[These are our joint sessions with the Radical History Review; all will be in Room 305 of the Marriott.]
1. Roundtable: “Peace with Honor”—Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of the Paris Peace Accords
Thursday, January 5, 2023, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown – Room 305
Description:
On January 27, 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed, mandating the official end of the US involvement in the Vietnam War, leading to the withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam and the return of the POWs. Richard Nixon proudly announced that he had brought “peace with honor.” In this Roundtable, we will reflect on the meaning of that agreement and the role of the peace movement in bringing it about. We will draw on the experience of Sophie Quinn Judge (AFSC Saigon Representative) and Arnold Isaacs (reporter for the Baltimore Sun) who were present in South Vietnam during the 1973-75 period.
Chair: Carolyn Eisenberg, Hofstra University
Speakers:
Carolyn Eisenberg, Hofstra University
Arnold Isaacs, author, editor, Southeast Asia correspondent
Sophia W. Quinn-Judge, Temple University
2. Roundtable: Fighting the Culture War Attack on History—Strategies and Experiences
Friday, January 6, 2023, 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown – Room 305
Description
An experience-based assessment of recent efforts by historically-oriented intellectuals and activists opposing the culture wars. Various strategies will be addressed, including anti-gag order resolutions by faculty bodies; virtual and in-person teach-ins and forums; activist scholarship including books, essays, archives, and journalism; mobilizations through social media; and public demonstrations of various sorts and sizes. Various groups will be referenced including Historians for Peace and Democracy, African American Policy Forum, Zinn Education Project, American Association of University Professors, and several teachers and educators Unions. Representatives of various groups and campaigns will be present, and broad discussion will be encouraged.
Chair: Sarah Louisa Sklaw, New York University
Speakers:
Deborah Menkart, Zinn Education Project
Adam Sanchez, Central High School
Mary Nolan, New York University
Ellen Schrecker, Yeshiva University
Van Gosse, Franklin & Marshall College
Janine Giordano Drake, Indiana University
3. Roundtable: Unions in Higher Education—Historical and Contemporary Realities
Friday, January 6, 2023, 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown – Room 305
Description
Employee unions in higher education are controversial. Conservatives, who are busy restricting the content of teaching and of student activities in colleges and universities, and in reducing educational funding, are harshly critical of unions. Moderates, though less openly negative toward unions, seek to marginalize them. Nonetheless, higher education unions are resurgent and are having impact. And an important sector of the public applauds them. This roundtable will explore the nature and role of unions of various types in higher ed–historically and in the present–with the object of developing an accurate understanding of these organizations and their potential.
Chair: Andrew Feffer, Union College and American Association of University Professors–American Federation of Teachers
Speakers:
William A. Herbert, National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, Hunter College, City University of New York
Angela Thompson, general counsel, Communication Workers of America
Charles Toombs , San Diego State University and California Faculty Association
Jenny Shanker, Adjunct Organizing Committee, Temple Association of University Professionals
Todd Wolfson, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey and Rutgers American Association of University Professors–American Federation of Teachers
Paul A. Ortiz, University of Florida and United Faculty of Florida
4. Roundtable: Empire of Sanctions
Friday, January 6, 2023, 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown – Room 305
Description
Sanctions are now the preferred economic weapon that the United States uses to pressure, discipline and coerce enemies, and even allies. Sanctions restrict targeted states from importing, exporting and receiving investments; they prohibit US corporations and banks from dealing with those countries; and they limit the economic activities of sanctioned individuals. Today the US is an “empire of sanctions.” This roundtable will discuss the legality and (in)effectiveness of sanctions and their impact on civilians, explore a few key cases, and examine the blowback US sanctions have generated.
Chair: Mary Nolan, New York University
Speakers:
Renate Bridenthal, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and Graduate Center, City University of New York
Mary Nolan, New York University
Sarah Louisa Sklaw, New York University
5. Roundtable: The “Ed Scare”—The Current Conservative Panic over the Academy and Its Antecedents
Friday, January 6, 2023, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown – Room 305
Description
Political attacks on American higher education have been endemic ever since the modern university developed. This panel will look at several key moments when the American academic community came under political attack. Most of those attacks were connected to the most pressing political and social problems of the time. Hostility to higher education was common long before the Manhattan Institute’s Chris Rufo discovered that demonizing critical race theory could fire up Republican voters. By exploring how earlier faculties and administrators both won and lost these battles, this session may provide the kind of relevant information that can help fend off the barbarians at the campus gates.
Chair: Jonathan Zimmerman, University of Pennsylvania
Speakers:
Ellen Schrecker, Yeshiva University
Jonathan Zimmerman, University of Pennsylvania
Eddie R. Cole, University of California, Los Angeles
Robyn C. Spencer, Lehman College, City University of New York
Valerie C. Johnson, DePaul University
6. Roundtable: Alternatives to the Anthropocene
Saturday, January 7, 2023, 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown – Room 305
Description
The idea of the Anthropocene has spread far beyond its origins in geology, becoming common in contemporary activist and intellectual circles. But who is responsible for the mounting disasters associated with the age of “Anthropos,” and who should be made to pay reparations? This panel with contributions from Radical History Review#144 recuperates the alternative worlds, orientations and subaltern environmental movements that constitute radical historical alternatives to the Anthropocene. Panelists conceptualize these alternatives to the Anthropocene as seeds of ecological insurrection, sometimes lying long dormant, but always ready to rise up again when the time is right.
Chair: Ashley Dawson, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Speakers:
Ashley Dawson, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Naomi Paik, University of Illinois at Chicago
Zoe Goldstein, Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Matthew Shutzer, University of California, Berkeley
Arpitha Kodiveri, New York University School of Law
7. Strategy Meeting: Radical Historians, Intellectuals, and Activists on Our Roles in the Current Situation
Saturday, January 7, 2023, 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown – Room 305
Description
Moderated by the co-chairs of Historians for Peace and Democracy (H-PAD), this meeting of historians, intellectuals, and historically-oriented activists will review recent social developments including the 2022 Midterm Elections, the continuing attacks on women and people of color, the culture wars, the pandemic, and the multiple international crises we face. Our emphasis will be on how these impact our work, and on our responses, electorally and non-electorally. We will focus on programs, strategies, and tactics that we need for future successful, progressive outcomes. In short, this will be a collective summation of recent experience and a consideration on how best to move forward.
Speakers:
Margaret M. Power, Illinois Institute of Technology
Van Gosse, Franklin & Marshall College
Mary Nolan, New York University
Ellen Schrecker, ty
Ellen Schrecker, Yeshiva University
8. Roundtable: Teaching the Truth in Secondary Schools during Contentious Times
Saturday, January 7, 2023, 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown – Room 305
Description
A panel of secondary school teachers–who have faced or witnessed political blowback against an honest and open examination of United States history in their school districts and communities–discuss the stress teachers experience under the microscope of social media, the constant pressure to self-censor, and different strategies they use in their classrooms and schools to respond. Their pedagogies focus on a critical examination of history by students and their own commitment to “teach the truth.” They believe study of the past helps students understand contemporary crises and an examination of contemporary crises deepens student understanding of history.
Chair: Barbara Winslow, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
Commentator: Alan Singer, Hofstra University
Speakers:
Imani Hinson, Uncommon Charter High School, Brooklyn, NY
Chris Dier, Benjamin Franklin High School, St. Bernard Parish, LA
Pablo Muriel, Alfred E. Smith High School, Bronx, NY
Cynthia Vitere, Southside High School Rockville Centre, NY
Dawn Sumner McShane, A.B.G. Schultz Middle School, Hempstead, NY
Adeola Tella-Williams, Uniondale High School, Uniondale, NY
Jazmin Puicon, Bard High School Early College Newark, NJ
Romelo Green, Bellport Middle School and High School, Bellport, NY
9. Topics in South African Cultural and Political History
Saturday, January 7, 2023, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown – Room 305
Description
With the last phase of the South African anti-apartheid struggle, and even more so with the liberation of 1994, studies of South African history have proliferated. Culture and politics of the mass of the people have been the frequent focus for historians who have thereby been making serious contributions to not just South African history, but to the history of the African continent, and indeed to that of the world. Given this frame, the purpose of this session is modest. It offers a small sampling of the recent historiography of South Africa to invite conference goers to dig deeper into this important historical trend.
Chair: Andor D. Skotnes, Russell Sage College
Presentations:
Postliberation Culture and the Struggle for History: The Robben Island Lime Quarry Event (Andor D. Skotnes, Russell Sage College)
Sons and Rebels, Traditions and Violence: “Traditional” Violence Takes a Nationalist Turn in Rural South Africa, 1960–63 (Sean Redding, Amherst College)
Custom as History in Modern South Africa (Elizabeth Thornberry, Johns Hopkins University)
10. Roundtable: The Failed War on Terrorism—Afghanistan and Iraq
Sunday, January 8, 2023, 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown – Room 305
Description
Following 9-11, the Bush Administration made the extraordinary decision to combat the threat of terrorism by conducting a war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Two decades later, the failure of both projects is evident. In this Roundtable, we will consider the explanation for that choice, the significant consequences for these two nations and for the United States, the role of the peace movement, and the long-term implications of the multiple tragedies which occurred. How does this “war on terrorism” fit into the long history of American foreign policy?
Chair: Kevin A. Young University of Massachusetts Amherst
Speakers:
Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies
Roger Peace, US Foreign Policy History and Resource Guide
Jeremy P. Varon, New School
11. Roundtable: International Solidarity with Palestinians—Palestinian Internationalist Solidarities
Sunday, January 8, 2023, 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown – Room 305
Description
In May 2021, millions of people around the world marched in solidarity with Palestinians demanding justice and liberation. The year before, Palestinians joined global protests against police violence and anti-Black racism. This roundtable brings together historians from across multiple subfields to discuss: what are some of the historical precedents for such demonstrations of solidarity? What do these precedents tell us about the histories of colonialism, imperialism, and internationalism in the twentieth century? What methodologies best enable historians to examine these transnational phenomena? How can these histories help us better understand Palestine’s centrality in today’s global solidarity movements?
Chair: Maha Nassar, University of Arizona
Speakers:
Michael R. Fischbach, Randolph-Macon College
Nathaniel George, Harvard University
Sune Haugbølle, Roskilde University