Professors Philip Morgan and François Furstenberg will co-direct “The Global Atlantic,” a 2021-2022 Folger Institute colloquium that is co-sponsored with Johns Hopkins University. While the invited speakers listed below will present and lead discussion on their respective topics, the workshopping of seminar participants’ scholarship will be a central focus of the monthly meetings.

Description: In a world increasingly concerned with the political limits of globalization and its economic and environmental costs, Atlantic history offers an opportunity, as an analytic paradigm, to contend precisely with the historical roots of this sharp increase in modern interconnectedness. This monthly colloquium takes stock of the field of Atlantic History in order to assess where the current strengths of the scholarship lie and to map future directions for research. It seeks to critically explore the relationship between the Atlantic and Global frameworks that have structured so much historical research and production.

Directors: Philip Morgan, Harry C. Black Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, focuses particularly on slavery in North America, but his scholarship also ranges widely across many aspects of the Atlantic World. He is currently at work on a history of the Caribbean and Wider World, c. 1450 to 1850. François Furstenberg focuses on early American history and the Atlantic World. Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, he is currently at work on projects related to U.S. expansion in the Early Republic, and on the historical writing of Frederick Jackson Turner.

Invited Speakers: An opening roundtable will include Alison Games (Georgetown University) and Neil Safier (Brown University). Confirmed speakers include: Sam White (The Ohio State University) and John McNeill (Georgetown University) on the Atlantic environment; Barbara Mundy (Fordham University) on Indigenous confrontations with the Atlantic; Pablo Gomez (University of Wisconsin) on the “Plantationocene”; Marcy Norton (University of Pennsylvania) on materialities; Surekha Davies (University of Utrecht) and Earle Havens (Johns Hopkins University) on cartography and book history; Byron Hamann (The Ohio State University) on archives; and Matt Matsuda (Rutgers University) on thinking beyond the Atlantic.

Anticipated Schedule: Fridays, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., 8 October, 12 November, 10 December 2021; 14 January, 11 February, 15 April, and 13 May 2022 at Johns Hopkins University. Fall 2021 sessions may be held virtually depending on local conditions. On 10–12 March 2022, colloquium participants will join a conference on Richard Eden and Peter Martyr organized by Surekha Davies and Earle Havens.

Apply [folger.edu]: 2 August 2021 for admission and grants-in-aid.

Questions? Please contact institute@folger.edu.

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