Borderlands and Transnational History at the 2014 Western History Association Conference

The Western History Association will hold its 54th annual conference in Newport Beach, California on October 15-18. Like last year, I have gone through the preliminary program to highlight panels deals with Borderlands or Transnational history. The conference theme is “The West & the World” so hopefully that will lend to some good transnational themes. I was on the program committee for this year’s conference and there are some great panels lined up, including some non-Borderlands ones that I might highlight in a later post. As always, the timing of the panels causes conflicts. In some time-slots there are multiple relevant panels, and in others, none. Overall, there do not seem to be as many as last year, but there are some other non-borderlands panels that look excellent and will make up for it! Plus, it can’t be borderlands all day and all night, can it?

Here’s the breakdown: I am listing entire panels, even if only 1 paper is relevant to borderlands or transnational history. Also, I am interpreting these concepts broadly. Borderlands and Transnational histories are not synonymous, but often related. I am including both as well as those dealing with more broadly defined concepts of boundaries, frontiers, etc… If there are any I miss, feel free to comment below. See you there!

Wednesday, October 15 2:30pm-4:00pm

Coalition for Western Women’s History Roundtable: Women Crossing Borders

• Chair & Comment: Catherine J. Lavender, The College of Staten Island, CUNY
• Michael J. Lansing, Augsburg College -“The Women Are Voluntarily Organizing Themselves”: Gender and Grassroots Democracy in the Nonpartisan League
• John McKiernan-Gonzáles, University of Texas-Austin – “soy illegal y tengo derechos”: Gender, Women, andthe Making of National Matters in Texas
• Nicholas G. Rosenthal, Loyola Marymount University -Moving Towards Mainstream: American Indian Women
  Crossing Reservation Borders

Thursday, October 16 8:30am-10:00am

Crime, Race, and the Criminal Justice System: Reconceptualizing the Borderlands of the North American West

• Chair: Christopher L. Agee, University of Colorado, Denver
• Darren Raspa, University of New Mexico -Though the Heavens May Fall: British Columbia’s Black Constables and the Borderlands of Policing in the Nineteenth-Century North American West
• Israel Pastrana, University of California, San Diego -Immigration Law Enforcement, the Foran Act, and Mexican Braceros before WWI
• Alejandro Garcia, University of California, Berkeley -South Central L.A.’s Kings and Queens: A Street History of the Rise of the Carceral State, 1970s-1990s
• Comment: Andrew R. Graybill, Southern Methodist University

“Boarder”-lands Beyond the West: Exploration,Migration, Militarization, and Multiplicity in the Pacific

• Chair & Comment: Camilla Fojas, DePaul University
• Rudy Guevarra, Jr., Arizona State University -Migrations to the “Boarder-lands”
• Matthew Kester, Brigham Young University -Seeing the Pacific in the West, Seeing the West in the Pacific
• Lily Anne Yumi Welty, University of Southern California -Military Industrial Intimacy

Friday, October 17 8:30am-10:00am

Borderlandscapes of the Rio Grande

• Chair: Sterling Evans, University of Oklahoma
• Timothy Paul Bowman, West Texas A&M University -“Goodbye, Great River”: A Transnational History of the Rio Grande’s Destruction
• Peter A. Kopp, New Mexico State University -Fabian Garcia: Borderland Horticulturalist
• Jerry D. Wallace, University of New Mexico -“All Over New Mexico”:
• Dale Bellamah and the Reshaping of the Southwest’s Built Environment in the Early Cold War Era
• Comment: Benjamin Johnson, Loyola University Chicago

Friday, October 17 2:30pm-4:00pm

Committee on Teaching and Public Education, the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Western Region -Migrations in Southwest History: A Big History View

• Chair: Linda Sargent Wood, Northern Arizona University
• James Brooks, School for Advanced Research -Continental Drifts: Space, Time and Migration in the Greater Southwest
• Rachel St. John, New York University -Migration and the U.S.-Mexico Border
• Teaching Activities:
  • Gabe Gomez
  • Eric Newcombe
  • Tim Tomlinson
  • Sara Stahl

Centering America as a Settler Colonial Empire: Immigrants, Anti-Imperialists, and Border Policers

• Chair: Margaret Jacobs, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Mikal Brotnov Eckstrom, University of Nebraska-Lincoln -The Intimate Nature of Settler Colonialism: Julius Meyer and Standing Bear
• Nathan Jessen, University of Oregon -The West as a Colony or Colonies as the West? The Western Debate of Empire, 1898-1900
• Kristopher Anthony Klein, University of Texas at El Paso – Machismo and Modern Colonialism along the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: A Study of Twentieth-Century American Military Intervention
• Comment: Jeff Roche, College of Wooster

Racial Boundaries and Cultural Borders: Gender, Nature, and Sin in the Greater North American West

• Chair: Maria E. Montoya, New York University
• Carolina Monsivais, University of Texas at El Paso -From Frontier to Border: Sorting through Narratives, Identity, and American Currency in Northern Baja California, 1880-1935
• Jennifer Macias, University of Utah -Restructuring the American Dream: Latino/a Baby Boomers and the Power of Family in the Rocky Mountain West
• Mary E. Mendoza, University of California, Davis -Artificial Border: Control and Consequence on the U.S.-Mexico Border
• Comment: Katherine Benton-Cohen, Georgetown University

Saturday, October 18 8:30am-10:00am

Across the “Frontiers”: Global Dreams of the American West

• Chair: Andy Kirk, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
• Elizabeth Logan, Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West -Planting a World and Defining the West at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, 1915
• Kara McCormack, Stanford University -Global Round-Up: Circulation and Consumption of the Mythic West around the World
• Linda Scarangella McNenlym, Independent Scholar -The West in the Press: Evolving Narratives of Conquest and Representations of Native Peoples Performing in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West
• Comment: Andy Kirk, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Saturday, October 18 2:30pm-4:00pm

The Global Southwest: Mexican American Intellectuals of the 1930s and 1940s

• Chair: Anthony Quiroz, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi
• John Morán González, University of Texas at Austin -Reclaiming Texas History: Maria Elena Zamora O’Shea and the Tale of the Talking Tree
• Julie Leininger Pycior, Manhattan College -Ernesto Galarza and Transnational Scholar Activism
• Carlos Kevin Blanton, Texas A&M University -George I. Sanchez, the World, and Re-Imagining the American Southwest, 1934-1940
• Comment: José Limón, University of Notre Dame

Empires in America: The Meaning of Frontier in the North American West, 18th and 19th Centuries

• Chair & Comment: Barbara Reyes, University of New Mexico
• Martha Ortega, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa -The Last Frontier: The Russian’s Last Years in Alaska and the First Years of the American Administration
• Lucila del Carmen León Velasco, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California -The Frontier in Baja California during the Mission Period
• Marco Antonia Samaniego López, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California -From Imperial Frontiers to National Frontiers