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Symposium

“Globalization of the United States, 1789-1861”

Friday, October 10, 2014, 9:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Held at the Lilly Library on the campus of Indiana University.

The symposium brought together eight scholars exploring how the United States recalibrated its relationship with the wider world after removing itself from the swaddle of the British empire. The formative era between the American Revolution and the American Civil War is instructive for rethinking American history by attending to the global — and also for rethinking the history of globalization itself. Leaving behind a celebratory focus on interconnection that has characterized so much scholarship on globalization, the symposium highlighted a historical reality of stubborn limits to global knowledge, global ambition, and global reach.

Panelists

Emily Conroy-Krutz^{Michigan State University}
Brian DeLay ^{University of California, Berkeley}
Caitlin Fitz ^{Northwestern University}
Courtney Fullilove ^{Wesleyan University}
Brian Rouleau ^{Texas A&M University}
Nancy Shoemaker ^{University of Connecticut}
Rachel Van ^{California State Polytechnic University, Pomona}
Rosemarie Zagarri ^{George Mason University}

Symposium Schedule

9:30 AM	WELCOME AND INTRODUCTORY REMARKS Konstantin Dierks ^{Indiana University} “Conceptualizing Globalization”
10:00 AM	PANEL I Emily Conroy-Krutz ^{Michigan State University} “Christian Imperialism: The Vision and Realities of Global American Missions” Brian Rouleau ^{Texas A&M University} “Maritime History as the History of the United States in the World”
11:00 AM	COFFEE BREAK
11:15 AM	PANEL II Courtney Fullilove ^{Wesleyan University} “The US (Patent Office) in the World: The Global Search for Useful Plants” Nancy Shoemaker ^{University of Connecticut} “Extraterritorial American History”
12:15 PM	LUNCH
2:00 PM	PANEL III Caitlin Fitz ^{Northwestern University} “Foreign Revolutions and U.S. Party Politics, 1789-1860: The Narcissus Problem in U.S. Global Relations” Rosemarie Zagarri ^{George Mason University} “Reforming Empire in British India and the Early American Republic”
3:00 PM	COFFEE BREAK
3:15 PM	PANEL IV Brian DeLay ^{University of California, Berkeley} “Dambreaking: Mercantilism, Armaments, and the Demolition of Europe’s Americas” Rachel Van ^{California State Polytechnic University, Pomona} “Cents & Sensibilities: Yankee Merchant Networks and the Shaping of Market Sensibilities”
4:15 PM	EXHIBITION WALKTHROUGH
4:45 PM	CLOSING REMARKS AND PLENARY DISCUSSION Konstantin Dierks ^{Indiana University} “Limits to the Global”
5:30 PM	CLOSING RECEPTION

Support

The symposium was supported partially by Indiana University’s New Frontiers in the Arts & Humanities Program and partially by the Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences Ostrom Grants Program.

Additional support came from the Department of History, Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies, School of Global and International Studies, Center for the Study of Global Change, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Dhar India Studies Program, Department of American Studies, and the Lilly Library.

Konstantin Dierks would like to acknowledge special support from Erika Dowell, Peter Onuf, and Seth Rockman.