History Working Groups

Members of the Department of History are involved in a number of colloquia, lunches, reading groups, and seminars. Usually held with in conjunction with other programs, departments, and research centers at Yale, these groups are designed to bring together students, faculty, and other interested individuals with shared research interests. Held throughout the academic year, many of these groups meet regularly, while others gather on a more occasional basis.

American Religious History Workshop
The American Religious History Workshop has existed at Yale since the late 1980s and concentrates on discussions of religion's role in American history and culture from the colonial period to the present. Most presentations are given by graduate students, but sometimes the group discusses an important new article or book. The Workshop is open to anyone in the Yale community who wishes to attend—faculty and students alike and meets once a month during term.
Contacts: alexandra.kaloyanides@yale.edu and shari.rabin@yale.edu

 

British Studies Colloquium
The British Studies Colloquium is an interdisciplinary forum for Yale graduate students and faculty working on any aspect of British literature, history, arts, and culture. With five to six meetings per semester, the colloquium offers an informal setting for graduate students to present work in progress, to get feedback from an interdisciplinary audience, and to cultivate a wider knowledge of British culture than could be provided by any one departmental colloquium. Its programming includes occasional talks by visiting scholars and faculty members as well as by graduate students; in recent years, its core audience has expanded from the Departments of English, History, and History of Art to include Law, Comparative Literature, and Renaissance Studies. Interested students can also join our listserv, british-list@panlists.yale.edu, for announcements relating to the Colloquium and other British studies events at Yale.
Contacts: tessie.prakas@yale.edu

 

Colloquium in International History and Security
International Security Studies at Yale runs a weekly series of talks by graduate students and faculty from many different departments called the Colloquium in International History and Security. Speakers normally present for around 30 minutes, and then take questions and lead discussion for another 30-45 minutes, in seminar format. The talks are held on Tuesdays, at 11:45 a.m. during term. These talks cover a wide variety of subjects. Speakers often use the series to present work in progress, or to try out a possible job talk or a draft conference paper.
Contact: john.gaddis@yale.edu and paul.kennedy@yale.edu

Early Modern & Modern Jewish History

Starting this semester, we will be bringing scholars both from inside and outside Yale. This will be a broad forum and will appeal to American and European historians, historians of religion, and other disciplines with interests in any aspect of Jewish history.

The colloquium will meet on several Tuesdays from approximately noon to 1:30 p.m. and will provide a free lunch for all those attending.

For more information please contact the colloquium organizers: nathan.kurz@yale.edu and shari.rabin@yale.edu

Environmental History at Yale

Environmental History at Yale brings together a broad range of faculty and students studying the complex historical relationship between humans and the environment.  Participants specialize in aspects of African, Chinese, Japanese, European, Latin American, Middle Eastern and United States environmental history.

Environmental History at Yale sponsors an interdisciplinary monthly lunch colloquium to discuss faculty and student works-in-progress.  The group also sponsors guest speakers and hosts an annual northeast environmental history conference.  For upcoming activities, participating faculty, and guides to course and research opportunities at Yale, visit the Environmental History at Yale website at www.yale.edu/environmentalhistory.  

2010-2011 Coordinator: rachel.rothschild@yale.edu

Faculty contact: paul.sabin@yale.edu

 

Greco-Roman Lunch Colloquium
The topic of the lunch is Greco-Roman civilizations from Alexander the Great to Islam.  Once a week during term, graduate students and faculty in several programs of the University, including Ancient Christianity, Ancient Judaism, Classical Archeology, Classics, History, History of Art, Medieval Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and New Testament meet for lunch and conversation and hear a brief, informal presentation by one of their number on work in progress. Attendance at this colloquium, which is voluntary and informal, provides a pleasant and friendly way to keep up with students and faculty in related parts of the University. Lunch is free for all graduate students and faculty.
Contact: bentley.layton@yale.edu

Historical Theory Reading Group

Discussion of important texts of interest to historians from across various fields.

To build a platform for an engagement with twentieth-century material we propose that we should start with some key texts on and from the 18th and 19th centuries including Max Weber, Nietzsche, Kant, Hegel, Toqueville, Comte and the positivists, Marx, Koselleck, Hayden White and others. 

There are no prerequisites or minimum requirements for membership in the group other than a willingness to engage seriously with sometimes difficult material.

The group will meet fortnightly. The proposed time and date for the first meeting is Monday 18th January at 12.00 in HGS 218.  Subsequent meetings will be held in HGS 204. 

If you are interested in participating please send an email to Adam.Tooze@yale.edu and Taylor.Spence@yale.edu.

 

History from Below

History from Below meets once per month during the academic year to explore grassroots perspectives on the past. The group is an open forum and members are encouraged to discuss their own research and receive feedback. We also engage classic texts and theories and look at recent scholarship related to our work. Some of the problems we have explored in the past include: how to locate the ideas and activities of "everyday" people, how to incorporate grassroots perspectives into scholarly narratives, the role of the individual in history, the relationship between lived experience and historical change, social movements, oral history, public history, and popular culture. We have collaborated with The Yale Program in Ethnicity, Race and Migration and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition to bring in outstanding academic speakers whose work has redefined or challenged the conventional boundaries of the field.

Discussion leaders usually distribute a short text before each meeting. Students, faculty, and friends from all backgrounds are welcome.

Contact: joseph.yannielli@yale.edu

 

Medieval Lunch Colloquium
The weekly Medieval Lunch Colloquium brings together medievalists from a variety of departments in the University for informal presentations and discussion.  At each meeting, a speaker presents work-in-progress to an interdisciplinary audience of graduate students, faculty and staff working in medieval studies. Speakers include both Yale faculty and graduate students, with occasional out-of-town guests. The luncheon takes place in the Branford College Fellows Dining Room starting around noon, with the talk beginning at 12:30.
Contact: anders.winroth@yale.edu

Pre-Modern Gender & Sexuality Working Group

The Pre-Modern Gender and Sexuality Working Group (PGSWG) is a forum for sharing, discussing, and presenting work on gender and sexuality in an interdisciplinary setting that is dedicated to the study of pre-modern (defined as prior to ca. 1750) societies and cultures. Yale has a strong tradition of interdisciplinary programs, colloquia and student-led working groups, such as, for example, the Medieval Studies Department, the Renaissance Studies Department,  the British Studies Colloquium, and the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Working Group.  In accordance with this tradition PGSWG offers a forum for students and academic fellows to meet and tackle questions and problems with like-minded colleagues who have a shared interest in gender and sexuality as well as the pre-modern.  Thus the group also addresses issues of sources, methods, and frameworks for the study of pre-modern societies.  Our meetings (typically held on Fridays once a month, between 1-2:30 pm) focus on:

•  Presenting and discussing our own work within the framework of our studies at Yale (such as the writing of the prospectus and the drafting of syllabi, dissertation chapters, and seminar papers);

• Presenting and discussing works in progress for conferences and publications;

• Reading and discussing (“work-shopping”) important theories and theorists, seminal or otherwise useful and interesting articles and books, and mapping how they have been and can be applied to the pre-modern period.

Please don’t hesitate to join us, or contact us if you have any questions!

Contact:  courtney.thomas@yale.edu; marita.vonweissenberg@yale.edu

Russian and East European History Reading Group
The Russian and East European Reading Group usually meets once monthly on Wednesday nights during the term. The group meets to discuss works in progress in history and other fields, usually dissertation chapters or drafts of articles. Members are graduate students and faculty in the Departments of History, Slavic Languages and Literature, Comparative Literature, and Political Science.
Contacts: paul.bushkovitch@yale.edu; marianne.lyden@yale.edu

Transitions to Modernity Colloquium
The Transitions to Modernity Colloquium is a broadly interdisciplinary forum to explore the nature and causes of the transition to modernity. We encourage participants and papers from history, economics, sociology, literature, political science, philosophy, and related disciplines. The group meets on alternate Mondays to discuss a pre-circulated paper. To facilitate broad-based discussion, each session is introduced by a graduate student discussant from a discipline other than that of the presenter. All Yale faculty, graduate students and visitors are welcome to participate. Further details, and copies of upcoming papers, are available on the Transitions to Modernity website.
Contact: steven.pincus@yale.edu

Urban History

The Yale Urban History group gathers to talk about cities - their spaces, politics, and cultures.  This is a forum for students, faculty, affiliates, and visiting scholars to share their research.  We hope that a cross-disciplinary dialogue, and attention to innovative methods and new questions in the field, will shape and enrich all of our work.

The group meets at 12:00pm on the third Monday of every month.  All are welcome.

Student contact: betsy.beasley@gmail.com 

Faculty contact: jay.gitlin@yale.edu

 

Yale Early American Historians
Yale Early American Historians (YEAH) is an interdisciplinary group of graduate students and faculty who are dedicated to the study of early American history.  The group meets regularly throughout the academic year to discuss works-in-progress by YEAH members, and occasionally to host guest speakers.

Contacts: caitlin.fitz@yale.edu, joanne.freeman@yale.edu

Yale Group for the Study of Native America

The Yale Group for the Study of Native America (YGSNA) began in 2003 as an interdisciplinary working group interested in topics relating to Native American peoples, past and present.  YGSNA generally meets twice a month on Tuesdays from noon to 1:30pm.   Members of our working group include graduate students, faculty, and staff. We share works-in-progress, visit relevant collections on campus, and develop special programs of interest to people working in the interdisciplinary field of Native American and Indigenous Studies.

For further information, or to join the YGSNA mailing list, please contact alyssa.mt.pleasant@yale.edu, or ryan.hall@yale.edu.

 

Yale International History Workshop

The Yale International History Workshop seeks to foster a comprehensive approach to international history. Spread literally across the whole globe, Yale faculty explore international, transnational, regional and global perspectives. We are interested in every aspect of these interrelationships including not only diplomatic and security questions, but also cultural, social, political and economic dimensions. Our interests range from Thucydides to late-twentieth-century critics of empire, spanning from classic questions of war and peace to the long-term processes that have shaped the modern world. Aiming to shed new light both on the high politics of international diplomacy and the global history of transnational encounter we aspire to foster a dialogue in which classical and post-classical approaches can enter into an ever more fertile and productive exchange.

For more information go to: http://internationalhistory.yale.edu

For a schedule of our events click here.

Yale Westerners
Every Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. during term graduate students, faculty, and guests interested in the history and culture of the American West and the study of frontiers (in a variety of periods and places) meet for lunch and conversation at the Blue Dog Cafe in the McDougal Center in the Hall of Graduate Studies. Approximately once a month, the group meets in the Howard Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders in the Whitney Humanities Center where visiting scholars or members of the group present work in progress in an informal setting. The Lamar Center also presents formal lectures in the Hall of Graduate Studies, an annual symposium in the fall, and occasional conferences. To be on the Lamar Center mailing list, contact edith.rotkopf@yale.edu.
Contacts: jay.gitlin@yale.edu, john.faragher@yale.edu

Women's and Gender History Working Group
The Women's and Gender History Working Group has been folded into the WGSS Graduate Working Group and Colloquium.  For more information, please visit http://www.yale.edu/wgss/colloquium.html

Writing History
Writing History is a primarily a discussion group for graduate students interested in thinking more creatively about their academic history writing. In the past, Writing History has sponsored outside lecturers and internal panels. The normal routine of the groups, however, is to have bi-weekly meetings in order to discuss a particular reading. A different participant chooses the reading each time; some semesters, we read relevant historical or theoretical or creative selections. Currently, the group focuses on reading each other's submissions (mostly dissertation chapters and article drafts).
Contacts: paul.shin@yale.edu, beverly.gage@yale.edu, david.blight@yale.edu, christine.delucia@yale.edu