By John William Nelson John William Nelson (Texas Tech University) is the author of “Sigenauk’s War of Independence: Anishinaabe Resurgence and the Making of Indigenous Authority in the Borderlands of Revolution” in the October 2021 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly. I did not set out to write a history of an obscure… Read More
by Kathryn M. de Luna Kathryn M. de Luna is the author of “Sounding the African Atlantic” in the October 2021 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly. I had wanted to write an article like this one, applying early (pre-Atlantic-era) Africanists’ methods to Atlantic contexts since grad school. But, if… Read More
By Elspeth Martini Elspeth Martini is the author of “VISITING INDIANS,” NURSING FATHERS, AND ANGLO-AMERICAN EMPIRES IN THE POST–WAR OF 1812 WESTERN GREAT LAKES” in the July 2021 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly. If Native nations controlled the vast majority of North America above the Rio Grande at the end of the eighteenth century, then the nineteenth… Read More
How an intellectual collaboration brought four lives into focus By Karen B. Graubart This article began with a generous hand-off from a friend and colleague. Luis Miguel Glave, an eminent Peruvian scholar and regular denizen of the reading room of the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, enjoys taking a morning break from research with other scholars gathered from… Read More
By Eliga Gould and Rosemarie Zagarri Eliga Gould and Rosemarie Zagarri convened the forum “Situating the United States in Vast Early America” in the April 2021 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly. When Martha Howard invited us to write a piece about our recent forum, “Situating the United States in Vast Early America,” saying yes was easy. Deciding… Read More
By Gordon M. Sayre, author of “Jefferson Takes on Buffon: The Polemic on American Animals in Notes on the State of Virginia” in the January 2021 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia has intrigued me for my entire career. In my dissertation research I read… Read More
If given the option to expand my already-lengthy article, “The Rattlesnake and the Hibernaculum,” which appeared in the January 2021 William & Mary Quarterly—well, I would probably decline for fear of losing my reader in its serpentine folds. If forced to expand my essay, on the other hand, I would have probed yet one more… Read More
When I help graduate students prepare applications for fellowships and jobs, we sometimes talk about the phrase “my project.” What does this phrase actually mean? Ph. D. students usually use it, reflexively, to mean “my dissertation.” Book writers often use it to mean “my book.” I prefer to think about a “project” as a bundle of interrelated questions that… Read More
In 2013, while I was a PhD candidate making my first foray into research on a dissertation about administrative knowledge practices in the early modern British empire, I stumbled across a curious and cryptic set of notes in an obscure file at the UK National Archives at Kew Gardens. The file, TNA, CO 318/2, is ambiguously titled in the… Read More
Charlie Kreh (W&M Class of 2021) is a History major. He plans to pursue a degree in law after he completes his BA. When I first learned of the Omohundro Institute (OI) and the accomplished scholars who work there, I knew I wanted to participate in any capacity I could. With the help of my advisor, Dr. Nicole Dressler,… Read More