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
Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co. - Makers Of Fine Bourbon
120 North 10th Street
Suggested arrival time 2:15pm
Tour at 2:30pm followed by 3:45pm Bourbon Tasting
Price: $28 per person
Pre-book your ticket here (Limited spaces available)
Pre-Conference Excursion: Wednesday, June 25
Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co. - Makers Of Fine Bourbon
120 North 10th Street
Suggested arrival time 2:15pm
Tour at 2:30pm followed by 3:45pm Bourbon Tasting
Price: $28 per person
Pre-book here!
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
Chair: Elise Franklin, 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: Diego Javier Luis, Johns Hopkins University
Discussant: David T. Buckley, University of Louisville
Rubén Carrillo Martín, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
A4: Panel - Power, Play, and Politics: Sport and Social Meaning in World History
Chair: Elizabeth Pollard, San Diego State University
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: Justin Niermeier-Dohoney, Florida Institute of Technology
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: Cynthia Ross, East Texas A&M University
“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: Elise Franklin, University of Louisville
“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 Szostak, University of Alberta
3:00pm - 3:30pm, Beverage Break
3:30pm - 5:00pm, Thursday D Sessions
D1: Roundtable - 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: Lawrence Abrams, Portland Public Schools
“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
E5: Late Breaking Panel - American Ties: The Complexities of the American Identity Through Immigration, Labor, and the Printed Word
Chair: Trevor Getz, San Francisco State University
“Cultivating Community: The Japanese American Agricultural Labor Experience In California”
Elias Garza, San Francisco State University
“Queuing for America: Middle Eastern Immigration from 1890s-1930s”
Vic Duehring, San Francisco State University
“Them's Fightin' Words: Print Capitalism and Anglo-American Political Organization in Mexican Texas”
Ben Garcia, San Francisco State University
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 - Insider’s View of Action for Social Justice: Leadership & Landmarks of Louisville’s Civil Rights Movements
Chair: Eve Carlisle Polley (she/they), University of Louisville, United Campus Workers (UCW) UofL Chapter
Amber Duke (she/her), Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky (ACLU-KY)
Cate Fosl (she/her), Founding Director of the University of Louisville Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research, and Professor Emerita, UofL Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
- A. Owens (he/him), Co-Chair, Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
Sonja Wilde-de Vries (she/they), Louisville Showing Up for Racial Justice (LSURJ) Leader, Activist, Director, Writer, Producer, Poet
F3: Workshop - Digital Tools and Assignments in Ancient and Medieval World Courses at the University of Louisville
Chair: Elise Franklin, 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
12:15pm - 1:15pm, Teacher’s Lunch
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: History without Chronology and the histories of non-Western World
Shellen Wu, Lehigh University
Emily Mokros, University of Kentucky
Stefan Tanaka, University of California, San Diego
Carl Kubler, Carnegie Mellon 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: Corina Gonzalez-Stout, Northwest Vista CollegeTBA
“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
8:00am - 8:20am, WHA General Business Meeting
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 documentary director, Graham Shelby, and panel occurs immediately following the screening, 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
J5: Roundtable - Periodizing Comics: A Book Launch Round Table
Chair: TBA
*Maryanne Rhett, Monmouth University
Elizabeth Pollard, San Diego State University
Kaleb Knoblauch, Independent Scholar
Lawrence Abrams, Portland Public Schools
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: Anti-War Resistance and Curricular Reform in the United States and Vietnam, 1970 to the Present
Chair: Craig A. Lockard, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay
Links Between Revolutionary Feminists in the US Pacific Northwest and Canada to Their Counterparts in Indochina during the Vietnam War,
Barbara Wilson, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York
Two New Anti-War Films: The Tunnels (Vietnam) and the Movement and the Madman (USA)
Marc Jason Gilbert, Hawaii Pacific University
Teaching and studying the Vietnam War in Vietnamese Higher Education: Current Status and Insights
*Trieu Huy Ha, University of Management and Technology, Ho Chi Minh City
L3: Panel - Imperial Logics and Strategic Futures: Race, Development, and Geopolitical Power
Chair: Matthew Bowser, Alabama A&M UniversityTBA
“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: Timothy Fritz, Mount St. Mary’s UniversityTBA
“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
L5: 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
Open
5:15pm - 6:45pm, Closing Keynote Address
Post-Conference Excursion: Sunday, June 29
Afternoon Cruise on Historic Steamboat - The Belle of Louisville
Wharf lot 131 West River Road - After entering the lot, turn left towards the boat (you’ll hear the calliope music!)
Suggested arrival time 12:15pm
Boarding begins 12:30pm
Cruise 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Price: With meal $44.41, No meal $28.61 (beverages & select food items available for purchase)