Foundations of Independence: Protest and Communication in Revolutionary America, 1770 to 2020

A Virtual Conference Hosted by Iona University and the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies (ITPS), September 24-26, 2020

A welcome message from Dr. Darrell P. Wheeler, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Keynote Address, Dr. Serena Zabin, September 26

Dr. Serena Zabin, Carleton College, “Three Centuries of the Boston Massacre.” Dr. Zabin speaks on themes in her new book The Boston Massacre: A Family History, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2020.

Opening Event, Dr. Benjamin Park, September 24

Dr. Benjamin Park, Sam Houston State University, “Thomas Paine’s Worst Nightmare: Mormon Nauvoo and the Boundaries of Religious Liberty in Early America.” An author talk with Dr. Park on his new book Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier, published by W. W. Norton in 2020.

Plenary Roundtable, September 25

ITPS 2020 Conference, Plenary Roundtable Discussion, “Framing Independence: Perspectives of Protest, Communication, and Anniversaries of Rebellion.” Featuring Zara Anishanslin, Tara Bynum, Lauren Duval, Molly Hardy, David Waldstreicher, and Nan Wolverton.

“Whole Lotta Paine”: A Musical Performance by Osei Helper, September 25

Osei Helper performs “Whole Lotta Paine,” featuring original music and lyrics, ITPS 2020 Conference, Saturday 9/26/2020.

Friday, September 25

Morning

9 – 10 a.m.

Session One: Historical Storytelling as Revolutionary Communication: A Performance From Storyteller Sarah Brady

Moderator: Nora Slonimsky, ITPS/Department of History, Iona University
Introduction: Michael Crowder, ITPS, Iona University

• This session features a 20 to 30 minute performance by Thomas Paine storyteller, Sarah Brady, followed by a 20 minute Q&A.

–Break–

10:30 a.m. – Noon

Session Two A (panel): Empire Stakes: Messages of Violence in Revolutionary New York

Moderator: Nora Slonimsky, ITPS/Department of History, Iona University
Chair/comment: Brett Palfreyman, Wagner College

• Mark Boonshoft, Duquesne University, “Violent Disorder in Ratification-Era New York”
• Benjamin Carp, Brooklyn College/CUNY Graduate Center, “Shaping the Patriot Story of the Fire of 1776”
• Sarah Pearlman-Shapiro, Brown University, “The Coroner’s Court and Public Order in Colonial New York”

Session Two B (panel): Strategies of Protest: From Individuals to Infrastructures

Moderator: Michael Crowder, ITPS, Iona University
Chair/comment: Alexi Garrett

• John Laurence Busch, Independent Historian, “Steaming Redcoats?: Rhyming Resistance to Steamboat Monopolies at the Dawn of the Hi Tech Era”
• Brian Carso, Misericordia University, ““Once His Country’s Idol, Now Her Horror”: Protesting Benedict Arnold and Defining Allegiance in Revolutionary America”
• Douglas S. Harvey, Independent Scholar, “The Bible and Revolutionary Communication in the Eighteenth Century: Herman Husband’s Liberation Theology”

-Lunch break-

Afternoon

1 – 2:30 p.m.

Session Three A (panel): Nodes of Revolt: Connections and Tensions in Eighteenth Century Sites of Change

Moderator: Michael Crowder, ITPS/Iona University
Chair/comment: Michael Hughes, Department of History, Iona University

• Joanne Grasso, Pace University and New York Institute of Technology, “American Taverns Fomenting Revolution: The Social Media of the Eighteenth Century”
• Samuel Harshner, Marquette University, “Gender and the Moral Economy: Ideological Drift in Eighteenth-Century Massachusetts Protest Movements”
• Kevin Vrevich, Wesleyan University, “Moses Brown, the Abolitionist Network, and Gradual Emancipation in New England”

Session Three B (panel): Terms of Exclusion: Digital Tools and Legal Legacies of Independence through the Present-Day

Moderator: Nora Slonimsky, ITPS/Department of History, Iona University
Chair/comment: Jean Bauer, Lemon and Eggs Consulting and Digital Humanities Consultant to the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies (ITPS)

• James P. Ambuske, Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon, “American Loyalists before the Court of Session: Litigating the American Revolution in Scotland’s Supreme Civil Court.”
• Carl Robert Keyes, Assumption College, “The Slavery Adverts 250 Project: Chronicling Protests in the Past, Contributing to Protests in the Present”
• Glen Olson, Immigration Institute of the Bay Area, “Historical Literacy’s Highest Stakes: The Early Republic, Democratic Practices, and the Citizenship Test”

-Break-

3 – 4:30 p.m.

Plenary: Framing Independence: Perspectives on Protest, Communication, and Anniversaries of Rebellion

Moderator: Michael Crowder, ITPS, Iona University
Chair/comment: Nora Slonimsky, ITPS/Department of History, Iona University

• Zara Anishanslin, University of Delaware
• Tara Bynum, University of Iowa
• Lauren Duval, University of Oklahoma
• Molly Hardy, National Endowment for the Humanities
• David Waldstreicher, Graduate Center, CUNY
• Nan Wolverton, American Antiquarian Society

Saturday, September 26

Morning

Virtual Workshop: “New Directions in Authorship Attribution”
8:30 – 11:30 a.m.

Moderators: Lubomir Ivanov, Iona University, and Smiljana Petrovic, Department of Computer Science, Iona University
Organizers: Gary Berton, Iona University and the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies (ITPS), Lubomir Ivanov, and Smiljana Petrovic

Presenters

• Efstathios Stamatatos, University of the Aegean, Greece
  • Topic Bias in Authorship Attribution
• Maciej Eder, Pedagogical University of Kraków and the Institute of Polish Language of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
  • Authorship attribution and the problem of blurred fingerprint
• Jan Rybicki,  Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland
  • Stylometry and Machine Translation:
• Patrick Juola, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA
  • Stylometry in an Adversarial Context
• Smiljana Petrovic, Iona College, NY and Ivan Petrovic, Bronx Community College, CUNY, USA
  • Combining Base Classifiers for Authorship Attribution
• David Hoover, New York University, New York City, USA
  • Identifying Collaborations of British and American writers of the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries
• Lubomir Ivanov, Iona College, NY, USA
  • Haiku Author Recognition
• Gary Berton, Institute for Thomas Paine Studies (ITPS), Iona University, NY, USA
  • Identifying Collaborative Written Essays
• Organizers:
  • Lubomir Ivanov, Iona College, NY
  • Smiljana Petrovic, Department of Computer Science, Iona University, NY
  • Gary Berton, ITPS

9 – 10:30 am

Session Five A (roundtable): Teaching Protest throughout Revolutionary America

Moderator: Nora Slonimsky, ITPS/Department of History, Iona University
Chair/comment: John Winters, ITPS, Iona University

• Mary Draper, Midwestern State University
• Andrew Ferris, Princeton University
• Erin Kramer, Trinity University
• Jacqueline Reynoso, CSU Channel Islands
• Jordan Smith, Widener University

Session Five B (panel): Religion and Communication in the late Eighteenth Century

Moderator: Michael Crowder, ITPS, Iona University
Chair/comment: Emily Conroy-Krutz, Michigan State University

• Carli Conklin, University of Missouri, “Providence and Protest in the Revolutionary Era”
• Samuel Spencer Wells, University of Virginia, “Tongue Artillery”: The Society of Free Quakers and the Struggle for Freedom of Religious Communication in Revolutionary America
• Benjamin Wright, University of Texas, Dallas, “Religious Networks and the Black Protest Tradition”

-Break-

10:30 a.m. – Noon

Session Six A (panel): Language and Information in the Formation of Protest

Moderator: Nora Slonimsky, ITPS/Department of History, Iona University
Chair/comment: Al Zuercher Reichardt, University of Missouri, Columbia

• Jay Donis, Lehigh University, “Between Mobs and Fake News: State-building in Revolutionary Kentucky”
• Catherine Treesh, Yale University, “They will be gained over universally by falsehoods”: Communication Battles in the American Revolution.”
• Matthijs T. Tieleman, University of California, Los Angeles, “Power of the Pamphlet: Connections and Similarities Between Common Sense (1776) and To the People of the Netherlands”
• Russell L. Weber, University of California, Berkeley, “God is Forgotten, and the Soldier Slighted: Rhetorical Passions and Political Violence during New York’s Quartering Crisis”

Session Six B (roundtable): Approaching Rev250: Public History and Communicating the Sesquicentennial

Moderator: Tricia Mulligan, Office of the Provost/Political Science, Iona University
Chair/comment: Michael Crowder, Iona University and the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies (ITPS)

• Amy Bracewell, Superintendent, Saratoga National Historical Park
• Devin Lander, New York State Historian
• Aaron Noble, Senior Historian and Curator, New York State Museum

-Break-

Afternoon

1 – 2:30 p.m.

Session Seven A (roundtable): Gendered Protest in the Creation of the Age of Revolutions

Moderator: Nora Slonimsky, ITPS/Department of History, Iona University
Chair/comment: Hayley Negrin, University of Illinois, Chicago

• Elise Mitchell, New York University
• Lila O’Leary Chambers, New York University
• Kristina Williams, Duke University

Session Seven B (panel): Visions of Self-Government: Local, Regional, and Global Interpretations 

Moderator: Michael Crowder, ITPS, Iona College
Chair/comment: Jeanne Zaino, Department of Political Science, Iona University

• Donald F. Johnson, North Dakota State University, “Popular Statecraft and Local Authority in the Early American Revolution
• David Houpt, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, “Vox Populi, Vox Dei?: Protests and the Limits of Sovereignty in Revolutionary Pennsylvania”
• Derek Kane O’Leary, University of California, Berkeley, “Poland’s 1830 November Uprising within the historical arc of American Independence”

-Break-

3 – 4:30 p.m.

Session Eight (partnered roundtable): Historical Communication in Conversation

Moderator: Michael Crowder, ITPS, Iona University
Chair/comment: Lindsay Chervinsky, ITPS/International Center for Jefferson Studies

This session consists of a distinct format. Four scholars, in two pairs, give a brief presentation of their specific research case-studies, after which each pair engage in an “in conversation” style discussion. The four presenters then participate in a broader conversation about media, communication, and how information was shared in the eighteenth century as well as through new digital humanities strategies today.

• Micki Kaufman, Graduate Center, CUNY and Jessica Linker, Northeastern University, “Virtual Reality and Protest Pedagogy”
• Arinn Amer and Helena Yoo, Graduate Center, CUNY, “Transatlantic Conflations and the Imperial Divide”

-Break-

Evening

4:45 p.m. to 5:15 p.m.

Session Nine (performance): “Whole Lotta Paine”: A Musical Performance from Osei Helper

Moderator: Nora Slonimsky, ITPS/Department of History, Iona University
Introduction: Tricia Mulligan, Office of the Provost/Political Science, Iona University
 

This session will feature a performance from Osei Helper and his original rap about the life of Thomas Paine followed by a brief Q&A.

5 – 6:30 p.m.

Keynote: Serena Zabin, Professor of History, Carleton College, Three Centuries of the Boston Massacre
Moderator: Michael Crowder, ITPS, Iona College
Introduction: Nora Slonimsky, ITPS/Department of History, Iona College

Throughout the day

Virtual Workshop: “New Directions in Text Attribution”
Zoom link provided through registration email
Please note this workshop is through Zoom, not Zoom webinar, and pre-registration with the organizers is required to attend the first session. The second session is to workshop specific aspects of the projects and thus only presenters will be in attendance. Please email itps@iona.edu for more details.
Moderator: Lubomir Ivanov, Iona University, and Smiljana Petrovic, Department of Computer Science, Iona University
Organizers: Gary Berton, Iona University and the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies (ITPS), Lubomir Ivanov, and Smiljana Petrovic

Presenters:

• Maciej Eder, Pedagogical University of Kraków and the Institute of Polish Language of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Authorship Attribution and the Problem of Blurred Fingerprint
  • In authorship attribution the main goal is to distinguish the stylistic fingerprint of a ‘candidate’ from other signals. However, laboratory conditions can hardly be met in real-life attribution cases. Many experiments seem to suggest that the authorial profile is usually blurred, or even overshadowed by other signals, such as genre, gender, chronology, or translation. When the amount of textual data is limited (e.g. when short texts are to be attributed), reliable attribution might not be possible at all. The paper will address the problem of short samples, assuming that the strength of the authorial fingerprint is not distributed evenly in a collection of texts; consequently, the minimal amount of textual data might differ substantially from one author to another.
• David Hoover, New York University, Identifying Collaborations of British and American writers of the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries
  • This presentation will explore a series of collaborations among a group of British and American writers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. While setting up an authorship test for my DH class involving the collaboration of H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang on The World’s Desire (a case that Maciej has written about), I was led into a kind of labyrinth of collaboration. Although Haggard seems not to have collaborated otherwise, I discovered that Lang also collaborated with Walter Pollock, A. E. W. Mason, and Mary Kendall. Pollock also collaborated with Walter Besant and Brander Matthews. Besant also collaborated frequently with James Rice (including one “collaboration” written after Rice died), and also finished Wilkie Collins’s last novel. Matthews collaborated with H. C. Bunner, F. Antsey, and George Jessop. This rich mix of crossing collaborations presents some interesting opportunities and challenges for authorship attribution.
• Patrick Juola, Duquesne University, Stylometry in an Adversarial Context
  • The basic assumption of stylometry is that people have a fixed and unconscious standard mode of expression, similar to their fixed and unconscious style of handwriting. However, like handwriting (but unlike DNA or fingerprints), it is possible to disguise both one’s handwriting and also one’s writing style. This may be problematic in a literary context (when an author is attempting a new and experimental writing style, or even a parody), but it can be catastrophic in a forensic context where hostile intention is to be expected. This talk discusses a new corpus developed to address this problem and some ongoing (preliminary) analytic results.
• Jan Rybicki, Institute of Modern Languages at the Pedagogical University of Kraków, Stylometry and Machine Translation
  • The latest Deep Learning-based translating machines can produce translations of literary texts that, while still not perfect, are often in need of an editor rather than a translator. Humans can (usually) still detect the difference between DL MT and (good) human translation; however, stylometry-based author- and translator-attribution, which relies on statistics of frequencies of very frequent words, can no longer separate machines from people – for most, but not all, originals. This is at least what can be observed when multivariate analysis of Burrows Delta scores is applied to Google Translate, DeepL and human translations of fifty French novels into English.
• Stathis Stamatatos, University of the Aegean, Topic Bias in Authorship Attribution

A Few Notes of Thanks:

This conference was made possible thanks to the support of Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation and the James Hervey Johnson Charitable Educational Trust. The ITPS and Iona University are extremely grateful for their generosity. The ITPS would also like to thank the Provost’s Office, especially Tricia Mulligan for her support as well as Michelle Littleton, Jill Gross, Joanne Steele, Peter Tascio, and the IT team. We deeply appreciate the Iona College students, faculty, staff, and administrators who are taking the time to virtually participate in “Foundation of Independence” as well as all of the wonderful speakers who were willing to share their work in this new format.
– The Conference Organizing Committee (Smiljana Petrovic, Ivy Stabell, Lubomir Ivanov, Michael Crowder, Gary Berton, and Nora Slonimsky