Researching New York 2013
November 15th & 16th, University at Albany
The complete program, registration information, campus maps, and further details on featured events are available on-line at http://nystatehistory.org.
In addition to the previously announced program and the featured public events below, we are pleased to announce the Conference Lunch Keynote:
"Northern African American Religious Communities and the Black Freedom Struggle in the Twentieth Century"
Clarence Taylor, Baruch College
While much has been written about the southern civil rights movement, lesser known is the pivotal role that religious figures played in civil rights campaigns in New York City and elsewhere in the North. Although left out of popular narratives of civil rights and Black Power, these ministerial figures and lay people were crucial in the fight to end racial repression and for equality. Professor Taylor's research interests include the modern civil rights and black power movements and African-American religions. Recent work includes " Racial Discrimination and the Radical Politics of New York Clergyman, Milton A. Galamison," in "From Every Mountainside: Black Churches and the Broad Terrain of Civil Rights" (SUNY Press 2013). His works include "The Black Churches of Brooklyn from the 19th Century to the Civil Rights Era" and "Black Religious Intellectuals: The Fight for Equality from Jim Crow to the 21st Century" (Routledge, 2002).
Featured events include:
The Gods of Gotham: Religion and the Making of New York, 1800 to 1950
Robert Orsi, Northwestern University
7:30 PM Thursday, November 14, 2013
Page Hall, University at Albany, Downtown Campus
New York City is generally thought of as the very epitome of American modernity and so it was-but it was also a rich landscape of religious practice, innovation, and conflict. Religion did not just happen in New York City; it happened through the city, in the media of its streets, shadows, and stoops, and in exchanges among people of all the world's religions. New York has never been a secular city-or perhaps the religious history of New York demands a rethinking of what "secular" means. This lecture invites a rethinking of American urbanism as a profoundly religious reality.
Robert Orsi is Professor of Religion and the Grace Craddock Nagle Chair in Catholic Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at Northwestern University. His wide ranging writings focus on social and cultural aspects of religion. Called "the reigning scholar of American Catholicism" by Publishers Weekly, Orsi is author of the landmark study, "The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950" ( 25th Anniversary edition 2010). Recent works include "Catholics in the American Century: Recasting Narratives of U.S. History" (Cornell University Press, 2012). Orsi is currently at work on a social and cultural history of 20th century Catholic childhoods in the United States, to be published by Harvard University Press.
Sponsored by UAlbany's Department of History, the NYS Archives Partnership Trust, and the NYS Writers Institute with support from the New York State Historical Association and The Farmer's Museum. Professor Orsi's talk is free and open to the public.
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Friday November 15h -- 3:45 PM
Recital Hall, University at Albany-Uptown Campus
A Momentous Encounter: Reform Judaism Challenges Orthodoxy in 19th Century New York Howard B. Rock
The Enlightenment, the notion that science and reason could lead humankind to a more perfect level of civilization, was always a challenge to traditional Judaism. This included the small communities of British and Jeffersonian New York. The major encounter, however, came in the late 1840s when the foremost Orthodox (traditional) and Reform (Jewish Enlightenment) thinkers resided at or near New York. There Reformers began a passionate dialogue that advocated radical changes to Jewish prayer and practice and attacked the Orthodoxy as leading to the eventual demise of Judaism. The Orthodox responded in kind as the two parties argued over theology, the Talmud, ritual observance, and the place of women. For five years New York was the epicenter in the American confrontation between the two denominations of Judaism, continuing through the Civil War as contrasting outlooks led to contrasting views on slavery and politics.
Howard B. Rock is Professor of History, Emeritus at Florida International University where he taught for thirty-five years. His early writing and research focused on the Revolutionary and Jeffersonian eras in New York City. His most recent work is "Haven of Liberty, New York Jews in the New World, 1654-1865." (2012, New York University Press) He is the author/editor of six books, most recently, coauthored with Deborah Dash Moore, "Cityscapes: A History of New York in Images."
Sponsored by UAlbany's Department of History and Judaic Studies Program, the NYS Archives Partnership Trust, and the NYS Writers Institute Professor Rock's talk is free and open to the public.
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