History Department to Host Speaker Series, "Across Borders"

Idaho State University's History Department is excited to announce this semester’s lecture series, "Across Borders." The series brings together nationally recognized scholars to discuss their work on topics that explore the histories of transnational connections, collaborations, and competition. 

These public lectures will be held on Zoom as webinars. This speaker series has been made possible by generous support from the Cultural Events Committee.

The events are open to all, but pre-registration is required. Please direct any questions to the History Department, histdept@isu.edu. 

On Thursday, February 10 from 3-4pm, Dr. Emily Mokros (University of Kentucky) presents “The Global Travels of the Peking Gazette.” She is the author of the recently published book, The Peking Gazette in Late Imperial China: State News and Political Authority (University of Washington Press, 2021). Her work traces the untold story of a distinctive state periodical, the Peking Gazette (jingbao), and how it contributed to momentous shifts in political culture in Qing China and influenced representations of the Qing state at home and abroad. 

Register for Dr. Mokros’s talk here.

On Thursday, March 3 from 3-4pm, Dr. Álvaro Caso Bello (University of Colorado, Boulder) presents "The Americas in Madrid: People, Goods, and Ideas in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” His work examines the interconnections across the Atlantic between Europe and the Americas during the Age of Revolutions. 

Register for Dr. Caso Bello’s talk here.

On Thursday, March 17 from 3-4pm, Dr. Emily Conroy-Krutz (Michigan State University) presents “Missionary Diplomacy.” Her first book, Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in the Early American Republic, was published by Cornell University Press in 2015 as part of the U.S. and the World Series. It examines the global reach of the American foreign mission movement in the years between the 1790s and 1840s and analyzes the missionary response to imperialism. Her current research is on 19th-century missionary connections to American foreign policy. 

Register for Dr. Conroy-Krutz’s talk here.

On Thursday, April 7 from 3-4pm, Dr. Joseph Ho (Albion College) presents "Bridging Visions: Missionary Cameras and Modern China.” Dr. Ho’s first book, Developing Mission: Photography, Filmmaking, and American Missionaries in Modern China (Cornell University Press, 2022), offers a transnational cultural history of US and Chinese communities framed by missionary lenses through time and space—tracing the lives and afterlives of images, cameras, and visual imaginations from before the Second Sino-Japanese War through the first years of the People's Republic of China. His talk explores intersections between image-making, contested identities, and transnational ways of seeing – many of which transformed 20th century Sino-US encounters on both sides of the lens. 

Register for Dr. Ho’s talk here.