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By Elizabeth A. Dolan and Ahmed Idrissi Alami May 31, 2019

Origins of a collaboration

The authors of “Muhammad Kabā Saghanughu’s Arabic Address on the Occasion of Emancipation in Jamaica” (William and Mary Quarterly, April 2019) discuss how they came to collaborate on the piece. Beth: Our collaborative journey began with an unexpected find. I’d traveled to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast to read Sir Lionel Smith’s family papers. The archive included personal… Read More

WMQ 7 min read
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By Andrew Newman February 20, 2019

Digital Sources, Analog Citations

Today’s post is by Andrew Newman, author of Allegories of Encounter: Colonial Literacy and Indian Captivities, published in January 2019 by the Omohundro Institute with our partners at the University of North Carolina Press. It is available in paperback. The image on the right is a copper engraving from a 1725 Amsterdam edition of François de Salignac de la… Read More

books 12 min read
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By Tom Cutterham December 12, 2018

Capital, Deception, and the Heirs of Daniel Parker

WMQ author Tom Cutterham (October 2018) offers further thoughts on his piece, “‘A Very Promising Appearance’: Credit, Honor, and Deception in the Emerging Market for American Debt, 1784—92” (William and Mary Quarterly, volume 75, no. 4). Where is the line between entrepreneur and con-artist? That’s the question that animates Jane Kamensky’s account of early nineteenth-century Boston financier Andrew Dexter Jr. Read More

WMQ 6 min read
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By Lauren Duval November 29, 2018

Daily Life and Wartime Disruption

Today’s post is by October 2018 WMQ author Lauren Duval. The American Revolution, Mary Beth Norton asserted in her classic study, Liberty’s Daughters, had “profound consequences for the entire population” and unsettled “normal patterns of life.”[1] I found this notion particularly intriguing and I was eager to explore it further as I delved into my dissertation research. Occupation seemed… Read More

WMQ 7 min read
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By Sarah L. H. Gronningsater August 29, 2018

From "Eureka!" to footnotes

This post comes to us from Sarah L. H. Gronningsater (University of Pennsylvania), author of “‘Expressly Recognized by Our Election Laws’: Certificates of Freedom and the Multiple Fates of Black Citizenship in the Early Republic” in the July 2018 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly. She responds to the question How does your essay in the WMQ relate to your larger… Read More

WMQ 8 min read
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By James Rice August 22, 2018

Acknowledgements: The Unabridged Edition

This post comes to us from James Rice (Tufts University), author of “Early American Environmental Histories” in the July 2018 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly.  In a recent series of Uncommon Sense posts, Karin Wulf, Ann Little, Anna Mae Duane, and Lynne Withey celebrated the 75th anniversary year of the Omohundro Institute by writing about the… Read More

WMQ 7 min read
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By Matthew Mulcahy and Stuart Schwartz August 08, 2018

Short answer: what to do with 5,000 more words

Today’s post, by July 2018 WMQ authors Matthew Mulcahy and Stuart Schwartz, authors of “Nature’s Battalions,” comes in response to the following question: “WMQ articles are capped at 10,000 words (plus notes). If you had 5,000 more words to play with, how would the article be different?” by Matthew Mulcahy and Stuart Schwartz Our article “Nature’s Battalions” was born out of our… Read More

WMQ 4 min read
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By Alyssa Mt. Pleasant, Caroline Wigginton, and Kelly Wisecup June 15, 2018

Collaboration can't be rushed

Today’s post comes courtesy of authors from the William and Mary Quarterly April 2018 Forum “Materials and Methods in Native American and Indigenous Studies: Completing the Turn.” by Alyssa Mt. Pleasant, Caroline Wigginton, and Kelly Wisecup The forum is the result of a multi-year collaboration between three editors, not all of whom had worked together before or even met in person. Read More

WMQ 8 min read
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By Alejandra Dubcovsky May 23, 2018

Thoughts on writing for the WMQ-EAL forum

Today’s post is by Alejandra Dubcovsky, author of “Defying Indian Slavery: Apalachee Voices and Spanish Sources in the Eighteenth-Century Southeast” in the April 2018 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly. The April issue is part of a forum, “Materials and Methods in Native American and Indigenous Studies” published in collaboration with Early American Literature.  I thought doing a forum would… Read More

WMQ 7 min read
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By Nadine Zimmerli May 03, 2018

Atomic Bonds

By Nadine Zimmerli, Associate Editor, Books My job continues to surprise and delight. The most unexpected and fascinating email I received last year contained the following attachment, courtesy of Cameron Strang, whose OI book Frontiers of Science comes out this summer: This card connects one Institute to another: issued by the library of the Institute for… Read More

books 14 min read
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By Christine DeLucia March 22, 2018

On "slow history": Decolonizing methodologies and the importance of responsive editorial processes

Christine DeLucia, author of “Fugitive Collections in New England Indian Country: Indigenous Material Culture and Early American History Making at Ezra Stiles’s Yale Museum” in the January 2018 edition of the William and Mary Quarterly  reflects on the broader implications of making a “simple” change to her recent article. It wasn’t quite a “stop the presses!” moment.  But a… Read More

WMQ 14 min read
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By oieahc March 15, 2018

Further Thoughts on Douglas Winiarski's Bancroft Prize-winning Book

This week we were thrilled to learn that Douglas L. Winiarski’s Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England (OI and UNCP, 2017) was one of three books awarded the 2018 Bancroft Prize. This sweeping history of popular religion in eighteenth-century New England is simultaneously magisterial in scope and carefully attuned… Read More

books 3 min read
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