Americanist Colloquium

The Americanist Colloquium brings together graduate students and faculty interested in exploring topics in American literature and in American Studies in general. Our scope is wide, open to all categories of critical interest and ranging, historically, from pre-Colonial America to the present. Past events have addressed questions of sovereignty, settler-colonialism, cultural studies, speculative fiction, legal studies, and more. We organize a variety of events—talks, reading groups, workshops, mini-conferences, film screenings, and symposia—with the aim of building a community involved in the relevant issues of the field today. Recent guests of the colloquium include Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Jordan Stein, Mark Rifkin, David Kazanjian, and Edlie Wong.

Past Events

2021 - 2022

Apr 06

Americanist Colloquium--Sonya Posmentier, NYU

Sonya Posmentier, Department of English, New York University

Zoom information: https://princeton.zoom.us/j/94828382536; Meeting ID: 948 2838 2536 4: 30 PM

Lyric Education as a Practice of Freedom

Mar 30

Americanist Colloquium

DeForrest Brown, rhythmanalyst, writer, representative of the Make Techno Black Again campaign

Zoom information: https://princeton.zoom.us/j/96426139157; Meeting ID: 964 2613 9157 4: 30 PM

Assembling a Black Counter Culture

2019-2020

Apr 23

CANCELED: Americanist Colloquium

Sonya Posmentier, Department of English, New York University

4: 30 PM

This event has been canceled.

2018-2019

Apr 29

Americanist Colloquium

Iván Ramos, Department of Women's Studies, University of Maryland

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 4: 30 PM

Melting Modernities: Ice, Sound, and Revolutions

Reception in the Thorp Library to follow talk.

Apr 11

Postcolonial & Americanist Colloquia

Una Chung, Sarah Lawrence College

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 4: 30 PM

Temporal Pulsations: Tishan Hsu in New York and Shanghai

Reception in the Thorp Library to follow talk.

Mar 14

Americanist Colloquium

Jim Casey, Princeton Center for Digital Humanities, Princeton University

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 4: 30 PM

Frederick Douglass, New Orleans, and the Possibility of Editorship Studies

Reception in the Thorp Library to follow talk.

Feb 26

Americanist Colloquium

Herman Beavers, Department of English and Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 4: 30 PM

"Something Else You Have to Figure In: the Ethical Dilemma of Unreliable Citizenship in Morrison's Home and Jazz"

Reception in the Thorp Library to follow talk.

Nov 14

Americanist Colloquium

Tara Bynum, African American Literature and Culture, Hampshire College

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 4: 30 PM

Speculative Pleasures, "The Archive" and a Pig Roast; Or, Who Are Obour Tanner and Cesar Lyndon

Reception in the Thorp Library to follow talk.

2017-2018

Apr 10

Americanist Colloquium and 20th C. Colloquium

Marisa Parham, Department of English, Amherst College

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 4: 30 PM

Black Digitality

Reception in the Thorp Library to follow talk.

Mar 06

Americanist Colloquium and Contemporary Poetry Colloquium

Meta DuEwa Jones, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 4: 30 PM

Alchemy in African/American Poetry: Experimental Ekphrasis

Feb 13

Americanist Colloquium, Princeton American Indian Studies Working Group

Kyle Powys Whyte, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 12: 00 PM

Decolonizing Climate Justice: Indigenous Movements

Lunch will be provided.

Dec 05

Americanist Colloquium

Iyko Day, Department of English, Mount Holyoke College

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 4: 30 PM

Afro-Feminism Before Afro-Pessimism

Please contact Kimberly Bain (kbain@princeton.edu) prior to talk to obtain copies of readings.

Reception in the Thorp Library to follow talk.

2016-2017

Apr 26

After the Future: Notes on Black Elegiac Feel

Nijah Cunningham, Princeton Society of Fellows

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 4: 30 PM

After the Future: Notes on Black Elegiac Feel

Feb 23

"The voice explaining at once formally and intimately": James Merrill's 'Cavafy' and the Poetics of Intimacy

Foteini Dimirouli, Princeton Center for Hellenic Studies

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 4: 30 PM

"The voice explaining at once formally and intimately": James Merrill's 'Cavafy' and the Poetics of Intimacy

Dec 06

Spies Not Like Us: Yellow Peril and the Fictions of National Security and Immigration Control

Edlie Wong, University of Maryland

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 4: 30 PM

Spies Not Like Us: Yellow Peril and the Fictions of National Security and Immigration Control

Nov 29

Atlantic Speculations, Quotidian Globalities

David Kazanjian, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2016-17)

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 4: 30 PM

Atlantic Speculations, Quotidian Globalities

Reception in the Thorp Library to follow talk.

Nov 10

Americanist Colloquium: "Mad World Spectator: An Experiment in Literary Psychohistory"

Max Cavitch, Department of English, University of Pennylvania

Hinds Library (Room B14), McCosh Hall 4: 30 PM

"Mad World Spectator: An Experiment in Literary Psychohistory"

Reception in the Thorp Library to follow talk.

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Americanist Colloquium