The History Graduate Students' Association will host the sixth annual James A. Rawley Graduate Conference in the Humanities on April 8-9 at UNL.
Graduate students from across the globe will present their work and participate in panel discussions focusing on the theme of "Communities, Kinship and Culture: The Formation and Expression of Identities."
The event is free and open to the public. It aims to highlight major themes crossing academic boundaries and departments and offer the public an opportunity to meet future historians who have a wide range of interests and expertise.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a scholar in early American history, will present the keynote address on April 8. Ulrich is a professor of history at Harvard University and winner of the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes for her book, "A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812." She's also a past president of the American Historical Association.
Ulrich's address, "Ink and Thread: An Object Centered History of 19th Century Mormonism," will begin at 7 p.m. in the Heritage Room of the Nebraska Union, 14th and R streets. A reception will follow.
In conjunction with the conference, UNL's Women's and Gender Studies Program will host a screening of a PBS "American Experience" movie, "A Midwife's Tale: 18th Century America Through a Woman's Eyes," based on Ulrich's Pulitzer Prize-winning book. The screening will be 7 p.m. April 7 at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 313 N. 13th St. A discussion will follow.
The annual Rawley conference honors James Rawley, a longtime UNL faculty member and former history department chair who is remembered as a widely respected historian and an exceptional teacher.
For more information about the conference, go to http://www.unl.edu/historygsa.
- Jean Ortiz Jones, University Communications