The Global 18th Century Comes to Chestertown
Washington College students present original research alongside 80 scholars from Yale, Harvard, and 60+ institutions at national conference.
During fall break earlier this month, Washington College hosted the largest gathering of outside academics and 18th-century scholars to date. The campus was abuzz with 80 attendees representing 60 institutions from across the country specializing in 18th-century academia. Scholars from Virginia State, Rutgers, Carnegie Mellon, Howard, SUNY Stony Brook, the College of Washington and Mary, Villanova, US Naval Academy, University of Southern California, Stanford, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Central Oklahoma and many more ventured to Chestertown, Maryland to participate in this year’s East-Central regional American Society for 18th-Century Studies (ASECS) Conference. Established in 1969, the conference is the foremost learned society in the United States for the study of all aspects of the period from the later 17th through the early 19th century.
The conference was a joint effort between faculty and the centers of excellence, organized by Victoria Barnett-Woods, associate director of experiential learning and programs at the Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience; Elena Deanda-Camacho, professor of Spanish and Black studies; Karen Manna, assistant professor of French; and Katherine Charles, associate professor of English. Deanda-Camacho was voted President of the East Central branch of ASECS at the conference, and also currently serves as Vice President of the ASECS.
Bookseller participants from University of Delaware Press, Clemson University Press, Lehigh University Press, and Bucknell University Press were in attendance as well with a variety of literature on 18th-century studies, many authored by attendees.
ASECS members are literary scholars and writers; historians; theorists of gender, race, sexuality, disability, nation and empire; philosophers and political theorists; art historians and artists; musicologists and musicians; theater historians and practitioners; biographers and bibliographers; and specialists in other humanistic, artistic, and social scientific fields with a range of interests. 18th century, ASECS members study the period that witnessed an enormous expansion in colonial claims, worldwide trade, and imperial ambition; a rising discourse of rights in conflict with a devastating transatlantic slave trade; unprecedented technological innovation; and the development of new ideas and cultural practices associated with the Enlightenment. The political, social, economic, cultural, and environmental practices forged in this period have profoundly shaped the world today in both positive and negative ways and will continue to influence our common future.
“It was such an absolute delight welcoming fellow 18th-century scholars to Washington College for this conference. We were able to showcase the work that our undergraduate students are doing, which impressed so many of the attendees,” remarked Barnett-Woods. “Conferences like these bring together like-minded individuals with incredible things to share. It's wonderful that Washington students were able to have a place at the table.”
The three-day conference showcased an expansive range of panels addressing topics such as archival digitization and public accessibility, game theory’s application of narrative form, East Asian influences on the Romantics, and anti-colonial rhetorics in the Anglophone world. Attendees had a selection of events to attend and began the conference on Friday night with Oral/Aural Experience led by Peter Staffel professor emeritus of English at West Liberty University, a tradition for the gathered scholars to share poetry in a congenial way. The group, including Washington College students, enjoyed the back deck of Semans-Griswold Environmental Hall at the Center for the Environment and Society, overlooking the Chester River on a delightful fall evening.
Chesapeake Heartland Project Director Darius Johnson ’15 held a plenary discussion, open to the public, titled “Memories and Meaning: Making History Accessible in the Digital Age,” which expanded on tracing ancestral roots through primary sources and early archival records. Ian Post from Salisbury University’s Nabb Research Center shared how he is coordinating with three states to organize vital records on the Delmarva Peninsula. The executive director of Kinfolkology, Jeannie K. Williams, displayed data sets of cargo records from the domestic slave trade that traced descendant names to families separated during the early 1800s.
Washington College students participated in panels that showcased their ongoing internship projects at the Starr Center and shared discoveries from a visit to Kiplin Hall in Yorkshire, England, last summer. Student intern and Chestertown native Jade Lee ’26 explained the process of procuring oral histories with local elders in a grassroots effort to preserve local Black history through the Chesapeake Heartland Project. Sophia Clark ’29 described how she wove together vital records, land records, and secondary sources to craft narratives about understudied Black leaders in the Chesapeake Bay region during the 18th and 19th centuries.
“The ASECS Conference was an incredible experience for all the students who were involved,” Sophia Clark ’29 said. “Personally, I was extremely grateful for the opportunity to present my research and hear about that of my fellow interns, plus the experiences of the Kiplin Hall program participants! The chance to do things like this is really why I chose Washington, and in particular why I love the Starr Center so much. There are so many unique experiences at Washington and so many people, like Vicki Barnett-Woods and our Chesapeake Heartland team leader Airlee Ringgold Johnson, who want to see you succeed.”
English and French double major Julianna Nelson-Gaudette ’28 shared a discovery at Kiplin Hall about “gouty chairs,” an early wheelchair with swivel handles that connect to gears for autonomous movement. The oddity of the chair inspired her research into the disease and the effects of diet and healthcare access at the turn of the 19th century. Students from this panel shared their analysis of material objects found within Kiplin Hall, ranging from furniture to signage to landscape design.
The conference’s keynote speaker, Paola Bertucci, professor of history at Yale University, presented “Navigating Origin Stories: 18th-Century Invention Narratives and the Compass.” The talk presented original work on the controversial origin story of the compass. A mistranslation led the world to believe that the inventor of the compass was from Italy, and with that identification, other European nations sought to claim the invention for themselves, tying invention, the Enlightenment, and nationalism into one singular device. Though there is no one singular inventor of the compass, claims to it reveal how critical maritime travel was to the development of the modern world.
Participants explored Chestertown and were given a tour of the Custom House, built circa 1746, led by Community Historian Airlee Ringgold Johnson. Chestertown’s history dates back to the early 1700s when it was not only the seat of Kent County, but also designated as one of Maryland’s six official custom ports. Early 18th-century water travelers navigated up the Atlantic coast, landing in Chestertown, a bustling urban center filled with ships laden with grains heading up the coast to Philadelphia and onward to Europe. The port also served as a destination for the transatlantic slave trade, a history Starr Center staff and students continue to research and share with visitors.
The Washington College Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience was honored to share the rich history of the College and Chestertown with such a learned array of academic scholars and encourage students’ participation in researching and examining humanity through the prism of history.
- Christine Sinatra