ACH 2023 Conference Program
The Global Caribbean:
54th Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians (ACH)
San Juan/Carolina, Puerto Rico,
June 11-15, 2023
Archivo General de Puerto Rico (June 11)
Biblioteca y Centro de Investigación Social Jesús T. Piñero, Universidad Ana G. Méndez en Carolina (June 12-15)
Sunday, June 11
3:00-5:00pm Registration (Archivo General de Puerto Rico)
5:00-6:30pm Panel 1: Interdisciplinary Views of Our Global Caribbean: Three Proposals from the Puerto Rican Academy of History
Chair: Héctor Feliciano (Academia Puertorriqueña de la Historia)
Silvia Álvarez Curbelo (Academia Puertorriqueña de la Historia) “El orden de la palabra eficiente y la plantación en Puerto Rico: tráficos discursivos globales en la primera mitad del siglo 19”
Jorge Rodríguez Beruff (Academia Puertorriqueña de la Historia) “Una universidad entre tres continentes: las redes intelectuales de la reforma universitaria en Puerto Rico”
Rafael Cabrera Collazo (Academia Puertorriqueña de la Historia): “Ciudades musicales y lo popular: un nuevo turismo cultural en el Caribe Hispano”
6:30-8:00pm Opening Ceremony and Welcome Reception
Monday, June 12
9:30-11:00am Panel 2: Caribbean Pioneers
Chair: Rebecca Anne Goetz (NYU)
Andrew Manginn (Sewanee): “Louise Louverture: L’Ange du Malheu”
Philippe Girard (McNeese State University): “Le marronage à Saint-Domingue (Haïti) et la révolte de 1791″
Pedro L. Ramos (Ana G. Mendez University): “Democracy, Equality and Doctors: Cuban Diplomacy after 1971″
11:00-11:15am Coffee Break
11:15am-12:45pm Panel 3: Disaster Capitalism and Histories of Health and Wellness
Chair: Kathleen Monteith (UWI Mona)
Christopher Montague (Northwestern University): “Self-Government and White Sovereignty: The Black Marxist Critique of Colonialism in Jamaica”
Mary Draper (Midwestern State University): “Underwater Land and the 1692 Port Royal Earthquake”
Nicholas Crawford (Sam Houston State University): “Factories and Gardens: Enslaved Food Cultivation and the Alimentary Economy of Sugar in the British Caribbean”
Daniel Livesay (Claremont McKenna College): “The Declining Health of Enslaved Elders: Mounting Pressures Against the Aged in Nineteenth-Century Jamaica”
12:45-1:45pm Lunch
1:45-3:15pm Panel 4: Negotiating the Caribbean: Historicizing a Changing World
Chair: Bridget Brereton (UWI St Augustine)
Michelle McDonald (Stockton University): “The Globalization of Caribbean Studies: How the ACH Reflects and Shapes the Field”
Edward Paulino (CUNY) and Jorge Colon Delgado (John Jay College): “La Ruta del Béisbol: the Case for a Caribbean Field of Dreams UNESCO Heritage Trail”
Aura S. Jirau Arroyo (Eastern Illinois University): “‘Como las del norte’: Shifting Conceptions of Higher Education in Puerto Rico”
Tuesday, June 13
9:30-11:00am Panel 5: Supplying the Enemy: Empire and Spain’s asiento de negros, 1596-1750
Chair: Wim Klooster (Clark University)
Miguel Geraldes Rodrigues (FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa): “The Portuguese Administration of the Asiento and the Conquest of Angola (1595-1641)”
Ramona Negrón (Leiden University): “The Dutch West India Company (WIC) and the Spanish Asiento de Negros, 1660s-1680s”
Camilla de Koning (Manchester University): “Disturbing Spanish Monopoly Trade: Britain’s Conquest Through the Asiento de Negros””
11:00-11:15am Coffee Break
11:15am-12:45pm Panel 6: The Global Caribbean Across Centuries
Chair: Celia Naylor (Columbia University)
Tiffany Momon (Sewanee): “‘Free Born in Virginia’: The Geography of Black Craft and Trade Labor in Jamaica”
Maël Lavenaire (London School of Economics and Political Science): “The Aftermaths of the World War II and the Social Transformation in the French Antilles (1944-1963)”
Anne’el E. Bain (UWI St Augustine): “‘Hot War’ In The Caribbean Basin: How Leftist Solidarity In The Caribbean Region Interacted With The Global Cold War”
Arlene J. Díaz (Indiana University): “The US Spy and the Cuban Insurgent General, 1895-1898″
12:45-1:40pm Lunch
Wednesday, June 14
9:30-11:00am Panel 7: Moving Forward: Analyses of Modernization and Reparatory Justice
Chair: Carla Pestana (University of California)
Audra A. Diptée (Carleton University): “Operation Legacy in the Caribbean”
Isar Godreau (Universidad de Puerto Rico en Cayey): “Justicia Reparativa y Educación Afro-digna: La esclavitud en los libros de texto escolares”
Marcos A. Vélez Rivera (Ana G Méndez University): The construction of a popular library in the modernization of Puerto Rico: cultural observations and international considerations
Rafael V. Capó García (University of British Columbia): “Eurocentric Portrayals of Conquest, Colonization, and Indigeneity: An analysis of Social Studies textbooks in Puerto Rico”
11:00-11:15am Coffee Break
11:15am-12:45pm Panel 8: Rethinking the Coloniality of the Past
Chair: Roderick McDonald (Rider University)
Laura Rosanne Adderley (Tulane University): “Black Caribbean Humanity in the Fraught Archives of British Slave Trade Abolition: Finding African Kinship and Social Ties in Vice-Admiralty Courts and Customs Houses of the Early 1800s Caribbean”
Gad Heuman (University of Warwick): “The Apprenticeship System in the Caribbean: The World of the Apprentices”
Bronwyn Lee (Binghamton University): “Aluminum and Autonomy: the Dutch Contribution to Nationalism Without Nationalization in Suriname, 1950s-1960s”
12:45-1:45pm Lunch
In the tradition of the Association of Caribbean Historians Conference, Wednesday afternoon is left unscheduled to allow participants the opportunity to explore the historic sites and cultural opportunities of Puerto Rico.
1:45pm Optional Field Trip
Thursday, June 15
9:30-11:00am Panel 9: Testing the Limits of Race and Gender
Chair: Kathleen Phillips Lewis (Spelman University)
Antonio Gaztambide-Géigel (Universidad de Puerto Rico): “Martí, Nuestra América y la América Latina”
Anne Ulentin (University of The Bahamas): “Interpersonal Violence in the late 19th-/early 20th-century Bahamas”
Debbie McCollin (UWI St Augustine): “Bridging the Gap: The Child Welfare League of Trinidad and Tobago 1918-1970”
José Orlando Sued (Ana G. Méndez University): “Cuando gobernar es despoblar: filmes comisionados por el Gobierno de Puerto Rico para promover la migración y el control de natalidad durante las décadas del 1950 al 1960”