University of Houston History

Fifth Annual Houston-Area PHI ALPHA THETA Consortium is to be Hosted by Houston Baptist University
Posted: February 28, 2009

Houston Baptist University, in conjunction with its History Department’s chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, will be hosting the Fifth Annual Greater Houston-Area Phi Alpha Theta Consortium. Phi Alpha Theta is the national History honor society. This conference is scheduled to run all day on Saturday, April 4, 2009 on the HBU campus. Graduate and advanced undergraduate students from a large number of local universities and colleges will be presenting scholarly papers dealing with a wide variety of historical themes, geographic regions, and eras in formal sessions chaired by specialists in the relevant fields.

All inquiries concerning the April 4 Consortium should be addressed either to Dr. Ron Rexilius at HBU (rrexilius@hbu.edu) or to Dr. Bailey Stone at the University of Houston (bstone@uh.edu).

The schedule for the Consortium follows below:

8 – 8:30 am Registration

8:30 Welcome
- Dr. Diane Martin, Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities Houston Baptist University
8:45-10:15 First-Round Sessions
- IA) Issues of Immigration, National Identity, and Economic Development in the Caribbean Basion
  - Chair-Commentator:
    Dr. Philip Howard, University of Houston
  - Carl Paulus, Rice University
    “Independence and Immigration: Benjamin Lundy, the ‘Genius of Universal Emancipation,’ and Haiti, 1820-1826”
  - Uzma Quraishi, Rice University
    “Mother May I? Indo-Trinidadians and Mother India’s Freedom”
  - Shani Roper, Rice University
    “Transitions in British Colonial Development Policy in the British West Indies Between 1929 and 1940”
- IB) Public Policy Challengesin Modern America: Teen Pregnacy, Labor Unions, and Economics Bailouts
  - Chair-Commentator:
    Dr. Eduardo Contreras, University of Houston
  - Kristen C. Krueger, University of Houston
    “From ‘Problem Girls’ to ‘Welfare Queens’: Public Policy and Teen Pregnancy at the End of the Twentieth Century”
  - Rebekah McAdams, UH—Clear Lake
    “Still Standing: The Rejuvenation of the United Steelworkers’ Union”
  - Kelly M. Evans, University of Houston
    “Saving the American Economy: To Intervene or Not to Intervene?”
- IC) Changing Female Gender Norms and Roles in American History
  - Chair-Commentator:
    Dr. Sara Frear, Houston Baptist University
  - Emma Laroche, Sam Houston State University
    “Gender Norms and Deviations on the Western Frontier”
  - Mary Stringer, Sam Houston State University
    “Gendered Discourses on Women’s Roles as Seen in American Magazines”
  - Ashlie McKenzie, UH—Clear Lake
    “The Changing Roles and Societal Expectations of American Women: A Cinematic Case Study”
- ID) Studies in Mayan History, Culture, anad Identity
  - Chair-Commentator:
    Dr. John Hart, University of Houston
  - Alfonso Lopez, University of Houston
    “Cosmology, Mythology, and Rituals in the Theory of Mayan Consciousness in History: Formation, Continuity, and Change”
  - Carminia Martinez, University of Houston
    “The Return of the Sacred: Millenarianism 2012 Among the Council of Mayan Elders and Priests of Yucatan”
10:15 – 10:30 Coffee Break

10:30 – 12 Second-Round Sessions
- IIA) African-Americans and Other Ethnic Minorities: Building a New American Society
  - Chair-Commentator:
    Dr. Tyrone Tillery, University of Houston
  - Devethia Guillory, University of Houston
    “Slavery in Colonial Massachusetts and the Road to Freedom”
  - Camesha Scruggs, Texas Southern University
    “Diversity Among Domestic Labor: Hired Help in Central Illinois in the Mid-Nineteenth Century”
  - Lauran Kerr-Heraly, University of Houston
    “Dr. Edith Irby Jones: Practice and Progress”
- IIB) Resistance and Identity: Mexican and Mexican- American Social Histories
  - Chair-Commentator:
    Dr. Susan Kellogg, University of Houston J
  - esse Esparza, Texas A&M University
    “Resistance From a Position of Power: Chicano Educational Autonomy and Different Oppositional Politics”
  - Alejandra Jaramillo, University of Houston
    “Litigious Paupers: Natives and Colonial Demands in Tlaxcala”
  - Natalie Garza, University of Houston
    “Through the ‘Crystal Frontier”: Perspectives on Mexican Identity in Literature”
- IIC) The Complex Legacies of Twentieth-Century American Foreigm Policy
  - Chair-Commentator:
    Dr. Ron Rexilius, Houston Baptist University
  - Abbie Salyers, Rice University
    “The Internment of Memory: Preserving the Japanese-American Relocation Camps”
  - John W. Beauchamp, Houston Baptist University
    “Operation Mongoose: An Attempt to Take Fidel Castro’s Life”
  - Neil Stutts, Sam Houston State University
    “Causes of the My Lai Massacre”
- IID) Personal andPolitical Antecedents to the American Civil War: Two Case Studies
  - Chair-Commentator:
    Dr. John R. Lundberg, Houston Baptist University
  - Clarissa Hinojosa, University of Houston
    “Jane Pierce and the First White House Christmas Tree: A Reconsider- ation of a ‘Forgotten’ First Lady”
  - Gregory Peek, University of Houston
    “Henry S. Lane and Hoosier Conservatism in the Election of 1860”
12 – 1 pm Luncheon
Dr. Bailey Stone, University of Houston
“Taking Stock of the Houston-Area Consortium in its Fifth Year: Some (Very) Brief Reflections”
1 – 2:30pm Third-Round Sessions
- IIIA) Gender and Anti-Semitism in Weimar Cinema
  - Chair-Commentator:
    Dr. Hannah S. Decker, University of Houston
  - Valerie Marzullo, UH—Clear Lake
    “Women, Modernity, and the ‘Metropolis’: The ‘Neue Frau’ and Her Threat to Germania”
  - Jennifer N. Bills, UH—Clear Lake
    “Proto-Fascist ‘Metropolis’ and its Women: ‘Die Neue Frau,’ Traditional Women, and Leadership”
  - Brooke Wilson, UH—Clear Lake
    “The Jew As a Scapegoat in Weimar Cinema”

IIIB) Testing the Limits of Toleration in the American ‘Mainstream’: Native Americans, Jews, and Gay/ Lesbian Activists
- Chair-Commentator:
  Dr. R. Todd Romero, University of Houston
- James Scott, Sam Houston State University
  “Sam and the Indians: The Fate of the Cherokee Nation in Texas”
- Bernice A. Heilbrunn, University of Houston
  “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor: Chicago Jewish Progressives and the Fight Against Immigration Restrictions”
- John Goins, University of Houston
  “From the GLF to the GPC: The Shift in Gay and Lesbian Activism in 1970s Houston”
IIIC) Political, Cultural, and Economic-Developmental Implications of the New Imperialism: Westerners, Africans, and the Middle East
- Chair: Dr. Nupur Chaudhuri, Texas Southern University
- Erline E. Maingot, Texas Southern University
  “Nationalism: Tracing the Roots of the Egyptian Women’s Movement During 1919-1935”
- L. Anne Martin, Texas Southern University
  “ Imperialism in Popular Culture: Agatha Christie’s ‘Death on the Nile’ and ‘Murder in Mesopotamia’”
- Raevin Jimenez, University of Houston
  “Structural Adjustment Programs in Africa and Economic Warfare”
- Commentator: Dr. Elias Bongmba, Rice University

IIID) The Changing Technological Requirements—and Unanticipated Social Consequences—of Warfare in the 1860s: England and the United States
- Chair-Commentator:
  Dr. Jonathan Zophy, UH—Clear Lake
- Dan LeClair, University of Houston
  “The Boxer Cartridge Controversy: Patent Law, Public Opinion, and Military Procurement in Victorian England”
- Sam Stokes, Sam Houston State University
  “Camp Ford: Evolutions”

2:30 – 2:45 Coffee Break

2:45- 4:00 Fourth-Round Sessions
- IVA) The Very Complex Historical Origins of the Henrician Reformation in Tudor England
  - Chair-Commentator:
    Dr. Catherine Patterson, University of Houston
  - Chelsey M. Hernandez, Houston Baptist University
    “Reasons Why Henry VIII Needed a Male Heir”
  - Emily Brown, Houston Baptist University
    “Peripheral Voices: Contributing Factors to the English Reformation Other than Henry VIII’s Desire for a Divorce”
- IVB) Ambivalent Male-Female Relationships in Medieval Europe: Personal Friendship and the Personal Cost of High Politics
  - Chair-Commentator:
    Dr. Jonathan Zophy, UH—Clear Lake
  - Holle Canatella, University of Houston
    “Male-Female Friendship from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages”
  - Justin A. Chakrabarty, Houston Baptist University
    “The Influence of Queen Isabella over Edward II Before 1327”
- IVC) Ascribing Historical Origins to ‘Significant’ Consumer Culture and Consumer Activisim in Society: Two Differing Perspectives
  - Chair-Commentator:
    Dr. W. Caleb McDaniel, Rice University
  - Maria Corsi, University of Houston
    “Buying and Selling in Denmark: Changing Patterns of Consumption in Medieval Danish Towns in the Twelfth to Fourteenth Centuries”
  - Allison Rosenmayer, Rice University
    “From Ascetic to Aesthetic: The Shifting Nature of Consumption in the Nineteenth Century”
- IVD) To Merge or to Separate the Sacred and the Secular in American Society? Two Different Responses
  - Chair-Commentator:
    Dr. Anthony Joseph, Houston Baptist University
  - Whitney Stewart, University of St. Thomas
    “Old Meeting-House, So Plain and Quaint: American Quaker Meeting- houses in the Delaware Valley Region, 1681-1850”
  - Paula Stang, Houston Baptist University
    “An Eternal Wall: Thomas Jefferson’s Separation of Church and State”
4pm Conculding Recption

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