2026 HGSA Conference Schedule

Each presentation will last 15 minutes with an additional 20 minutes at the end of the panel for the audience to ask questions.

Panel Descriptions

Appalachian Communities Amid Change: Chitwood 101
9:30-11am

Appalachia has faced many challenges in the era of deindustrialization. This panel will explain how natural disasters, labor unrest, reactionary social movements, and costly renewal projects all plagued the region during this transformative period. Despite the difficulties, Appalachians found strength in the bonds of community.

Law and Disorder: Chitwood 102
9:30-11am

This panel will explain the challenges brought by legal systems and practices. Meant to instill order, the “law” has often fostered confusion and injustice. Panelists will use examples spanning across multiple eras and locations to examine particular judicial interpretations, defense strategies, omissions in trial records, and detainee experiences.

From Reckoning to Reform: Chitwood G5
11am-12:30pm

This panel will examine the ways in which historical actors challenged the status quo. The late twentieth century marked a watershed moment in the ways that Americans reckoned with their government. From student activists across the country (including at WVU) to leaders at the very height of national power, panelists will explain the ways that space and strategy fostered unprecedented reform.

Propagating Difference Chitwood G1
11am-12:30pm

Historical actors have long used conceptions of “difference” to justify violence and conquest. This panel will examine the ways in which media promoted exclusionary policies and identities. Whether found in classical Mediterranean writings, Italian fascist education in Ethiopia, political power-grabbing by Joseph Stalin, or subsequent Soviet propaganda, historical actors have long recognized the value of slanting information in their favor.

Gendering Authority: Chitwood 101
2:15-3:20pm

This panel examines how women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries navigated emerging forms of professional and scientific authority. From abolitionist reform networks, to contested medical interventions on women’s bodies, to the rise of women as food experts and “citizen consumers,” these papers reveal how expertise was deeply gendered. Together, they show that women were not merely subjects of institutional power but active participants in redefining knowledge, authority, and public influence.

Religious Feeling and Action: Chitwood 102
2:15-3:20pm

Religion has played a significant role in influencing figures throughout history. This panel will demonstrate how religious language and clerical duties helped to articulate emotions as well as both challenge and reinterpret secular policies. Panelists will explain faith’s role in history by examining the actions of Europeans, Africans, and Americans from late antiquity to the late twentieth century.

Performing and Displaying Culture: Chitwood G5
3:20-4:25pm

This panel explores how culture is performed, mediated, and curated across different historical and geographic contexts. From nineteenth-century American family troupes that blended entertainment with reform activism, to politically charged popular music in postcolonial North Africa, to contemporary museum practices that shape how audiences experience and interpret exhibits, the papers examine culture as an active process rather than a static product.

Battling Over Boundaries: Chitwood G1
3:20-4:25pm

Across continents and decades, political communities have struggled to define where borders are, who belongs within them, what rights those people have, and who has the authority to “defend” them. This panel interrogates territorial and ideological frontiers, revealing how conflicts over space are inseparable from conflicts over sovereignty, identity, and international order. By examining spaces ranging from the borderlands in East Africa to the chambers of the United Nations and the corridors of American foreign policy, panelists will explore who defines the limits of sovereignty, who enforces them, and what happens when they are transgressed.