Davis Center Seminar
Revolutionary Change
The Shelby Cullom Davis Center Seminars present weekly programming on a variety of topics related to the Center's current theme. Visiting Fellows from academic institutions near and far help to create a rich understanding of the topic from diverse yet overlapping perspectives. The theme for the academic years 2020-21 and 2021-22 is “Revolutionary Change.”
This fall, because of the pandemic, seminars meet online via Zoom from 10:15 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time (USA), and are open to all Princeton University affiliates. The papers are pre-circulated and can be accessed beginning one week before the date of the seminar. The seminar starts with a brief comment by an invited commentator, and a response from the author, after which the floor is open for questions from attendees. You may access the papers here (Princeton University credentials required).
The first three seminars of the year (September 4, 11 and 18) will be devoted to a special symposium on the theme of “Living Through Revolutionary Change.” Each seminar will feature two short papers by Princeton History Department faculty, each examining the experience of men and women living through periods of violent, disruptive change. The subjects include war, economic crisis, famine and plague, colonial conquest, regime change and urban revolt.
September 4
Sheldon Garon, Princeton University
“Why No ‘1918’ in 1945? A Transnational History of Fomenting Revolutionary Change in War”
Harold James, Princeton University
“The Seven Crises of Globalization: From the 1840s to Covid"
Commentator: Philip Nord, Princeton University
September 11
William Chester Jordan, Princeton University
“’If evil comes…’ Tribulation and Courage in the Fourteenth Century”
Vera Candiani, Princeton University
“From the Indigenous Township to the Modern University: The Revolutionary Potential of Self-Governance in Latin America"
Commentator: Jennifer Rampling, Princeton University
September 18
Michael Gordin, Princeton University
“When the Post-Soviet Revolution Came for Soviet Science"
Alison Isenberg, Princeton University
“Uprisings”
Commentator: David Bell, Princeton University
September 25
Massimiliano Tomba, Davis Fellow and University of California, Santa Cruz
“Anachronism and Revolution”
Commentator: Edward Baring, Drew University
October 2
Federico Marcon, Princeton University
“Fascism’s Counter-Revolutionary Revolution”
Commentator: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, New York University
October 9
Jonathan Gienapp, Stanford University
"The Lost Constitution: How a Transformative Vision of Sovereignty and National Power Was Embedded in the American Constitution, and Then Forgotten"
Commentator: Matthew Karp, Princeton University
October 16
Julia Gaffield, Georgia State University
“Freedom or Death: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the Haitian Revolution"
Commentator: Marlène Daut, University of Virginia
October 23
Kirsten Weld, Davis Fellow and Harvard University
“Ruins and Glory: The Long Spanish Civil War in Latin America”
Commentator: Tony Wood, Princeton University
October 30
Gary Bass, Princeton University
“Pan-Asianism, India, and the Tokyo War Crimes Trial”
Commentator: Eri Hotta, Independent Scholar
November 6
Kate Cooper, Davis Fellow and Royal Holloway, University of London
“Religious Radicals in Roman Africa: The Usual Suspects or Agents of Revolutionary Change?”
Commentator: Jack Tannous, Princeton University
November 13
David Howell, Harvard University
“Japan’s ‘Aristocratic Revolution’ Revisited”
Commentator: Robert Hellyer, Wake Forest University
November 20
Donna Murch, Rutgers University
“Crack in Los Angeles: Policing the Crisis and the War on Drugs"
Commentator: Matthew Lassiter, University of Michigan
Image credit: "René Mederos, 1959-1969 Decimo aniversario del triumfo de la rebelion Cubana (1969)"