Western Conference on British Studies

9 October 2026

University of North Texas

Denton, TX

 

NOTE: each paper should be no more than 20 minutes unless a panel has 4 presenters. For panels with 4 presenters – each speaker/presenter will be allowed 15 minutes. Panels with four presenters have been marked with “*”

 

8:30am - 10:00am

 

Panel I: 18th Century Crisis of Empire

Chair: TBA

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: Early Modern History of Medicine and Science

Chair: Rob 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”

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

Chair: Chris Frank 

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”

 

Panel IV: Women, nation and  empire

Chair: TBA

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

2. Pamela Wright, Texas A&M Kingville, “After the Fall: Autonomy, Reinvention, and the Making of the Proto-New Woman”

3. Arunima Datta, University of North Texas and Laura Tabili, University of Arizona, “By Choice or By Chance: tracing Victorian women’s agency in bigamy cases”

 

10:15am - 11:30am

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Panel V: Race, Ethnicity and Crime in 19th and 20th century  Britain

Chair: TBA

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 Ahmed, University of North Texas, “Race riots in Liverpool”

 

Panel VI: Labor and the British Empire

Chair: TBA

1. Andrew Nelson, University of North Texas, “The Adminitrative 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 Buffa, Rice University, “The Disappearing Indian: Evolution of Indigenous Enslavement in Law and Practice”

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

 

Panel VII: Modern literature, culture, authorship 

Chair: TBA

1. Jeremy Meyer, Arizona State University, “John Milton’s Influence on William Blake”

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, Texas A&M Kingville, “Outsider Art Aesthetics and Identity Formation in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go”

 

Panel VIII: Early Modern Empire and Religion

Chair: TBA

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

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

3. Alex Whitley, University of Louisiana, “Master of the Revels: Theatre and Performation in the King’s Household during the Edwardian Reformation, 1547-1553"

4. Robin Hermann, University of Louisiana, "'Elizabeth Clawson ... thou deseruest to dye:' Witchcraft in Colonial America before and after Salem"

 

11:45pm - 1:20pm

 

Lunch and Keynote:

Chair: Rob Hermann

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

 

1:30pm - 2:45pm

 

Panel IX: Women, health and morality in modern Britain

Chair: TBA

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

2. Britt Page, University of Southern Mississippi, “Mathilde Blind’s The Message and the Reconfiguration of Victorian Moral and Sensory Hierarchies”

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

 

Panel X: Memory, Politics and Empire

Chair: TBA

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”

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Panel XI: Money Matters in Early Modern Britain

Chair: TBA

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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3:00pm - 4:15pm

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Panel XII: 17th Century Anglo-European Diplomacy

Chair: Isaac Stephens

1. Sam Fullerton, University of North Texas, “Experimental Diplomacy: Competing English Embassies in the Baltic, 1642-43"

2. Elizabeth Hines, University of South Florida, “Dutchmen and Royalists in the English Civil Wars”

3. Tiffany Bragg, University of Texas Dallas, “‘Barbarously and Inhumanely Murthered’: Assassination as a Tool of Exiled Royalist Diplomacy” 

 

Panel XIII: Britain and identity making in late 20th century 

Chair: Richard Follet

1. Chris Frank, University of Manitoba, “Selling Europe to a Skeptical Audience: Fanfare for Europe in Scotland, 1972-73"

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

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

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Panel XIV: 20th c Empire, diplomacy and science

Chair: TBA

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”

3. Toby Harper, Arizona State University, “Biosecurity Nation: Colonization and Control in Aotearoa, New Zealand”

 

4:30pm - 5:30pm

WCBS Executive Meeting

 

5:30pm - 6:30pm

Reception