Louisville 2025 Program

At-a-Glance

Wednesday Jun 25, 2025

2:30pm Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co Bourbon Tour (See below for Pricing)

Thursday Jun 26, 2025

8:00am - 5:00pm, Registration and Exhibition Hall Open

8:30am - 10:00am Thursday A Sessions

10:00am - 10:30am Beverage Break

10:30am - 12:00pm Thursday B Sessions

12:00pm - 1:30pm Lunch Break

1:30pm - 3:00pm Thursday C Sessions

3:00pm - 3:30pm Beverage Break

3:30pm - 5:00pm Thursday D Sessions

5:15pm - 6:45pm Opening Keynote Address

7:00pm - 9:00pm Opening Reception

Friday Jun 27, 2025

8:00am - 5:00pm, Registration and Exhibition Hall Open

8:30am - 10:00am, Friday E Sessions

10:00am - 10:30am Beverage Break

10:30am - 12:00pm Friday F Sessions 

12:00pm - 1:30pm Lunch Break

1:30pm - 3:00pm Friday G Session - Presidential Plenary on Teaching World History 

3:00pm - 3:30pm Beverage Break

3:30pm - 5:00pm Friday H Sessions

5:15pm - 9:00pm Executive Council Meeting (by invitation only)

Saturday Jun 28, 2025

8:00am - 5:00pm, Registration and Exhibition Hall Open

8:30am - 10:00am Saturday I Session - Documentary Screening with Q&A: "City of Ali" Explores the Local Roots of Muhammad Ali's Global Legacy

10:00am - 10:30am Beverage Break

10:30am - 12:00pm Saturday J Sessions

12:00pm - 1:30pm Lunch Break

1:30pm - 3:00pm Saturday K Session - Presidential Plenary on Research in World History

3:00pm - 3:30pm Beverage Break

3:30pm - 5:00pm Saturday L Sessions

5:15pm - 6:45pm Closing Keynote Address

7:00pm - 9:00pm Closing Reception

Sunday Jun 29, 2025

1-3 p.m. Belle of Louisville, 2-hour cruise on Ohio River (See below for pricing)

Full Program

Wednesday Jun 25, 2025

Pre-Conference Excursion: Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co 

Tour at 2:30pm followed by 3:45pm bourbon tasting

Thursday Jun 26, 2025

8:00am - 5:00pm, Registration and Exhibition Hall Open

8:30am - 10:00am Thursday A Sessions

 

A1: Panel  - Books, Birds, Bourbon and Blues: the Impacts and Legacies of Louisville’s Collectors, Musicians and Enslaved Laborers

 

Chairs: Rebecca A. Devlin, University of Louisville

Charlton Yingling, University of Louisville

 

“The Impact of WLOU Radio on the Rhythm and Blues Bands of the City of Louisville, 1960-1975”

Barry Johnson, University of Louisville

 

“Charles Wickliffe Beckham and the Legacy of Ornithology in Kentucky”

Hannah White, University of Louisville

 

“A Book By Its Cover”

Wesley Miller, University of Louisville

 

“The Erasure of Enslaved Distillers in Kentucky's Bourbon Industry”

Gracie Strunk, University of Louisville

 

A2: Roundtable - Teaching World History in a Time of Global Connectedness

 

Chair: Nicole Magie, University of Olivet

 

Eric Beckman, Anoka High School

Brian Harding, Mott Community College

Andrew Magnusson, University of Central Oklahoma

Aurea Toxqui, Bradley University

A3: Meet the Author - The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History 

 

Authors: Rubén Carrillo Martín, Universitat Pompeu Fabra 

    Diego Javier Luis, Johns Hopkins University

 

Discussant: David T. Buckley, University of Louisville

 

A4: Panel - Power, Play, and Politics: Sport and Social Meaning in World History

 

Chair: TBA

 

“Louisville’s Shifting Youth Sports Landscape: Busing and Title IX 1970 -1985”

Garret McCorkle, Muhammad Ali Center 

 

“The Black Bombers of Ghana: Sport, Nation-Building and Pan-Africanism, 1958 to the 21st Century”

Kenneth Tagoe, University of Arkansas

 

“Ancient Egyptian Sports and Fundamental Principles of the  Olympics”

Doaa El Shereef, Independent Scholar

 

“Mutt Underestimated Jeff's Pugilistic Proclivities: The importance of Boxing in the Mutt and Jeff Newspaper comic strip (1907-1983)”

Donald Eberle, Napoleon Area City Schools

 

10:00am - 10:30am Beverage Break

 

10:30am - 12:00pm Thursday B Sessions

 

B1: Roundtable - Gendering World History: An Imperative

 

Chairs: Kerry Ward, Rice University

Tracey Rizzo, University of North Carolina Asheville

 

Candice Goucher, Washington State University

Aldo Garcia-Guevara, Worcester State University

Suzanne Litrel, Independent Scholar

Laura J. Mitchell, University of California, Irvine

 

B2: Workshop - Practical Uses of AI for World History Research

 

Trevor Getz, San Francisco State University

François Drémeaux, Université d'Angers; California State University, Sacramento

 

B3: Meet the Author - Water Conflicts and Maritime Security Challenges in 21st Century Asia

 

Author: Iram Naseer Ahmad, Forman Christian College

 

B4: Panel - Voices from Below: Environmental Justice, Protest Culture, and Global Grassroots Resistance

 

Chair: TBA

 

“The Chipko Movement in the Garhwal Region of India : A Symbol of Protest of Some Underprivileged Womenfolk”

Tridib Mahanta, Sibsagar University

 

“Flooding, Grassroots Organizing, and Environmental Justice: An Exploration of Coalitional Resistance in Kentucky during President Ronald Reagan’s Administration”

Brooklyn Lile, Western Kentucky University

 

“When Is a Protest Safe for Empire? The 1946 Singapore Strike and the 1946 Rangoon Strike”

Matthew Bowser, Alabama A&M University

 

“These Walls Can Talk: Analyzing Graffiti and Murals of Modern Revolutionary Movements and Protests”

Monica Ketchum-Cardenas, Arizona Western College

 

12:00pm - 1:30pm Lunch Break

 

12:10pm - 1:20pm Community College Luncheon

 

1:30pm - 3:00pm Thursday C Sessions

 

C1: Panel - Regulating Bodies, Resisting States: Law, Rights, and the Politics of Personal Freedom

 

Chair: TBA

 

“The Legal Battles of Muhammad Ali: Navigating Censorship and Religious Freedom in the American Courtroom”

Sarah Eltabib, Adelphi University

 

“Wedding Bells and ‘Marriage Rings’: An Examination of a Controversial 1918 El Paso Matrimonial Bureau”

Hannah Shepherd, East Texas A&M University

 

“Labor Movement in Colonial Madras (India) and California State (USA), 1928-1939: Exploring Global Connections”

Kanchi Venugopal Reddy, Pondicherry University

 

"Beyond the Bars: Reintegration as Protest and Systemic Resistance"

Joy Ferdinand, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

C2: Roundtable - World History in Times of Crisis

 

Chair: Morgan Lemmer-Webber, World History Association

 

Trevor Getz, San Francisco State University

Ruth Mostern, University of Pittsburgh

Thanasis Kinias, University of Texas at Austin

Eric Nelson, Missouri State University

 

C3: Panel - Unruly Women and Hidden Archives: Gender, Resistance, and Historical Recovery Across the Globe

 

Chair: TBA

 

“Guan Daosheng: The Greatest Woman Artist of the Yuan Dynasty”

Yufeng Wang, Sinclair College

 

“Tequileras and shebeen queens: female involvement in Prohibition era South Texas and liquor regulation in South Africa under Apartheid”

Corina Gonzalez-Stout, Northwest Vista College

 

“Public History, Allyship, and Social Activism in the Revival of Pulque in 21st-century Mexico”

Aurea Toxqui, Bradley University

 

“Apart from Annetta and Fryer: A Postcolonial History of Deaf Education in Modern China”

Shu Wan, University at Buffalo

 

C4: Panel - Imagined Borders and Big Questions: Rethinking Nations in Global Perspective

 

Chair: TBA

 

“Fractured Nation: Peripheral Intransigence and the Challenges of an integrated Pakistan”

Iram Naseer Ahmad, Forman Christian College

 

“The Concept of ‘Bengal’ and ‘Bangladesh’: Identity and Region Formed and Imagined”

Md. Aksadul Alam, University of Dhaka

 

“Finlandizing a Soviet Territory: Nation, Culture, Language, and Geopolitics in the Soviet-Finnish Borderlands”

Diego Benning Wang, Princeton University

 

“Big Questions That Only World History Can Answer”

Rick Szotak, University of Alberta

 

3:00pm - 3:30pm Beverage Break

 

3:30pm - 5:00pm Thursday D Sessions

 

D1: Panel - Documenting and Sharing Local Black History: Community-Engaged Public History Projects at the University of Louisville

 

Chair: Rebecca A. Devlin, University of Louisville

 

“The Black Community of South Louisville, 1900-1975: An Oral and Digital History Project”

Barry Johnson, University of Louisville

 

“Centering the Experiences of Enslaved People who Labored at Oxmoor Farms”

Jasper-Adams Smith, University of Louisville

 

“Oral History and the Chickasaw Book Project”

Troy Plumer, University of Louisville

 

D2: Roundtable - Beyond the Marches: Turning Protest Movements into Lasting Policy Reform

 

Joy Ferdinand, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

 

D3: Workshop - Ten (Metaphorical) Days To Cross the Cosmos: Integrating a Big History Approach Into World History Teaching

 

Andrew M. Wender, University of Victoria

 

D4: Panel - Screens, Spectacle, and Empire: Media as a Battleground for Cultural Power

 

Chair: TBA

 

“Digital Territories and Cultural Sovereignty: The National Film Board of Canada’s Interactive Media as Sites of Protest and Resistance”

John Bessai, Independent Scholar

 

“The Politics of Television in Latin America's Developmental Era”

Pablo Pryluka, Harvard University

 

“Frank Buck’s Jungleland:  Animal Exhibitions, Sensational Pugilism, and Imperial Southeast Asia in the 1930s”

Matthew Schauer, Oklahoma State University

 

5:15pm - 6:45pm Opening Keynote Address

 

Pan-Africanism and Muhammad Ali

Christel N. Temple, University of Pittsburgh

 

7:00pm - 9:00pm Opening Reception

 

Friday Jun 27, 2025

 

8:00am - 5:00pm, Registration and Exhibition Hall Open

 

8:30am - 10:00am, Friday E Sessions

 

E1: Panel - Battles and Bones: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Understand and Preserve Contested Spaces in the Ancient and Medieval World

 

Chair: Rebecca A. Devlin, University of Louisville

Anna Lankina, University of Florida

 

“Gladiatrix: Fighting Women of the Arena”

Erin Wotring, University of Louisville

 

“Considering Female Space in a Middle Byzantine (11th c. CE) Burial Site at Syedra, Türkiye”

Kathryn E. Marklein, University of Louisville

Mekenzie R. Davis, University of Louisville

 

“A Terror on History: Investigating the Lessons Learned from Daesh’s Destruction of Cultural Heritage”

Joseph Towell, University of Louisville

 

E2: Roundtable - Negotiated Humanitarianism: CARE packages and the Global History of US foreign aid during the Cold War

 

Chair: Margaret Peacock, University of Alabama

 

Severyan Dyakonov, New York University

Intaek Hong, University of Washington

Victoria Phillips, Woodrow Wilson International Center

Kiera Eriksen - McAuliffe, Columbia University

Natalija Dimic, University of Novi Sad

 

E3: Panel - Laboring in the Shadows of Empire: Health, Urban Change, and the Politics of Work

 

Chair: TBA

 

“The Malcontents - A Protest for Votes, Slavery, and Alcohol in Colonial Georgia”

Matthew Hacholski, Independent Scholar

 

“Influenza Pandemic in 1918 and the Industrial Laborers: Examining the Impact of the Global Pandemic on the Industrial Laborers of Colonial Madras”

Kanchi Venugopal Reddy, Pondicherry University

 

“Beyond Violence: Global Histories of Private Gun Ownership and State-Society Relations in the Modern Era”

Lei Duan, Sam Houston State University

 

“A Fine Balance? Urban Development and the Politics of Diversity in Oman, 1970-2020”

Javier Guirado-Alonso, Kennesaw State University

 

E4: Panel - Entangled Worlds: Trade, Knowledge, and Connectivity in World History

 

Chair: TBA

 

“Early Ethiopia in World History”

James A. Quirin, Fisk University

 

“Chinese Tea and Early Modern Sino-European Medical Exchange”

Yiyun Huang, University of Tennessee

 

“‘The China Fishing Bird’ in the Maldives: Maritime Asia and Mountainous Yanzhou Prefecture, Southwestern Zhejiang Province, China”

Bin Yang, City University of Hong Kong

 

10:00am - 10:30am Beverage Break

 

10:30am - 12:00pm Friday F Sessions 

 

F1: Panel - Boxing, Entertainment & Racial Identities in 20th Century Africa

 

Chair: Tyler Fleming, University of Louisville

Abraham Seda, Lafayette College

 

“Inter-Imperial Racial Ideologies and the Quest  for Pugilistic Dominance in the British Empire”

Abraham Seda, Lafayette College

 

“A Black Cultural Explosion: The Rumble in the Jungle, Zaire '74, and Pan-African Legacy”

Garret McCorkle, Muhammad Ali Center & University of Louisville

 

“Punching Above His Weight: "Tiger Kid" Shaik's Failed Attempts at Bringing Sonny Liston and Muhammad Ali to apartheid South Africa”

Tyler Fleming, University of Louisville

 

F2: Roundtable - Periodizing Comics: A Book Launch Round Table

 

Chair: Lawrence Abrams, Portland Public Schools

 

Maryanne Rhett, Monmouth University

Elizabeth Pollard, San Diego State University

Kaleb Knoblauch, Independent Scholar

 

F3: Workshop - Digital Tools and Assignments in Ancient and Medieval World Courses at the University of Louisville

 

Chair: Rebecca A. Devlin, University of Louisville

 

“Field Trips to Egypt and Ancient World Sites: Using VR in Upper Division and General Education World History Courses,”

Jennifer Westerfeld, University of Louisville

 

“Museums, Maps and Movies: Digital Assignments to Share Historical Research with the Public”

Rebecca A. Devlin, University of Louisville

 

F4: Meet the Editors - World History Connected

 

Cynthia Ross, East Texas A&M University

Gina Bennett, Coker University

 

12:00pm - 1:30pm Lunch Break

 

12:10pm - 1:20pm K-12 Teacher’s Luncheon

 

1:30pm - 3:00pm Friday G Session - Presidential Plenary on Teaching World History 

 

Chair: Bob Bain, University of Michigan

 

Linda Levstik, University of Kentucky

Emi Iwatani, Digital Promise

Jesse Spohnholz, H21 & Washington State University

 

3:00pm - 3:30pm Beverage Break

 

3:30pm - 5:00pm Friday H Sessions

 

H1: Panel - History for the Twenty-First Century: Rethinking the World History Survey Course

 

Chair: Urmi Engineer Willoughby, Pitzer College

 

“‘Glocalizing’ Big History”

Eric Nelson, Missouri State University

 

“Africans and the African Diaspora in the First World War”

Wendy Urban-Mead, Bard College

 

“Dams, Development, and Decolonization”

Brenna Miller, Washington State University

 

H2: Panel - Imperial Natures: Environment, Science, and Power in Global Perspective

 

Chair: TBA

 

“Aligning the Canal with the Aqueduct: Water Infrastructure, Protest, and Imperialism in Urban Panama, 1903-1931”

Francisco Javier Bonilla, Carnegie Mellon University

 

“On Golden Ground: Chemistry and the Comparative Political Ecologies of Soil in Early Modern Empires”

Justin Niermeier-Dohoney, Florida Institute of Technology

 

“Medical Progress and the Second Slavery”

Chris Willoughby, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

 

H3: Panel - Pathways and Perspectives: Education, Agency, and Mapping the Global Past

 

Chair: TBA

 

“A Brief Discussion on the Progress of Women's Education Development in Macau”

Wen Rujia, University of Macau

 

“Migration Intention and the Quest for Entrepreneurial Start-ups among Nigerian Youth”

Olaolu Peter Oluwasanmi, Durban University of Technology

 

“Protest and Place: Fighting My Unconscious Bias in Research with Ramona Bennett (Puyallup) as My Guide”

Vera Parham, American Military University

 

“A Thematic Timeline of World History”

Rick Szostak, University of Alberta

 

H4: Lightning Round Sessions

 

5:15pm - 9:00pm Executive Council Meeting (by invitation only)

 

Saturday Jun 28, 2025

8:00am - 5:00pm, Registration and Exhibition Hall Open

 

8:30am - 10:00am Saturday I Session - Documentary Screening with Q&A: "City of Ali" Explores the Local Roots of Muhammad Ali's Global Legacy

 

Film run time is 81 minutes. Question and Answer session with Director, Graham Shelby and panel occurs immediately following the film, in the same location (see session J4).

 

10:00am - 10:30am Beverage Break

 

10:30am - 12:00pm Saturday J Sessions

 

J1: Panel - Colonialism, Commerce and Culture: Economic Conflicts and the Contributions of Enslaved Laborers in the Iberian Atlantic World, 15th-19th Centuries

 

Chair: Charlton Yingling, University of Louisville

 

Organizer: Rebecca A. Devlin, University of Louisville

 

Discussant: Ida Altman, University of Florida

 

“The Household of Doña Inés Peraza: Indigenous and African Slavery in the Fifteenth Century Canary Islands”

Shannon Lalor, High Point University

 

“Contract or Contraband? A Case Study of Anglo-Spanish Trade in the 1750s”

Diana Reigelsperger, Seminole State College

 

“Rethinking marginality: Labor, Economy, and Power across the African Diaspora in 19th Century Brazil”

Anna T. Browne Ribeiro, University of Louisville

Lucio Menezes Ferreira, Universidade Federal de Pelotas (co-author)

 

J2: Roundtable - Immersive Travel as Witness and Protest: Engaging with Historical Memory Through Place-Based Education

 

Chair: Timothy Fritz, Mount St. Mary’s University

 

Michelle Wick Patterson, Mount St. Mary’s University

Lyndsey Saunders, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Benjamin Firgens, Mount St. Mary’s University

 

J3: Workshop - Student-Centered Learning for Introductory World History Courses in Praxis

 

Chair: Urmi Engineer Willoughby, Pitzer College

 

Brenna Miller, Washington State University

Jesse Spohnholz, Washington State University

 

J4: Question & Answer Session - “City of Ali” Documentary Film

 

Graham Shelby, Director

 

Invited Guest Panel

 

12:00pm - 1:30pm Lunch Break

 

12:10pm - 1:20pm Craft Circle

 

Organizer: Morgan Lemmer-Webber, World History Association

 

1:30pm - 3:00pm Saturday K Session - Presidential Plenary on Research in World History

 

Chair: Ruth Mostern, University of Pittsburgh

 

Gunja Sengupta, New York University Abu Dhabi

Awam Ampku, New York University Abu Dhabi

Sunayani Bhattacharya, St. Mary’s College of California

Laura J. Mitchell, University of California Irvine

 

3:00pm - 3:30pm Beverage Break

 

3:30pm - 5:00pm Saturday L Sessions

 

L1: Panel - Ali as Activist

 

Chair: Tyler D. Fleming, University of Louisville

 

“Gone With the Wind Turned Upside-Down: Muhammad Ali and the Politics of Vietnam, Race, and Boxing in Atlanta”

Thomas Aiello, Valdosta State University

 

“Muhammad Ali and Joseph Wayas: A Reassessment of the 1980 Moscow Olympics Boycott Mission to Nigeria”

Yomi Ejikunle, University of Louisville

 

“Ali, Foreman, & Animalian Angst: Shadows of Canine Violence in the Civil Rights & Anti-Imperial Era”

Charlton W. Yingling, University of Louisville

 

L2: Panel - Vietnamese-U.S. Anti-War Feminist Diplomacy, Teaching Communist Party of Vietnam History, and Vietnamese Literary Modernism in World History

 

Chairs: Marc Jason Gilbert, Hawaii Pacific University

Craig A. Lockard, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay

 

Discussant: Marc Jason Gilbert, Hawaii Pacific University

 

“Links between Antiwar and Anti-Imperialist Feminist Activists in the U. S. and Canada and Their Counterparts in Indochina during the Vietnam War”

Barbara Winslow, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York

 

“Making Changes in Teaching Vietnamese Communist Party History in Vietnamese Universities”

*Trieu Huy Ha, University of Management and Technology, Ho Chi Minh City

 

“The Stream of Consciousness & Undercurrents of Resistance in Thuận’s Chinatown”

*Hoàng Phượng Mai, Fulbright University Vietnàm

 

L3: Panel - Imperial Logics and Strategic Futures: Race, Development, and Geopolitical Power

 

Chair: TBA

 

“White Civilization and the Politics of Racial Development: National Review Magazine on the Decolonization of Southern Africa”

Julian Polanski, University of Illinois

 

“Economic and Geopolitical Promises and Challenges:  South Africa as a Case Study in China’s Belt and Road Initiative”

Yuegen Yu, Central State University

 

“The Not So Forgotten War: We Will Not Be Silenced”

Alice Soisouvanh Price, Independent Scholar

 

L4: Panel - Revolutionary Currents: Moral Imagination, Resistance, and Global Struggle

 

Chair: TBA

 

“Edwardsean Exegesis in an Age of Revolution and an Age of Slavery”

John T. Lowe, University of Louisville

 

“The US Civil War as a World Revolution”

Martin Johnson, Miami University

 

“Rebel or Run Away”

Alberto Grandi, University of Parma

 

“Roots in Manchester and Louisville: Muhammad Ali Visits Phil Magbotiwan in Manchester, 1971”

Haseeb Khan, Manchester Metropolitan University

 

5:15pm - 6:45pm Closing Keynote Address

 

TBA

 

7:00pm - 9:00pm Closing Reception

 

Sunday Jun 29, 2025

 

Post Conference Excursion

Afternoon Cruise on Historic Steamboat: The Belle of Louisville

Sunday, June 29, 1-3 p.m. (2-hour cruise on Ohio River)

Boarding begins at 12:30 p.m.

Suggested arrival time 12:15 p.m.

Prices: With meal $44.41, No meal $28.61 (this includes all taxes, fees)