The WMQ-EMSI Workshop Series is designed to identify and encourage new trends in our understanding of the history and culture of early North America. It fosters intellectual exchange among scholars working on thematically related topics that may be chronologically, geographically, or methodologically diverse. The participants are primarily mature scholars working on second or subsequent book projects; they share their works in progress with the aim of deepening and enriching their perspectives, their approaches, and ultimately the final products of their research.
2027 WMQ-EMSI Workshop
Convened by Peter C. Mancall, USC
In recent years, scholars in early American history have turned increasingly to synthesis. Do these writings represent a turn in the field—or a return to a more traditional form of writing about the past? How has the craft and responsibility of writing synthetic histories changed given the expansion of topics and approaches employed by historians over the past generation?
To mark the 20th anniversary of the partnership between the William and Mary Quarterly and the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute, the workshop in 2027 focuses on the challenges, opportunities, and limitations of synthesis as a form of historical writing. We welcome proposals from scholars who are currently writing synthetic works about any aspect of the vast early American experience. Discussion may focus on issues such as the integration of primary materials into synthetic analysis, how visual materials (including maps) can contribute to synthetic writings, questions about narrative writing and its limitations, questions raised in efforts to write a grand narrative, and considerations of the audiences—public, scholarly, classroom—in the writing of synthetic works.
Participants will attend a two-day meeting at the Huntington Library, May 14–15, 2027, to discuss a precirculated, unpublished chapter-length portion of their current work in progress along with the work of other participants. Subsequently, the convener, Peter C. Mancall, will write an essay elaborating on the issues raised at the workshop for publication in the William and Mary Quarterly. The participants’ meals, lodging, and travel expenses will be covered by the EMSI and the Omohundro Institute.
Proposals for workshop presentations should include a two-page c.v., an abstract of a draft chapter the applicant seeks to present at the workshop, and a relatively brief (ca. 5 pages) description of the applicant’s larger project. The organizers encourage proposals from scholars who are working on their second (or subsequent) book. Graduate students are ineligible.
Image: Detail from“The Castle of Batavia” by Andries Beeckman, ca. 1656 Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum
The WMQ–EMSI Workshops are sponsored by the University of Southern California–Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute (with financial support from the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Carole Shammas) and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture and are hosted by the Huntington Library and the University of Southern California.
