Moderator: Crystal Feimster (Yale University) Panelists: David J. Silverman (George Washington University): “The First American Gun Crisis” Kevin Sweeney (Amherst College): “Guns in the Cultures of Eighteenth-Century America” Saul Cornell (Fordham University): “Abolitionism, Armed Self-defense, and Firearms Regulation in Antebellum America” (Photos by Czarina Yuffa.)
Moderator: Jennifer Tucker (Founding Director, Center for the Study of Guns & Society, and Associate Professor of History, Wesleyan) Presenters: Carlotta Gidal (CSS, ’23) Latonya Smith (CS and ECON, ’24) Alex Trufinescu (CSS, ’23) Emma Tuhabonye (’23) Lucia Voges (AMST, ’23) (Photos by Kseniia Guliaeva.)
Moderator: Leah Glaser (Central Connecticut State University) Panelists: Alex MacKenzie, Springfield Armory National Historic Site (National Park Service) Amy Glowacki, Coltsville National Historic Park (National Park Service) Danny Michael, Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody Firearms Museum) Jackie Loveland, John Moses Browning Mansion (Photos by Kseniia Guliaeva.)
Fall 2022, Fall 2023 Taught by Jennifer Tucker This course examines the changing place of guns in U.S. society, from the colonial era through to the present day. Readings and discussions consider guns both as material objects involved in specific ways of life and as symbols and sites of contested Read more…
Spring 2024 Combining oral history, visual storytelling methods, and documentary performance in a workshop format, this course will reenact court transcripts and contemporary and historic testimonies related to guns and gun violence in America. These reenactments are based on testimonies and documents collected that interpolate the legal issues around guns Read more…
The Center for the Study of Guns & Society will be the first academic site dedicated to interdisciplinary humanities study and teaching on the social and cultural history of firearms. Guns hold a central and uniquely polarizing place in American society and culture today, yet there are many unanswered questions Read more…
Spring 2023, Spring 2024 Taught by Joseph Slaughter This course examines the history of firearms and religion in the United States, ultimately seeking to understand the significance of gun culture within American Christianity and the powerful “God & Guns” story at the core of many Americans’ identity. Beginning with an Read more…
Fall 2022 Taught by Peter Rutland While most societies condemn physical violence between individuals, they condone and encourage collectively organized violence in the form of warfare. War is obscene, yet all modern societies have engaged in warfare. This course will examine war as a social, political, and historical phenomenon. We Read more…
