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Western Conference on British Studies

9 October 2026

University of North Texas 
Main Campus - Student Union
Denton, TX

 

Panel I: 8:30-10:00 (Room: 394)

18th Century Crisis of Empire

Chair: Richard Follett

  1. Ean Puhlman, University of Texas El Paso, “Governing a Territorial Empire: The American Department under the Earl of Hillsborough, 1768-1772"

  2. Thomas Prasch, Washburn University, “‘Why America May Do Strange Things’: Burke and the American Revolution”

  3. Jamie Bronstein, New Mexico State University, “The Declaration of Independence through Jewish Eyes: The American Revolution as a Site of Self-Making"

 

Panel II: 8:30-10:00 (Room: 338)

Early Modern History of Medicine and Science

Chair: Robin Hermann

  1. Ashley Birdsall, University of Louisiana, “A Lady’s Natural Science: The Chemist and Mineraologist Lady Elizabeth Anne Hippisley”

  2. Reagen Hart, Auburn University, “Died of Teeth: British Medical Understandings of Infant Health, 1740-1850"

  3. Paul Child, Sam Houston State University, “Filth and Physick: Humoral Medicine in the ‘Scatalogical’ Poetry of Jonathan Swift”

 

Panel III: 8:30-10:00 (Room: 339)

Britain’s Empire Chronicles: Statecraft, Warfare, and Politics in the 19th Century

Chair: Samuel Fullerton

  1. Christian Andoh, Oklahoma State University, “Militarizing Empire: War, Colonial Violence, and State Formation in the Gold Coast, 1860-1920"

  2. Kyle Thompson, Pittsburg State University, “Gladstonian Influence in Edinburgh, 1880-1886"

  3. Padraic Kennedy, York College of Pennsylvania, “Free Secret Agents or Secret Free Agents? The Economics of Espionage in Victorian Great Britain”

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Panel IV: 8:30-10:00 (Room: 341)

Women, Nation and Empire

Chair: Andrew Nelson

  1. Tarquin Schwartz, Pittsburg State University, “‘Dutch, with very suspiciously black hair and eyes’: Racial Anxiety and the Limits of Whiteness in Lady Dug Gordon’s Letters from the Cape”

  2. Arunima Datta, University of North Texas, “Mrs Proudlock sent to the Noose for Murder: Racial and Gender Politics in Twentieth Century Malayan Court Rooms”

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Panel V: 10:15-11:30 AM (Room: 394)

Race, Ethnicity and Crime in 19th and 20th Century Britain

Chair: Manuel Grajales

  1. Jorge Ruiz, University of North Texas, “Victorian Broadside Ballads”

  2. Zachary Fumero, University of North Texas, “The “other” soldiers in Britain’s war”

  3. Aniqa Amjad, University of North Texas, “When Empire Comes Home: Commonwealth Migration and Social Movements in Post-War Britain”

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Panel VI: 10:15-11:30 AM (Room: 339)

Labor and the British Empire

Chair: Arunima Datta

  1. Andrew Nelson, University of North Texas, “The Administrative Ambiguity of Nepali Migrant Laborers in the British Empire”

  2. Angela Austin, University of Texas Arlington, “Beyond Indenture: Child Labor and Legal Ambiguity in the British Atlantic”

  3. Logan Buga, Rice University, “The Disappearing Indian: Evolution of Indigenous Enslavement in Law and Practice”

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Panel VII: 10:15-11:30AM (Room: 341)

Modern Literature, Culture, Authorship 

Chair: Richard Follett

  1. Jeremy Meyer, Arizona State University, “Spiritual, Political and Textual Ideologies: William Blake's Visual Imagination as Influenced by John Milton's Historiography”

  2. Suzanne Farmer, Northeastern State University, “Her Name There Used: Hannah Woolley, A Guide to Ladies, Authorial Identity, and the Early Modern Print Marketplace”

  3. Josie Garza Medina, University of North Texas, “Outsider Art Aesthetics and Identity Formation in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go”

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Panel VIII: 10:15-11:30AM (Room: 338)

Early Modern Empire and Religion

Chair: Samuel Fullerton

  1. Nicole Breault, University of Texas El Paso, “Correction and Confinement in Puritan Boston”

  2. ElZahraa Elsabagh, University of Louisiana, “Three English Representations of Islam and Muhammad in the Long Eighteenth Century”

  3. Robin Hermann, University of Louisiana, “Elizaeth Clawson…thou deseruest to dye: witchcraft in colonial America before and after Salem”

 

Lunch and Keynote: 11:45PM-1:20PM (Room: 314A- Emerald)

Chair: Robin Hermann

Ginger Frost, Samford University, “At the Mercy of Strangers”: Family Ties and Deportation in Britain, 1905-1950

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Panel IX: 1:30-2:45PM (Room: 338)

Women, Health and Morality in Modern Britain

Chair: Padraic Kennedy

  1. Itzel Verdin, University of North Texas, “German prostitutes in inter-war Britain”

  2. Sarah Ogut, University of Missouri, “Failure of the Feminine: The Fallen Woman in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Britain”

 

Panel X: 1:30-2:45PM (Room: 339)

Memory, Politics and Empire

Chair: Kyle Thompson

  1. David Baillargeon, University of Texas Arlington, “The Empire under One Roof: The Imperial Institute in the Era of Decolonization”

  2. Derek Blakely, Independent Scholar, “Lord Curzon, Historical Preservation and Memory”

  3. Christopher Jordan, University of Mississippi, “How the Story of William Wallace was Created and Interpreted”

 

Panel XI: 1:30-2:45PM (Room: 341)

Money Matters in Early Modern Britain

Chair: Robin Hermann 

  1. Kathryn Marshalek, University of Florida, “‘Money Must Be Had’: Financial Desperation and the Debate over Parliamentary Supply in 1625”

  2. Isaac Stephens, University of Mississippi, “The Religio-Political Economy of London’s Clerical Ejections, c. 1630-1662"

  3. Melissa Reynolds, Texas Christian University, “When Profit Meets Patria: Privateering, Pepper, and Anti-Foreign Sentiment in Elizabethan England” 

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Panel XII: 3:00-4:15PM (Room: 341)

17th Century Anglo-European Diplomacy

Chair: Isaac Stephens

32. Samuel Fullerton, University of North Texas, “Experimental Diplomacy: Competing 

English Embassies in the Baltic, 1642-43"

33. Elizabeth Hines, University of South Florida, “Dutchmen and Royalists in the English 

Civil Wars”

34. Tigany Bragg, University of Texas Dallas, “‘Barbarously and Inhumanely Murthered’: 

Assassination as a Tool of Exiled Royalist Diplomacy” 

 

Panel XIII: 3:00-4:15PM (Room: 339)

Britain and Identity Making 

Chair: Jamie Bronstein

  1. Basmah Arshad, University of North Texas, “Serving Up Authenticity: Analyzing the Literal and Figurative Ingredients of Indian Cuisine in the Anglo-American Context”

  2. Andrew Bellamy, Rutgers University, “The Cabal that Wasn’t: The Namazi Family and the Persian Opium Trade across Britain’s Asian Empire, 1920-1936"

  3. Michael Stallings, University of Texas El Paso, “The Movement of Bodies: How Emigration and Slavery Shaped British Diplomacy with the Republic of Texas”

 

Panel XIV: 3:00-4:15PM (Room: 338)

20th Century Empire, Diplomacy and Science

Chair: David Baillargeon

  1. Jackson Baker, Texas A&M University, “Shakelton’s Library: The Role of Literature during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration”

  2. William Meier, Texas Christian University, “Politics for Lunch, Empire for Dinner: Dining with Mary Endicott Chamberlain”

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4:30-5:30PM- WCBS Executive Meeting (Room: 339)

 

5:30-6:30PM: Reception (Room: 382)

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