Chair: Marcus Filippello, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (TBC)

“Local History and Global Connections: Interrogating the Impact of Global ‘Currents’ on Working-Class
Movement in Colonial Madras”
Kanchi Venugopal Reddy, Pondicherry University

Modern World witnessed greater interconnectedness during the first half of the twentieth century.
Global events and ideas manifestly impacted the social, economic, and political developments at
the local level. So, an attempt is made here to trace how the macro phenomenon had historically
impacted the varied developments at the micro level with perceptible and decisive outcomes.
Further, an effort is also made to understand the intensity of this interconnectedness. While
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 exploring interconnections between Global phenomena and Local developments, the events,
ideas, people, and places are interrogated to uncover their mutual entanglements and impacts.
The chief endeavor of the paper is thus to unravel varied ‘currents’ that entwined Global events
and Local manifestations. It aims to explore how the varied Global events and ideas affected the
consciousness of the industrial workers and their movement for fair wages and better working
conditions. While discovering the facet of interconnections, the Global occurrences namely the
Russian Revolution of 1917, the Global Economic Depression of 1929, the World War I and II and
their repercussions on diverse realms of the Industrial workers in Madras Presidency are
interrogated. The influence of the ideological ‘currents’ such as the Communism and Socialism,
which were not autochthonous to India, on industrial workers in Madras Presidency is also
examined.

“Solidarity, Smugglers, and Socialism: Traveling through the Union and Settling in Zanzibar, 1964-1987”
Charlotte Miller, Middle Georgia State University

In East Africa, Tanzanian state produced newspapers celebrated the 1964 union of mainland
Tanganyika and the islands of Zanzibar as realizing a pre-existing “spirit of unity.” The creation of
the East African Community, 1967-1977, gave further impetus to open borders and ease travel in
this part of the continent. Even with these developments, however, a trip from the mainland to the
islands off the coast required a passport, at least officially, until 1987. While Tanzanian state
rhetoric celebrated open borders and Pan-Africanism, the government maintained its capacity to
check African movement to Zanzibar. The official restrictions demonstrate state anxieties over
resource allocation and concerns about smuggling. But what did these official restrictions mean for
most people? Based on interviews and archival research in East Africa, this paper argues that
many East African travelers had no state issued documentation of their identities. Furthermore,
they used their own personal, long-term connections to make their way into Zanzibar. People who
decided to stay on sought permission from local community leaders, not the immigration
department. In the longer term, people with aspirations to remain in Zanzibar found that socialist
land policies allowed them small plots for farming and to build homes, provided that the
surrounding community accepted them.

“Tracing the Currents of ‘Recapture’ from Archival Fragments: Finding Meaning in the Movements of
Liberated Africans Across Empire”
Marcus Filippello, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

On 14 October 1848, three women arrived at the Court of Petty Sessions at Halfway Tree in the
Parish of Saint Andrews in colonial Jamaica. Court records described each woman as “an African,”
indicating they belonged to the small community of liberated Africans who had contracted out to
work on various plantations throughout the colony shortly after being “freed” from illicit slaving
vessels by the British Navy. They appeared in court because they accused the manager of the
plantation where they were employed of mistreatment. In court proceedings and a forgoing
investigation, the women gave testimonies in an African language, likely Yorùbá, which were
translated by an interpreter and recorded by a clerk. These records may offer rare glimpses into
the lives of individuals who experienced enslavement, recapture, and “liberation” before emigrating
to a colonial outpost in the nineteenth century. But how are we to sift through the layers of
translation to hear their voices? Can we discern the underlying meanings of their testimonies to
identify a more accurate reflection of their experiences and intentions? Can other seemingly
isolated archival fragments allow us to trace the passages these women, and others like them,
took from Africa along the currents of a new middle passage to the sugar plantations and courts of
Caribbean colonies? This paper seeks to answer these questions through an investigation of
various archival sources and features the meanings of emotions, agency, and historical imagination
as prominent themes.

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F8 Panel Session, Intellectual Currents and World History (HYBRID) (Creative Arts 154)

Chair: Andrew Wender, University of Victoria

“Chasing the Current of Liberty: Bakunin, George Sand and the Emancipation of (Wo)men”
Gennadi Kneper, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

This paper delves into the dynamic interplay between the successful French novelist George Sand
and the budding Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin in the intellectually charged milieu of 1840s
Paris. It situates their momentous connection within progressive intellectual currents and social
movements, encompassing Utopian socialism, liberal nationalism, and radical Romanticism. As
these movements converged on the eve of the revolutions of 1848, they ignited a transformative
force that would shape the course of European societal evolution in the ensuing decades.

The discourse between Bakunin and Sand serves as a microcosm of the larger debate on
individual freedom and the right to personal and political self-determination of men and women.
Analyzing their intellectual exchange unveils the intricate connections between radical political
ideologies and the burgeoning quest for female emancipation, which was frequently considered to
be part of an impending revolutionary change on a global scale.

This intellectual collaboration, embedded in the rich tapestry of 19th-century Europe, serves as a
touchstone for understanding the transformative potential of conflicting ideas. The currents of
liberty flowing through the dialogues of Bakunin and Sand illuminate not only the ideological
clashes of their time but also presage the broader societal shifts that would unfold in the
subsequent decades. By analyzing their discourse and the historical context in which they acted
the paper aims to unravel the threads that connect individual freedom, political participation, social
constraints, and the emancipation of women, offering insights into the complexities that shaped the
trajectory of European thought and society.

“Zhang Junmai's New Confucian Conception of Mind-Matter Dualism in the 1920s”

Haifeng Weng, University of Göttingen*

This paper explores Zhang Junmai's New Confucian "mind-matter dualism" within the intellectual
upheavals of 1920s China, particularly during the Science and Metaphysics Debate. It delves into
Zhang's reconfiguration of the Confucian “Mind (Xin心)” and “Matter (Wu物)”, juxtaposing traditional
moral knowledge in China with scientific materialism. Unlike Cartesian dualism, Zhang's approach
harmonizes mind, body, and matter, privileging ethical over metaphysical considerations. This
research illuminates Zhang's "prejudice" in blending Confucianism with modern dualism, revealing
his response to the scientism of his era and enriching the understanding of Confucian
categorization and its cross-cultural communication challenges. Zhang’s philosophy, through his
unique mind-matter framework, sought to preserve moral and spiritual values against the rising tide
of materialism, positioning Confucian ethics at the core of modern Chinese thought. His work
exemplifies the dynamic "currents" of philosophical discourse, as ideas of mind and matter flow
across cultural and temporal boundaries, shaping and reshaping intellectual engagements with
modernity.

“Physical and Emotional Exile in Zoé Valdés’s Café Nostalgia”

Sarah Miller Boelts, Grand View University*

Exile is an experience that many people around the world have gone through. Cuban exile is
unique, in that there have been distinct waves to the United States due to the political tension
between those two countries. One author that approaches exile is the Cuban Zoé Valdés, who
writes about this in her novels, mainly focusing on women’s situations. Some of these experiences

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 mirror her own life as a Cuban exile living in Paris, France. Valdes wishes for women’s experiences
to be included in the history of the island. One particular novel is titled Café Nostalgia (1997). In
Café Nostalgia, the main character, Marcela, also nicknamed Mar, is a self-exile living in Paris,
which mirrors the author’s life. Her Cuban childhood friends have also gone into exile throughout
the world, living in Argentina, the United States, and Spain, among other countries.

This talk will focus on how Mar confronts this physical and emotional exile, as the island becomes
almost an obsession in the lives of this group of friends. I utilize different definitions of exile and
insularity to analyze the experiences of the diverse characters in this novel, while also
incorporating quotes from interviews with Valdés. Marcela attempts to take control over her life in
any way that she can, due to her loneliness and experience of separation from her friends, family,
and country of origin.

“Carl Jung and History”

Robert Strayer, SUNY Brockport

Carl Jung was, among many other things, an historian. His distinctive approach to the human past
involved the application of concepts such as the collective unconscious, archetypal patterns, and
individuation to particular historical events or processes. How did Jung make use of history? How
does Jung's sense of history compare with that of contemporary academic historians. In what ways
do they overlap or bear similarities to one another? And in what ways might modern historians find
Jungian understandings inadequate or limited?

G1 Workshop Session, Interdisciplinary Currents: A Teaching Workshop on Enhancing Historical

Understanding through Debate (Creative Arts 112)

Objective: The primary goal of this interdisciplinary workshop is to engage with history educators in
developing effective strategies for incorporating debate into teaching methodologies that are suitable for
history classes at both the high school and college levels.

Content: This interactive workshop will walk attendees through two related lesson plans. The first
lesson uses the Seven Years’ War as a case study and is informed by the moderated caucus style of
debate used in competitive Model United Nations. The second lesson will be led by an experienced
debate coach who, in collaboration with the sophomore history teacher, helped design a lesson for
comparing early modern empires using structured in-class mini-debates. Both lessons will provide
practical tips on guiding students to formulate clear and well-supported historical arguments and
guidelines on how to structure and moderate debates to ensure a constructive learning environment.

Format: The 60-minute workshop will be split evenly between the two lessons to compare the styles of
moderated debate and their various benefits and challenges. Each of the attendees will be given the
option to be assigned a role in the lesson as if they were in the classroom. All attendees will be given
the opportunity to think through the lesson and offer commentary and feedback on how they might
incorporate the lesson ideas into their own teaching strategies. Session attendees also receive
instructional resources for each stage of the lesson.

Matt Reichle, Saint Mary’s Hall High School

Amy Pozza, Saint Mary’s Hall High School
Sophia Nelson, Saint Mary’s Hall High School

G2 Special Joint Panel Session with the International Big History Association (IBHA), Perspectives
on Flows from Big History (HYBRID) (Creative Arts 154)
Chairs: Mark Ciotola, San Francisco State University

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 David LePoire, International Big History Association

Big History studies include a variety of perspectives on flows in history. This panel explores some of
them. While the focus of the Big History narrative is often the increasing complexity of evolving
systems from the Big Bang through life, humans, and civilizations, there are many interesting aspects
of systems that stalled, cycled, or reversed complexity. The study of Big History encompasses many
historical explorations into an integrated perspective on this evolution. These historical attempts
provide many insights that can be synthesized into a coherent framework that is consistent with the
traditional fields. The flow of technology and innovation has followed an early vision of Francis Bacon.
However, some unintended consequences seem to have led to tragic situations that demand its
reconsideration.

“Integrating the Flow of Ideas into Big History Frameworks”

David LePoire, International Big History Association

Big History studies include a variety of perspectives on flows in history. This panel explores some of
them. While the focus of the Big History narrative is often the increasing complexity of evolving
systems from the Big Bang through life, humans, and civilizations, there are many interesting aspects
of systems that stalled, cycled, or reversed complexity. The study of Big History encompasses many
historical exploration into an integrated perspective on this evolution. These historical attempts
provide many insights that can be synthesized into a coherent framework that is consistent with the
traditional fields. The flow of technology and innovation has followed an early vision of Francis Bacon.
However, some unintended consequences seem to have led to tragic situations that demand its
reconsideration.

“The Tragedy of Francis Bacon: How His Vision of the ‘Empire of Man’ Became Our Existential
Nightmare”
Ken Baskin, International Big History Association

Four hundred years ago, Western Europe was tearing itself apart, as armies of Protestants and
Catholics slaughtered each other to prove which way of worshipping the Prince of Peace was true.
One reaction to the resulting devastation was Francis Bacon’s vision of experimental, analytic
science that could discover Nature’s secrets, allowing people to reinvent society as a welcoming
“Empire of Man.” Much of Bacon’s vision was prophetic, producing an explosion in knowledge in
everything from quantum particles to galaxy clusters. But the culture that emerged from Bacon’s
vision also produced a series of crises that threaten the existence of civilizations across the globe.
And even though leaders have understood these threats, for decades these crisis have continued to
worsen. This presentation will examine one of the unintended consequences of Western culture that
have made these threats so challenging – the way the West’s dis-integrated culture encouraged our
society to “go to war” with itself. This analysis will begin with an examination of the achievements of
Bacon’s vision, as well as how it led to a fragmentation of social thinking between the spheres of
science, economics, and politics, as opposed to other societies where that thinking is woven into a
single pattern. It will then explore how this fragmentation led to the current worldwide inability of
leaders to address problems such as global climate change and income inequality. Finally, it will
consider what we, as scholars, can do to contribute to the current efforts to heal this dis-ease by
working toward a culture that will facilitate a more unified approach to social thinking.

“Complex Flows of Historical Complexity”

Lowell Gustafson, Villanova University

Complexity, a unifying theme, responds to fundamental questions about the structure of the universe,
human significance, and the potential existence of extraterrestrial life. It provides a framework for
diverse academic fields to contribute to a comprehensive understanding. Disciplines across natural
sciences, social sciences, and humanities converge, offering evidence from quarks to global

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 societies. The journey through emergent complexity is multidirectional, encompassing various
historical patterns, civilizations, and cultures. The narrative acknowledges complexity stasis and
reversal, with units within complex systems remaining in equilibrium or regressing to simpler forms.
Emergent complexity leads to both endings and rebirths. In summary, this exploration serves as a
catalyst for interdisciplinary collaboration, inviting scholars to contribute to a unified and substantiated
account of the universe's intricate evolution, fostering a deeper understanding of our place in the
cosmos. Complexity, a unifying force across disciplines, enriches the intellectual landscape and offers
insights into the nonlinear nature of universal development.

“The Interplay Between A World of Currents And The Currents of Humanity”

Mark Ciotola, San Francisco State University

The idea of currents is expressed in the context of cosmology and Big History, then focused upon the
Earth and the people who live there. Physical currents, such as concerning water, air and light, are
identified, categorized and analyzed. A literal tapestry is woven from these patterns into dynamic
imagery of currents of humanity in terms of the movement of people, goods and information, and
ultimately power. Examples will include several fortuitous combinations of current, such as water
versus wind, and several seemingly esoteric currents, such as the transport of the excretions of a
simple worm that is becoming transformed into a new world system.

G3 Roundtable Session, The Legacy of the California School (Creative Arts 135)

The California School, like the Portuguese School of Navigation, is shorthand terminology rather than
an institution situated geographically or a specifically defined methodology in world history. This
roundtable takes as its point of departure that the California School evokes a particular re-framing of
global inquiry into political economy. It shook up the status quo in the discipline as a whole, created
specific space in economic history, and helped solidify the New World History movement. It was also a
particular temporal and spatial confluence among its practitioners, rooted in part—but not exclusively
linked to—a series of workshops and conferences organized under the auspices of a University of
California Multicampus Research Unit in World History.

Historiographically, the California School de-centered Europe in inquiry about the foundations of the
modern global economy (Gunder Frank, 1998, Wong 1991, Pomeranz 2000). These strands of inquiry
overlapped. They found institutional purchase in the World History Association and eventually in the
American Historical Association. The consequences for teaching and learning world history in K-16,
graduate education, and the shape of history departments is manifold.

Three active participants in the original UC MRU in World History will open the roundtable with brief
comments about their goals and the influence of shared conversations on their seminal publications.
Two scholars currently engaged in world history graduate programs will reflect on how this legacy
shapes their research and teaching. After five-minute opening statements, panelists will address
questions about the legacy of the California School, its continued potential for intervention, and where
critiques of world history and other approaches to globalizing inquiry perhaps show some of the
limitations of "the school."

Kenneth L. Pomeranz, University of Chicago

Edmund Burke, III, University of California, Santa Cruz
Arturo Giraldez, School of International Studies
Ruth Mostern, University of Pittsburgh
Laura J. Mitchell, University of California, Irvine

G4 Panel Session, Textual Currents in the World History Classroom (Creative Arts 146)

Chair: Sue Peabody, Washington State University

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 “Teaching Indigenous Resistance in the Age of Revolution: Worksheets to Accompany a Graphic
History”
Belen Moreno, CK McClatchy High School/UC Davis History Project

In this presentation, I will share a four-page worksheet that accompanies UC Davis historian
Charles Walker's graphic history of the epic odyssey of the Incan survivor Juan Bautista Tupac
Amaru. These worksheets guide students through the graphic history, paying attention to themes of
colonization, resistance, as well as historiography. Teachers may use these worksheets in world
history courses to facilitate the understanding of the Age of Revolutions in Latin America. I created
these worksheets in collaboration with the author, Walker, and the UC Davis History-Social Science
Project.

“Pacific Currents: Exploring Land Back Movements from a Global Perspective”

Monica Ketchum-Cardenas, Arizona Western College

Recently, the Land Back movement has gained momentum in the United States; however, the U.S.
is not alone in grappling with the issue of land reparations, as similar challenges have been
occurring wherever people have been dispossessed of their lands. In California, recent land
transfers and the renaming of local sites have all served to bring the issues of sacred spaces, land
reparations, and language to the attention of the students, creating potential for historical inquiry.
The controversies sparked by renaming sites and restoring lands and their use to Indigenous
peoples has a long, fraught history in the Pacific Rim, as efforts to remedy the impact of settler
colonization on Indigenous peoples and cultures have been met with resistance.

This paper will highlight a lesson I developed for an American Indian history course and modified
for a Modern World History course. Using maps, primary sources, and recent journalism, students
are encouraged to delve into the controversies surrounding land reparations and decolonizing
contested spaces via restoring sacred lands and renaming places to honor Indigenous histories.
Using recent land transfers and the renaming of local sites in California as a springboard, students
cast a broader net to examine Land Back movements in the Pacific Rim, including Hawai’i,
Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa, and Canada. This lesson gives students the opportunity to
gain a more nuanced understanding of the significance of land reparations in restoring sovereignty
and decolonizing lands in diverse countries while considering the connections among the
movements.

“Global Festivities in God's Own Country: Exploring the Celebration of International Calendar Holidays
in Kerala, 2023”
Manu Manikandan, University of Kerala

This research delves into the vibrant and culturally rich landscape of Kerala, India, with a focus on
the celebration of international calendar holidays in the year 2023. Against the backdrop of Kerala's
diverse population and its syncretic traditions, the study aims to explore how the residents of this
South Indian state embrace and commemorate globally recognized holidays. The investigation
takes a multidimensional approach, considering the intersection of international holidays with
Kerala's indigenous festivals and traditions. Through qualitative research methods such as
interviews, observations, and analysis of cultural events, the study seeks to uncover the ways in
which international calendar holidays are integrated into the local cultural fabric.

Particular attention is given to the adaptation and fusion of global celebrations with Kerala's unique
socio-religious practices. Whether it be the observance of New Year's Day, Valentine's Day,
International Women's Day, or other internationally recognized events, the study aims to discern
the cultural nuances and distinctive expressions of these celebrations within the Kerala context. By

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 examining how social media, technology, and global connectivity influence the adoption and
reinterpretation of these celebrations, the study sheds light on the evolving cultural dynamics in
Kerala. . By mapping the contours of international calendar holidays in 2023 within the tapestry of
Kerala's traditions, this research offers a nuanced portrayal of cultural diversity, adaptability, and
the coexistence of global and local festivities in this dynamic region.

G6 Panel Session, Currents across Imperial Boundaries: Transimperial Entanglements of Colonialism

and Anticolonialism in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Creative Arts 115)

Chair: Satoshi Mizutani, Doshisha University

Empires have conventionally been treated as distinct spatial entities, which has obscured interactions
across imperial borders. Over the past decade, however, there has been a growing exploration of the
flows of people, ideas and goods across empires. This burgeoning interest has given rise to a new field
of historical enquiry called 'transimperial history'. This new historiographical approach delves into the
interactions of modern empires beyond the confines of the national framework and metropole-colony
relationships, illuminating how transimperial interplays have shaped the interconnected world as we
know it. Nonetheless, two areas have still received limited attention. First, the transimperial dimensions
of anticolonialism remain under-researched. How did colonised populations resist empires and engage
with each other across imperial boundaries? How did they leverage international institutions and
spaces in-between empires for their cause? The second terrain involves the interactions between
European and non-European empires. How were empires interconnected as capitalism developed,
particularly in the Asia-Pacific, where the Japanese empire made its influence felt? What were the
consequences of Japan's imperial ambitions and politico-economic influence in Asia, especially when
its interests clashed with those of other empires? How did colonised peoples in Asia perceive both
Japanese and Western imperialisms? These under-researched questions are discussed by the
contributions assembled in this panel. Thus, this panel provides fresh insights into the ways in which
individuals, ideas and commodities traversed imperial boundaries throughout the 19th and 20th
centuries, shedding light on the impact of transimperial dynamics on the interconnected global
landscape.

“'Anti-imperial Groundwater' in West Africa: Togolese Anticolonial Petitioning in a Transimperial Nexus,

1918–23”
Tomoki Yamada, University of Birmingham

This paper explores the Togolese petitioning in the post-WWI era from a transimperial perspective. It
argues that their claim-making, which combined multi-scaler petitioning strategies and press campaigns
beyond imperial borders and control, heralded a new moment in anticolonial petitioning. In the
aftermath of WWI, the victorious powers assumed control of the former German and Ottoman colonies
as mandated territories under the aegis of the League of Nations (LoN). This international regime for
colonial administration across empires provided colonised people with an avenue through which they
could voice their grievances transcending imperial boundaries—a departure from 19th-century modes
of intra-imperial petitioning. In Togo, an ex-German colony divided by Britain and France and placed
under the mandates system, the population petitioned the colonial authorities, British merchants,
humanitarians, internationalists and the LoN, keenly aware of Togo's international status subject to LoN
oversight and its normative framework. The petitioners contested the partition of Togo, the transfer of its
largest city, Lomé, from British to French control, and the French mandatory policies. Furthermore, the
Togolese petition drive was inextricably intertwined with West African print culture across British and
French imperial boundaries as a source of information and inspiration and a mouthpiece for African
political opinions. Beyond conventional historiographical confines demarcated by imperial boundaries
and metropole-colony relations, this paper illuminates how Togolese grassroots activism endeavoured
to reshape the global political landscape from within and below. It also reveals a hitherto overlooked
vein of transimperial connections amongst colonised people, proposing a novel concept termed
'anti-imperial groundwater'.
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 “Rey Journey and the Transimperial Fighting for Cuba across Empires”
Eloy Romero Blanco, University of Pittsburgh

My paper will use the case of Juan Rey's journey between Cuba and New Orleans to rethink the nature
of the Caribbean borderlands from a transimperial approach. Rey was the jailer who in 1849 liberated
two Cuban anti-colonial activists held in Havana's Carcel Real and escaped with them to New Orleans.
Shortly after they arrived in New Orleans, the Spanish consul successfully pressured Rey to return to
Cuba. The intention was clear: to show that Rey was not an anti-colonial activist but had instead been
forced to leave the island. It was no coincidence that New Orleans stood at the center of the Rey saga.
The city had a diverse Spanish-speaking population well-connected to Cuba since the times of Spanish
Louisiana. Tensions among these Spanish subjects greatly intensified with the US victory in its 1846-49
war against Mexico, as it turned the city into a bastion of US-Cuban filibuster attacks against Cuba.
When Rey arrived in New Orleans, the Spanish crown had long considered the city a key place to
preserve its Cuban colony. My paper will use the Rey saga to illuminate the limits and extension of US
and Spanish power in the Caribbean. New Orleans was the intersectional space of the US and Spanish
empires, where Cubans like Rey had to move in, a borderland area where the US and Spanish empires
fought to expand and limit their power in the Caribbean.

“Sweetness and Modernity: Plantation Sugar, the Environment, and the Collapse of a Transimperial
Network in the Asia-Pacific”
Vicky Shen, University of Pittsburgh

The expansion of the commodity frontier of sugar into Asia and Oceania in the second half of the 19th
century witnessed the intentional and accidental introduction of new plant and animal species into
island ecosystems. This paper traces the processes through which the Saccharum officinarum,
(commonly known as "noble cane" for its upright stature, rich juice, and high sucrose content) emerged
to be the main commercial cane variety on most sugar plantations around the world in the second half
of the 19th century. This process took place at different times across the world and lasted about half a
century. However, the spread of the noble cane was followed almost immediately by a de-nobilization
campaign as growing numbers of diseases and pests threatened to destroy entire industries in several
regions (most notably sereh disease). Using Japanese, English, and Chinese sources, I examine the
conflicting ways both the noble cane and their de-nobilization (cane breeding) were used to exhibit
colonial modernity in Taiwan at the turn of the 20th century. This tension between transimperial
collaboration and competition, the paper shows, was made more complex by the ecological crises
caused by plantation sugar and their distinct expressions in different locales. I argue that while the
19th-century sugar plantation helped co-constituted a transimperial network between the Japanese,
U.S., and British empires, it also contributed to its demise as industrial capitalism pushed island
ecosystems to their limit.

“High-Altitude Pan-Asianism: Japan and Informal Empire in Afghanistan and Nepal, 1919–1940”
Aaron Peters, Ambrose University

Shortly after the First World War, Britain formally recognized Afghanistan and Nepal's independence.
For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, both countries were part of Britain's informal empire in
Asia. However, the recognition of formal independence for Afghanistan (1919) and Nepal (1923) did not
end Britain's continued influence in both countries. Reformist leaders in Afghanistan and Nepal sought
alliances and diplomatic relations with other countries to assert their newly recognized independence
from the British Empire. Throughout the interwar years, Japanese travelers, diplomats, and military
leaders expressed great interest in cultivating relations with Afghanistan and Nepal to challenge British
hegemony in Asia while also extending Japan's political and economic influence in the region. This
paper addresses the possibilities and limitations of Japan's Pan-Asian diplomacy between the
1920s–1940s. Although Japanese leaders sought to develop closer ties with Afghanistan and Nepal
through military and economic aid, as well as diplomatic support under the aegis of Asian solidarity,
such attempts were often targeted against Britain's political and economic dominance in India. Japan's

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 pursuit of the "diplomacy of small nations" was part of the larger trend of interwar imperialism that
attempted to legitimize informal empire paradoxically through the language of anti-colonialism.
Meanwhile, leaders in Afghanistan and Nepal leveraged Japanese support for their modernization
efforts while asserting their political and economic sovereignty against both Britain and Japan.

G7 Workshop Session, Sailing the Indian Ocean Currents: Project-Based Learning and AP World
History: Modern (Creative Arts 152)

Rebecca Hayes, College Board

Katy Smoot, The Pingry School

This session will focus on how to successfully implement a Project Based Learning approach in an AP
World History: Modern classroom setting. Experienced AP Consultants, along with the College Board
Senior Director for the course, will provide an overview of projects currently under development that
have been designed to incorporate required course content and skills through a project focused
instructional approach. During this session participants will explore the similarities and differences
between traditional instructional approaches and project-based learning approaches. Specifically, we
will highlight Project 1: Trade, Diffusion and the Global Tapestry and an Afro-Eurasian trade route
simulation. The task driving questions ask students to postulate “how does trade lead to change and in
what ways did trade facilitate the transfer of material and cultural goods and lead to innovation?”
Workshop participants will dive in and experience the project from the student perspective and will take
on the roles of port city traders or port city merchants. After the simulation, the workshop panelists will
lead a debrief to analyze the activity through the lens of the AP History Themes and connect the project
back to the driving questions. This analytical model can then be used to compare the Indian Ocean to
other required trade networks in this era. In this debrief, we will also discuss how PBL can increase
access to AP courses and increase student engagement.

G8 Panel Session, Diplomacy and Development in World History (Creative Arts 147)

Chair: TBA

“San Francisco in Diplomatic History”

Theodore J. Drizis, Independent Scholar

It presents the diplomatic activities in San Francisco City, especially the San Francisco Conference
and the Treaty of Peace with Japan in general.

“Powering Global Development: The World Bank and the Tennessee Valley Authority Model in
Colombia and Italy”
Elisa Grandi, Université Paris Cité

During the Cold War era, development models and programs reshaped the landscape of
international economic advising. Recent historical scholarship has spotlighted the worldwide
influence of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) model in post-WWII modernization programs.
Kiran Patel’s work (2016) characterized it as a prime example of New Deal ideas and policies
circulating globally, while David Ekbladh (2010) emphasized its significance within the broader
context of modernization theories propagated by the United States. Building on this scholarship,
we unravel the application of the TVA model in Colombia and Italy, from 1950 to 1965. Our analysis
not only reaffirms the worldwide dissemination of this model in the post-World War II era but also
uncovers fresh insights. In conventional narratives, recipient countries are often considered as
mere testing grounds for the World Bank’s policies, with the assumption that loans genesis and
direction originate solely from Washington. This study challenges this perspective by adopting a
microhistorical lens to assert that the World Bank’s loans in the 1950s and 1960s resulted from
multifaceted strategies orchestrated by local actors who engaged in the negotiations with

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 international advisors. The TVA model was received, adapted, and transformed at the local level.
By exposing the nuanced dynamics of its implementation, this paper illuminates the intricate path
through which this model circulated, revealing the key actors, networks, and organizations involved
in its propagation. The research proposes also new evidence of the enduring global impact of the
New Deal, delving into the presence of New Dealer economists and advisors within U.S. agencies
and international organizations engaged in applying the TVA model.

“The Cultural Cold War and Dance Diplomacy: the Case of the San Francisco Ballet in Rangoon,
Burma, 1957”
Martha Hayakawa, University of Reading

On 8 May 1959, the San Francisco Examiner reported that all the seats for the Bolshoi Ballet’s San
Francisco performance were sold out. Indeed, this was a trend repeated throughout the country.
When the final numbers were tabulated, over 900,000 applications had been submitted for the
165,000 available tickets of the Bolshoi first US tour. The American public held a burning curiosity
to see what lay behind the so-called Iron Curtain. From the Soviet perspective, Russian
achievements in ballet could not be matched by any other country. It was for this exact reason that
Moscow had selected ballet as its preferred cultural vehicle to showcase the superiority of the
communist system. Yet, the Eisenhower White House would not let the Soviets go unchallenged.

By the 1950s, cultural diplomacy had become a vital component of both US and Soviet foreign
policy as an alternative to traditional warfare, especially when it came to winning over the hearts
and minds of the developing world. While the exchange tours of large ballet companies such as the
Bolshoi and New York City Ballet have been studied, regional ballet companies such as the San
Francisco Ballet have been largely overlooked. To help rectify this gap in research and diversify the
existing literature on Cold War era cultural exchanges, this paper examines the cultural diplomatic
efforts of the San Francisco Ballet during their 1957 State Department sponsored tour to Asia. It
contends that performing artists utilize their own brand of diplomacy with effective results.

H1 Workshop Session, The Politics of Teaching World History to Non-History Majors (Creative Arts 112)

Jennifer Wahl, Pennsylvania College of Technology

Craig Miller, Pennsylvania College of Technology

Teaching World History presents a myriad of challenges. The breadth of content, the difficulty providing
relevant and accessible primary sources and the near impossibility for professors to be content experts
in all the necessary fields are all significant barriers. Add in the hyper-charged political environment and
the task becomes inexorably more problematic. For those who have non-history majors in their classes,
these problems take on a new dimension. In this panel, two professors who teach world history to
exclusively non-majors will share their approaches by discussing overall pedagogical strategies and
sharing specific examples of lessons on topics that incorporate current events and methods to
overcome the lack of basic knowledge non-majors have on the topics. In fact, both will argue that in
some ways teaching to non-majors presents rare opportunities to overcome the politics of the day with
populations who have less familiarity with the subject matter.

Historical methodology lends itself to an approach to critical thinking that informs students’ selective
information-seeking and can help break the echo chambers that are all to common in contemporary
media. The presentation will demonstrate how professors can help students understand historical
methodologies, employ them in examining the past and give students opportunities to utilize those
approaches in dissecting the current political environment. Moreover, the presentation will include
examples of how history is used in contemporary politics and allow students to critically analyze the
politicization of history. The panel will conclude with a question and answer session to encourage
sharing experiences from the trenches.

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H2 Panel Session, Human Rights for 21st-Century Students: A High School World History Curriculum
(Creative Arts 135)

Chair: Shennan Hutton, University of California, Davis

Even though teaching K-12 students about human rights is essential, that teaching is too often divorced
from specificity and historical context. This panel proposes a fresh strategy and provides a full
curriculum for lessons on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the roots of its
development and adoption in the turmoil and devastation of the 1930s and World War II, multiple
perspectives on the rights that should be included, and issues of national sovereignty, decolonization,
and early Cold War politics. Designed to fit between the World War II and Cold War units in California’s
10th-grade Modern World History course, the lessons first focus on the content and purpose of the
UDHR and then assess how real-world politics of nation-states and the activities of NGOs have
impacted the application of the UDHR to human rights abuses in the years since 1948. This human
rights curriculum introduces students to a positive, hopeful development in a narrative dominated by
war, genocide, atom bombs, and more war. A partnership of Human Rights Studies academic program
at UC Davis, the California History-Social Science Project (CHSSP), and high school history teachers
created the curriculum. The first paper will discuss the curriculum’s content, design, and rationale from
the perspective of the university’s Human Rights Studies program and the CHSSP. The second and
third papers will guide the audience through the curriculum, allowing the audience to experience as
much of the lessons as possible. Attendees will receive the lessons and additional sources.

“How and Why to Teach the UDHR: Academic Design”

Shennan Hutton, University of California, Davis

The first presentation lays the academic foundation for the curriculum, describing the rationale, content,
pedagogical goals, and crucial decisions made during the design process. The UDHR curriculum
highlights historical actors who do not often show up in high school classrooms, such as the Latin
American delegates who were so instrumental in including social and economic rights in the UDHR,
and the Mirabel sisters, murdered for their activism in the Dominican Republic. The emphasis is on
human rights as a local, American idea, based on depth of human rights support in this country after
World War II. The curriculum adds depth and nuance to the UDHR by immersing students in the
historical context of its creation and the positions of various interest groups. The presenter will show at
each point the designers’ desire to have students think critically about positions and interests without
resorting to blame, negativity, or divisive current politics. The curriculum models civil discourse about
vital issues. She will also discuss the tension inherent in designing K-12 curriculum between giving
students sufficiently detailed curriculum to convey the nuances, contingencies, and multiple voices and
the danger of overwhelming students with too much text and teachers with requiring excessive
classroom time. By analyzing the curriculum decisions made by the creators, this paper discusses the
negotiation of that tension and offers practical solutions from the CHSSP.

“Applying the UDHR Then and Now”

Ashlee Lidyoff, Washington Unified School District

This designer presents a classroom teacher’s concerns about teaching the academic content in a
manner that actually works for 10th-graders, which requires wrestling elaborate academic curriculum
into a form that will engage students without significantly reducing the rich detail and nuance necessary
to sustain meaningful inquiry. The presenter then introduces the curriculum. Students begin by
engaging in a stations activity analyzing photos and headlines to imagine the shock and dismay of
people after the terrible string of atrocities that occurred during World War II - the massive death toll,
devastation, and refugee crisis, the Holocaust, and nuclear weapons. They grasp the connection of the
historical context to people’s desire for peace and the prevention of further atrocity through respect for
human rights, which generates the sweeping breadth of the UDHR. Next, groups of students analyze
the text of the UDHR and identify an article or articles that personally matters to them. Armed with a
concrete understanding of the articles, they analyze quotations to ascertain the positions of interest

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 groups, such as the American Jewish Committee, the NAACP, and the Latin American delegations at
Chapultepec. The presenter will also discuss her use of the UDHR as a theme that frames the entire
Modern World History course, with reflections on student reception.

H3 Roundtable Session, Voices from the Margins: Exploring Migrant's Experience in the United
Kingdom (HYBRID) (Creative Arts 154)

Chair: Ani Kelechi Johnmary, University of Johannesburg*

International migration and the exploitation of migrant labour remain a concern among states in the
international system. Different countries have become a preferred destination for African migrants,
resulting in the imposition of some stringent conditions on migrants. There are also increasing
incidences of wage theft, hazardous working conditions, and reduced access to basic employment
rights among migrants. However, the patterns of migration and the legal status of migrants are critical
determinants of their working conditions, as irregular migrants face heightened vulnerability to
exploitation and discrimination. Against this backdrop, we delve into the multifaceted challenges
confronting migrants in their countries of destination, using the United Kingdom (UK) as a case, by
examining both the systemic and individual dimensions of their experiences. By giving voice to those on
the margins, the study aims to illuminate the often-overlooked nuances of migrant experiences in
receiving countries, exploring the inter-sectionality of factors such as historical and legal frameworks,
social dynamics, and economic implications. The roundtable will embrace discussions from a diverse
methodological approach, incorporating scholarly analyses, first-hand narratives, and policy evaluations
to comprehensively unpack the complexities of migrants' experiences in the UK. We aim to contribute
valuable insights to the ongoing discourse on migration, labour, and social justice, offering a platform for
marginalised voices and fostering a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by migrants.

Oko Otu Chukwuemeka, University of Buckingham

Amulu Sampson, Alex Ekwueme Federal University*
Oluwasanmi, Olaolu Peter, Durban University of Technology*

H4 Panel Session, New Currents in the Historian’s Craft (Creative Arts 146)

Chair: TBA

““What is it all about?”: Situating Life’s Place in the Cosmos in the Historiography of Big History”
Alex Holowicki, San Diego Mesa College

Published in 1933 by influential American inventor Hiram Percy Maxim, Life’s Place in the Cosmos
is an important yet largely forgotten work of Big History that warrants a discussion of its
historiographical significance and place in the intellectual currents of the interwar period. Written in
an accessible, conversational manner, the book outlines history from the Big Bang to the present,
situating some of the era’s most controversial issues, including evolution, fascism, eugenics, and
the possibility of life on Mars, into a cosmological perspective. As a vocal war critic and champion
of cosmopolitanism and liberal internationalism, Maxim assumed that his Big History could help
people see beyond conventional borders and address the perennial question of life: “What is it all
about?” Alarmed by the prospect of another world war, Maxim wanted to help people see that we
are all “Earthians” bound by a common origin story. Though the book was well-received upon
release, it has received little scholarly attention. This paper analyzes Life’s Place in the Cosmos as
a product of interwar anxieties and a valuable contribution to the spread of Big History as a
discipline and intellectual movement.

“Human Rights in Africa through Graphic Memoir”

Sue Peabody, Washington State University Vancouver

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 This graphic memoir project by the Sudanese journalist, poet, and activist, Abdelmoneim
Rahamtalla, traces his origins, coming of age, and political engagement since 1960. In 2019, I met
Mr. Rahamtalla while working on another historical project at the Camargo Foundation, a residency
for artists and historians in France. We decided to collaborate on his graphic memoir of his life in
transit over national borders in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Europe (France and Belgium). As a
historian of the legal history of race and slavery in early modern France, I was inspired to work with
a “living subject” to tell his story for modern readers. Mr. Rahamtalla’s human rights activism and
journalism in his homeland and Eritrea, led to his arrest and imprisonment twice, first in Ethiopia
and later Sudan. Designated a political refugee by the United Nations in 2015, Mr. Rahamtalla
received asylum status in France, but crossing into Belgium caused him to be swept up in mass
arrests during the 2015 Migrant Crisis. We have decided to frame his story in the wider context of
human rights with the title, I Am Not a Refugee: Writing Human Rights in Africa. Here I reflect on
the historian’s role in turning a life story into a graphic memoir a wide public North America and
Europe. This paper allows me to think through the ways that individual lives weave within the wider
currents of political, intellectual, and cultural history.

H5 Panel Session, Identity and Representation in World History (Creative Arts 115)

Chair: Mark Ciotola, San Francisco State University

“Lab Rats: Scholarly Learning, Collaborative Research, and Public History in the UC Davis Marchand
History Lab”
Emma Chapman, University of California, Davis

In the UC Davis Marchand History Lab (organized by the California History-Social Science
Project), undergraduates collaborate with graduate students and professors on a public history
project throughout an academic quarter as they hone their research and public communication
skills. They work with each other as well as archivists, museum curators, nonprofit organizations,
and K-12 educators to make history accessible and useful to the broader community. This paper
will detail the process of working with undergraduates developing their skills through cooperative
hands-on experience. This year, the content of our lab is taking a global focus on East Asian pop
cultural diaspora and transpacific identity. Students communicate with different audiences through
curating online exhibitions, creating K-12 support curriculum, and contributing to oral histories. The
diversity and international orientation of California’s students means that they are especially drawn
to global topics that help them make sense of their worlds. A focus on world history for this course
allows our students to develop new research skills as they dive into different types of sources,
utilize language skills, and question cultural assumptions about periodization, significance, and
geography. This paper also examines how multiple skill levels contribute to research and
professional outcomes. Past leaders of the History Lab have found that a collaborative model of
history research can lead to new ideas and investigative methods. This can help us rethink what
researching history entails and what knowledge we can generate and explore, as well as expand
its impact to people beyond the university.

“How Have Italians Mastered Food?”

Alberto Grandi, Università di Parma

Until the 60s Italian food did not have any international reputation. Only in the USA some Italian
recipes, such as pizza and Fettuccine Alfredo, were consumed by the general public, in the rest of
the world basically no one could appreciate the italian cuisine. Only thanks to the tourism boom of
the 60s, italy became a mainstream destination for tourists from the USA, Germany, France and
the Netherlands; italian hosts began to serve up an invented cuisine, which was not part of the
actual italian food tradition. The paradoxe is that that cuisine, invented only to suit those foreign

53
 tourists' taste and made with new and industrial ingredients, was later claimed as the secular
Italian food tradition.

“A South Saami Tragedy in Norwegian National Memory”

Leiv Sem, Nord University

In July 1947 a bus carrying a South Saami delegation to a national Indigenous convention crashed.
16 of the delegates were killed, making this accident one of largest in Norwegian history. However,
in national public discourse it is peculiarly little known, even disregarded. For the South Saami
community on the other hand, the accident is the central event of recent history. The memory is
thus a key to understanding both the forming of identity and the status of this minority in Norwegian
society.

“Threat of Extinction: Indigenous Community in Sri Lanka”

Lanka Ranaweera, University of Kelaniya

The Vaddas of Sri Lanka, an indigenous group, have endured for eras by adapting to and handling
with both external and internal challenges. They were the original inhabitants of the island
predating the arrival of Aryans and once spread across the entire island. Presently, the Vaddas
face threats that could lead to their cultural extinction due to the pressures of modernization. While
certain aspects of their culture have already faded, the integration of Vaddas with mainstream
Sinhalese and Tamils has resulted in their presence being limited to small, scattered communities
in the Eastern, Uva, and North Central Provinces of Sri Lanka. The Vedda people, an
internationally recognized indigenous community in Sri Lanka currently facing the threat of
extinction. They are considered to carry genetic markers that trace the dispersal of anatomically
modern Homo sapiens out of Africa through the southern migration route. While the Stone Vedda
group is extinct, the other two groups, namely Village Vedda and Coastal Vedda, are accessible.
Notably, following the conclusion of the conflict against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
in the North and Northeast regions by the Sri Lankan government, research opportunities
expanded to investigate the Coastal Vedda group. By combining genetic research with initiatives
aimed at preserving culture, indigenous communities may attain a more comprehensive
understanding of their history and resilience. This approach can contribute to a strengthened sense
of identity and cultural pride. Additionally, such efforts can guide the revitalization of cultural
practices that may have diminished over time.

H6 Panel Session, Ideas and Ideological Currents in World History (Creative Arts 152)

Chair: Kris Alexanderson, University of the Pacific

“On the San Francisco Conference”

Theodore J. Drizis, Independent Scholar

It presents the course of action of the Conference in San Francisco of the foundation of United
Nations Organism, And its Charter, April 25, 1945 until June 26, 1945.

“The Ebb and Flow of Ideas in Nation-Building: The Tumultuous Run of The Times of Vietnam”
Justin Simundson, United States Air Force Academy

From its foundation in 1957 to its strange end in 1963, Vietnam’s first English language newspaper
The Times of Vietnam played an important role in the exchange of ideas surrounding America and
South Vietnam’s joint nation-building project. Founded to help bridge the divides between
Vietnamese and Americans, the paper originally struck a balance of promoting and encouraging

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 the Republic of Vietnam and US governments’ nation-building efforts while also offering moderate
criticisms. Changes in personnel, circumstances, and especially the Diem regime’s attitudes
towards its American partners, however, transformed the publication to the point that Americans
came to consider it a “mouthpiece” for the Diem regime, which used it to attack US policy and
American officials. After Diem’s murder and overthrow on November 1, 1963, the offices of the
paper were ransacked by Saigon residents. Besides shedding light specifically on the evolution of
America and Diem’s nation-building partnership, the tumultuous run of The Times of Vietnam also
reveals broader dynamics of how decolonizing, modernizing governments communicated and
attempted to influence their foreign patrons as well as the conflicting and contradictory dynamics
that resulted in ebbs and flows in those partnerships.

“Borders and Borderlands in a Time of Chaos”

Andrae Marak, Roosevelt University

Taking a bottom-up approach, this presentation will place the US-Mexico and US-Canada borders
in a historical context as amorphous borderlands turned into hardened borders and a place of
political spectacle. The presentation will explore the idea and implementation of sovereignty, the
tools that nations use to craft and create citizenship, the rise of the Border Patrol and, eventually,
border walls. The presentation will note that even as borders are hardened, they are more porous
than ever, but serve as a filter that restricts that passage of some people and some types of goods
while multiplying the passage of others.

H7 Special Roundtable Session, Reparations in World History, Policy, and Action (Creative Arts 147)

This special panel begins with a question: What are the potential benefits and implications of
incorporating Olúfẹmi Táíwò's concepts of "global racial empire" and "constructive reparations" in the
teaching of modern world history? In service of that question, this panel explores the idea of
reparation in three instances: the world history classroom, the work and policy recommendations of
the San Francisco African American Reparation Advisory Committee, and an activist project that
melded art with genealogy research in San Francisco’s Black community. What place did historical
research and analysis have in the work of the Advisory Committee? How does activism continue to
inform and expand the meanings of reparation? Is there a place for discussions of justice in world
history – both as a discipline and in the classroom? Through these and other questions, this panel
will draw connections between recent work in San Francisco and world history.

Afatasi the Artist, artist, genealogy researcher, human rights scholar, and proud generational San
Franciscan
Dr. Rachael Hill, Cal Poly Pomona
Tinisch Hollins, Vice-Chair, San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee;
Co-Director, SF Black Wall Street Foundation
Dr. James Lance Taylor, Member, San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee;
University of San Francisco

H8 Old Topics Told Anew: Teaching Experiences in the World History Classroom Through a Gendered
Lens (Creative Arts 136)

Chair: Rubén Carrillo Martín, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

“Diplomacy, Conquest, Bondage and Sainthood. Teaching the Experience of Racialized Women in
Colonial Latin America from Malitzin to Catarina de San Juan”
Rubén Carrillo Martín, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

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 As a pivotal process in world history, the Spanish conquest of the Americas remains an
important part of any syllabus on the subject. One of the main challenges when approaching
this issue in undergraduate courses in Spain is to debunk many of the long-standing myths,
famously enumerated by Mathew Restall more than two decades ago. Showcasing the
agency of indigenous communities in the process by focusing on continuities from pre-
contact patterns of diplomacy and warfare has proven to be effective in contradicting
traditional Eurocentric narrative. However, analyzing the important the role of racialized
women in the conquest and early colonization of the Americas is also necessary in order to
present a more balanced, less androcentric and accurate reconstruction of this period. This
paper aims to present the results of a four-year experience focusing on the lives of key
women, Malintzin and Catarina de San Juan in particular. It shows the benefits of such a
global micro-historical approach in the classroom.

“Six Ways to Reframe Global Affairs: Gendering the Teaching of History of International Relations”
Mariona Lloret Rodà, Universitat Ramon Llull-Blanquerna

Historical analysis of international relations has traditionally left out or considered less
relevant a gendered lens in favor of realist approaches. While key concepts such as power
and war remain important in our understandings of the past, using a gender approach only
but enriches our interpretations and discussions. In this paper, I will share the experience of
teaching a course titled “Gender and International Relations” at Universitat Ramon Llull-
Blanquerna (Barcelona), which was divided into two sections: a theoretical introduction, in
which terms such as masculinities/femininities, gender, and identity were studied, as well as
a brief world history of gender, and a main part in which six topics were examined through a
gendered lens: war and militarized masculinities, inequality and the feminization of poverty,
climate change, human rights and the LGBTQI+ community, political extremism and the
colonization of bodies, and post-colonialism. The result of this course was that students
were able to deconstruct and rethink previous knowledge, and learn how to incorporate this
perspective in their future research. The aim would, then, be to encourage an incorporation
of a gendered approach in the classroom that does not only focus on women and that does
not reify or essentialize this perspective as a separate narrative from mainstream history,
but rather that it becomes a pivotal tool in order to comprehend and reconstruct historical
processes in international relations.

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