The Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture

The Chicago Conference on the American Revolution

February 10 – 12, 2011

The Newberry Library

60 West Walton Avenue
Chicago, IL 60610

Plenary speakers: Gordon S. Wood and  T. H. Breen

The Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture at the University of Chicago and The Dr. William M. Scholl Center for American History and Culture at the Newberry Library was pleased to co-sponsor a major international and interdisciplinary conference on the American Revolution held in Chicago at the Newberry Library on February 10-12, 2011.

The Chicago Conference on the American Revolution—the largest scholarly gathering on the subject since the bicentennial—brought together nearly forty established and emerging specialists from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, including history, law, political science, literature, anthropology, and art history. Participants ranged in outlook and experience from prize-winning emeriti, to decorated mid-career professionals, to independent scholars, to recent PhDs at the cutting edge of their fields. Two of the world’s foremost authorities on the American Revolution delivered public addresses that spoke to the place of the Revolution in our contemporary moment. On Thursday, February 10, Professor Gordon S. Wood provided a keynote focusing on the American revolutionary tradition and why America wants to spread democracy around the world. On Friday, February 11, Professor T. H. Breen offered a more inclusive historical narrative to counter the image of the American Revolution currently circulating in popular political discourse.

Moderated panel discussions on Friday, February 11 and Saturday, February 12 centered on new essays specially commissioned for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution, edited by historians Ed Gray and Jane Kamensky, and surveyed the most important scholarly developments of the past generation while pointing toward crucial new directions in the study of the American Revolution. The topics treated embraced longstanding academic and public interests in ideological, military, and constitutional contexts of the Revolution, but also included newer questions related to the self, to gender, and to modes of discipline ranging from prisons to cityscapes. And while the papers presented acknowledged the lives and thoughts of the era’s political leaders, they went far beyond the founders, exploring the revolutionary experience and impact of native peoples, urban artisans, women, and African Americans.

Held during a period of heightened interest in the American Revolution, the Chicago Conference on the American Revolution offered scholars and the public a chance to reflect critically and historically on the political events and social movements that led to the creation of the United States.

Participants included:

Terry Bouton (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)

Catherine Brekus (University of Chicago Divinity School)

T.H. Breen (Northwestern University)

Christopher L. Brown (Columbia University)

Stephen R. Conway (University College, London)

Caroline Cox (University of the Pacific)

Shannon Lee Dawdy (University of Chicago)

Max M. Edling (Uppsala University, Sweden)

Eliga Gould (University of New Hampshire)

Ed Gray (Florida State University)

William B. Hart (Middlebury College)

Graham Hodges (Colgate University)

Benjamin H. Irvin (University of Arizona)

Susan Juster (University of Michigan)

Jane Kamensky (Brandeis University)

Janice Knight (University of Chicago)

Allan Kulikoff (University of Georgia)

Edward Larkin (University of Delaware)

Clare Lyons (University of Maryland)

Michael McDonnell (University of Sydney)

Martha J. McNamara (Wellesley College)

Jane T. Merritt (Old Dominion University)

Stephen Mihm (University of Georgia)

Gary B. Nash (UCLA)

Catherine O’Donnell (Arizona State University)

Jason M. Opal (McGill University)

Mark Peterson (University of California, Berkeley)

Ray Raphael (Independent Scholar)

Eric Slauter (University of Chicago)

Christopher L. Tomlins (University of California, Irvine Law School)

Gordon S. Wood (Brown University)

Craig Yirush (UCLA)

Rosemarie Zagarri (George Mason University)