The Society of Early Americanists’ 15th Biennial Conference // Chicago, March 18-20, 2027

Early America through Critical Heritage Studies
Organized by Cathy Rex (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) and Shevaun Watson (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

Critical heritage studies (CHS) has been an identifiable interdisciplinary movement within academic circles and heritage practices for more than two decades. As a sub-field of preservation and heritage studies, CHS examines how heritage is constructed, managed, and used in society for ideological ends. CHS shifts the focus from the material preservation of physical sites and objects to a critique of the political processes that authorize and maintain the elitist, western and nationalist discourses surrounding “heritage.” As Laurajane Smith states in her landmark Uses of Heritage (2006), “Heritage is a cultural and social process. . .it is a process of remembering and memory making—of mediating cultural and social change, of negotiating and creating and recreating values, meanings, understandings, and identity. Above all, heritage is an active, vibrant cultural process” (307-8). In other words, CHS asks us to see heritage not as permanence but as change. This panel seeks, as the 2012 manifesto of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies urges, to engage in the "ruthless criticism of everything existing" and to "ask serious questions about the power relations that ‘heritage’ has all too often been invoked to sustain” in relation early American heritage. Who decides what is worthy of preservation of early American history and culture? Who else might be invited to decide, and how might that change what heritage we value and visit? How do national designations and values conflict with local, community ownership, use, and meaning? How has early American heritage broken away from dominant, elitist ideologies to include or amplify marginalized voices, and what difference has that made? Whose memories, practices, histories, and sites are still ignored under the guise of “heritage”? How can early American scholars participate in CHS and bring their expertise to bear on what CHS means for this period?

We welcome papers that examine any element of early American “heritage” through this more critical lens of CHS. Topics could include early American heritage sites, cultural or social practices, physical objects or art, symbolic or emblematic elements, music or popular narratives, or any other texts that are signifiers of what early American heritage is and what else it could be.

Send 250–300-word abstracts and a short bio to Cathy Rex (rexcj@uwec.edu) by Friday, May 15th, 2026.

Information about the conference can be found at the Society of Early Americanists' website: https://www.societyofearlyamericanists.org/conferences/upcoming