1776 Lecture Series

In 1776, thirteen of the two dozen British colonies in the Americas revolted against the British Empire and formed a new and independent nation. This year marks the 250th anniversary of American Independence. The Program in British, Irish and Empire Studies will devote an entire lecture series this year to that monumental event. We will explore the causes and consequences of that Revolution, the experiences of people who fought for and against it, the impact of the Revolution on the broader Empire, and the legacy of that Revolution. Please join us throughout the spring and the fall as we explore this pivot point in global history. These lectures are open to all members of the university community and to anyone beyond the university who wants to learn more about 1776.
 

Fall 2026

• Friday September 4, 2026
  "Declaring Temporal Independence: Imperial Communications, Colonial Time-Consciousness, and the Coming of the American Revolution"
  Dr. Helena Yoo-Roth | Barra Postdoctoral Fellow, McNeil Center for Early American Studies
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday September 11, 2026
  "Revolution in the Newspapers: How News across British North America and French Saint-Domingue Inspirited Atlantic Rebellion" 
  Dr. Ronald Angelo Johnson | Ralph and Bessie Mae Lynn, Chair of History & Associate Professor, Baylor University
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday October 2, 2026
  "The Declaration and the Preamble: How the Declaration of Independence Originally Shaped Constitutional Interpretation" 
  Dr. Jonathan Gienapp | Associate Professor of History and Associate Professor of Law, Stanford University
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday October 9, 2026
  "Art and Freedom and Speech" 
  Dr. Ana Schwartz | Associate Professor of English, University of Texas at Austin
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday October 16, 2026
  "'Lunaticks' and Unintended Consequences: The Royal Navy and the Suppression of Arms Smuggling to North America, 1774-1777" 
  Dr. Jared Hardesty | Professor, History, Western Washington University
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday October 30, 2026
  "Writing a World History of the American Revolution"
  Dr. Sarah M.S. Pearsall | Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday November 6, 2026
  "Seminole Sovereignty in a Revolutionary Borderland: William Augustus Bowles and the State of Muskogee" 
  Dr. Andrew Isenberg | Hall Distinguished Professor of American History, University of Kansas
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday December 4, 2026
  "Why George Washington Was a Genealogist and You Are, Too: Reflections on Family at the Center of American Politics" 
  Dr. Karin Wulf | Beatrice and Julio Mario Santo Domingo Director and Librarian, John Carter Brown Library; and Professor of History, Brown University
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday December 11, 2026
  "The American Revolution and the Resurrection of British Empire" 
  Dr. Patrick Griffin | Madden-Hennebry Family Professor, History, University of Notre Dame
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   

Spring 2026

• Friday, February 13, 2026
  “The Escapes of David George: Overcoming Slavery in Colonial and Revolutionary America” 
  Dr. Gregory O’Malley |  Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday, February 20, 2026
  “The Tory Rising: Insurrection in the Revolutionary South” 
  Dr. T. Cole Jones |  Associate Professor of History, Purdue University
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday, February 27, 2026
  "Enslaved Afro-Virginian Women in a Revolutionary World" 
  Dr. Adam McNeil |  Post-Doctoral Fellow, Carter G. Woodson Institute
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday, March 13, 2026
  "Imperial Crisis and Local Controversy: Martha Stoddard Stevens in Revolutionary New England" 
  Dr. Sara Damiano |  Associate Professor, Texas State University
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday, April 3, 2026
  “Disunited Kingdom: The American Revolution in Britain” 
  Dr. Richard Bell |  Professor, University of Maryland
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday, April 17, 2026
  “A News Revolution?: The Press, Publicity, and the Destabilization of the Eighteenth-Century British Empire, c. 1695-1784” 
  Dr. Joel Hermann |  Research Fellow, Trinity College Dublin
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm
   
• Friday, April 24, 2026
  “The South Asian Origins of American Independence” 
  Dr. Steven Pincus |  Thomas E. Donnelly Professor of British History and the College, University of Chicago
  Tom Lea Room, HRC 3.206 • 2:00-3:30pm