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Hartford Resource Committee Events Details

* Indicates Hartford Resource Committee Events

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2003

5:30 - 8:00 PM

Dinner and Roundtable Discussion: Telling the New American Story

Connecticut Historical Society, 1 Elizabeth Street, Hartford

How do museums and archives reach out to the community when the community has changed--but their archives haven't? Hartford's population has transformed from a community of mainly white Protestants to a city with more than eighty percent people of color. The Connecticut Historical Society, founded in 1825, and the Hartford Public Library, which opened to the general public in 1892, have both launched community projects to reach this new population.

Come to CHS and participate in a buffet dinner and panel discussion about how these two Hartford institutions are reaching out to the city's population. CHS staff will discuss two community projects. One, Nuestras Historias, is a bilingual website about the Latino community that was launched in November 2002. The other project was an exhibition on the West Indian population based on oral histories taken from community members in 2001-2002. Hartford Public Library staff will discuss "Telling Stories," a three-year initiative to build collections and create programs recording the histories of three of Hartford's ethnic majorities: Caribbean, African American and Puerto Rican. Members of the communities will join this roundtable concerning questions such as, "Who are you to tell my story," and "How should that story be told?"

Shuttle transportation provided by the ASA. The Shuttle leaves the Hilton Hotel at 5:00 P.M. and returns to the Hilton at 8:30. For event reservations call: 860-236-5621 x290.

Cost: $30.00/pp. Call and reserve by October 1. Seating is limited.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2003

8:30 AM - 3:00 PM

Secondary School Teacher Workshop: Building Community in the Classroom: Strategies for Engaging Students in Local History

Connecticut Historical Society, 1 Elizabeth Street, Hartford

In conjunction with the 2003 American Studies Association Conference, ASA and NEASA present four workshops for teachers on strategies for appealing to and engaging students. By focusing on aspects of community, these approaches emphasize the use of locality and personal involvement. Non-ASA participants receive free admission to Saturday's Focus on Teaching events. Registration is free to ASA conferees. Professional Development Points or CEU's will be available for Connecticut and Massachusetts teachers. Public transportation is available (see directions below). For further information and registration, contact: Dane Morrison, Department of History, Salem State College, Salem, MA 01970; (978) 542-7134; dane.morrison@salemstate.edu or see www.theasa.net.

 

8:00 - 8:30 AM

Registration

 

8:30 - 9:45 AM

Session I "Born to Trouble": Teaching Huck Finn and Race in the Secondary School

This workshop will take off from the recent WGBH documentary "Born to Trouble" about the historic and contemporary controversies surrounding the representation of race in Twain's novel. We will discuss innovative strategies and readings that teachers are using to make this American classic into a more challenging, enriching, and engaging project for both students and teachers.

Instructor: Lois Rudnick is Director of the American Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. She is author of Utopian Vistas: The Mabel Dodge Luhan House and the American Counterculture, which won the 1999 NEASA Book Prize, Mabel Dodge Luhan: New Woman, New Worlds, and co-editor of 1915, the Cultural Moment: The NewPolitics, the New Woman, the NewPsychology, the New Art, and the New Theater in America.

 

10:00 - 11:15 AM

Session II Designing a Community Heritage Project

Based on the New Hampshire Heritage Project, an "initiative to create a consortium of teachers who are including community heritage projects in their curriculum," we will show how to design a project in which "teachers and students [can] explore the history, literature, art, environment and folklore of their own communities."

Instructor: Kay Morgan teaches English and American Studies at Oyster River High School in Durham, New Hampshire. During the 2002-2003 year, she enjoyed the Christa McAuliffe Sabbatical, funded by the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, involved in the New Hampshire Heritage Project, working with teachers in the northern part of the state on designing and implementing community heritage projects. Her website can be found at: www.nhheritageproject.org.

 

11:15 AM - 12:30 PM

Lunch

 

12:30 -1:45 PM

Session III "Feeding Community, Teaching Ourselves: Placing Local Agriculture in Connecticut's Classrooms"

This session unites an agriculture/environmentally based charter school, natural foods advocate, public school history teacher, and environmental non profit staff, for discussions on curriculum, programming, education versus activism, healthy food choices on campus, and the state's incredibly rich agricultural history. It is part of the Hartford/CT subset of proposed sessions envisioned to engage and serve the host community.

Instructor: W. Frank Mitchell teaches American Studies at Trinity College.

 

2:00 - 3:15 PM

Session IV "American Studies at Manchester High School"

This session presents the approach toward American Studies used at Manchester High School. Four teachers present how they teach American Studies in a team setting to a college prep class of about 40 students. They demonstrate how they approach a topic from a variety of fields including literature, history, art, music and architecture.

Instructors: Steve Armstrong, Matt Cieslowski, Dave Maloney and Carol Wengertsma, Manchester High School, Manchester, CT

 

3:30 - 4:00 PM

Plenary Review

Cost: Registration is free to ASA conferees; for others, the cost is $100 for the day-long event and $25 per session. Lunch is included in the full-day event fee.

Directions: By Car: From Interstate Route 84, west of downtown Hartford, take exit 46 (Sisson Avenue). Turn right at the end of the ramp onto Sisson Avenue. At the second traffic light turn left onto Farmington Avenue. Go one block and turn right onto Girard Avenue (at Shell station). At the second intersection turn right onto Elizabeth Street. The Connecticut Historical Society, with ample free parking, is the second drive on the right.

By Bus: The A Route will get you to the corner of Asylum Avenue and Elizabeth Street (A1-ASYLUM AV-Bishops Corner-Cigna) or right in front of the CHS (A2-ASYLUM AV-Fern St). The S1 Route will drop you off at Asylum Avenue and Woodland Street, from there walk west to the corner of Asylum Avenue and Elizabeth Street. The CHS. The E, E1, E2, E3, E4, E5, E6 & E7 routes have stops at Farmington Avenue and Girard Avenue. From there, walk two blocks down Girard Avenue to Elizabeth Street and turn right. The CHS is the second driveway on the right.

 

9:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Workshop: Nook Farm: An American 19th Century Literary Community

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, William Gillette, Charles Dudley Warner, Richard Burton--what do they have in common? They all lived as neighbors in a unique Hartford community called Nook Farm.

Join Dr. Joan Hedrick (Trinity College), Dr. Joyce Chadwick (Harvard University), Dr. Michael Radice (Harriet Beecher Stowe Center) and Dawn Adiletta (Harriet Beecher Stowe Center) in a 3-hour workshop to learn about this almost forgotten Victorian community of literary and political figures who helped redefine American literature and social history.

We'll feed you. We'll educate you. We'll inspire you. We'll transport you (to and from the workshop). And we'll even give you tours of the Stowe and Twain houses and of Nook Farm--all for free (enrollment limited to 30). The workshop is cosponsored by the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center and The Mark Twain House. Buses will leave from the conference site at 8:30 AM and will return by 12:30 PM.

 

2:00 - 3:45 PM

Session: Putting the City Back Together (Again): Interstate 91, Riverfront Development, and Hartford's Urban Renewal

The Phoenix Building Observation Deck

The Federal Highway Program split the city of Hartford from the river and its nautical past. This session considers the controversies surrounding efforts to reconnect the city's neighborhoods--populated primarily by African-Americans, Latinos, and recent immigrant arrivals--with the riverfront of the Connecticut River. From the top of the Phoenix, audience members can view the Interstate's path parallel to the river. The audience will also be able to see two conflicting visions of how to address this unfortunate divide. The first is Riverfront Recapture, a network of recently constructed small parks and bike paths; the second is the large shopping complex known as Adriaen's Landing. The Phoenix Building is a short walk from the conference site; ASA conferees will be admitted with their badges. This event is open to the public.

Directions to the Phoenix Building: Start out from the Hilton Hotel going RIGHT (South) on TRUMBULL ST toward CHURCH ST. Turn LEFT onto CHURCH ST. Turn RIGHT onto MAIN ST. Right Behind Old State House on One American Row. The Phoenix building is the two-sided boat-shaped structure.

Chair:

Adam Sweeting, College of General Studies, Boston University

Sarah Luria, Department of English, College of the Holy Cross

Panelists:

Bernadine Silvers, President, Coalition to Strengthen the Sheldon/Charter Oak Neighborhood

Mike Swift, Hartford Courant

Rudolph R. Arnold, Esq., Former Deputy Mayor of Hartford, Arnold and Associates

Joseph Marfuggi, President, Riverfront Recapture

Patrick L. Pinnell, AIA

Comment:

The Audience

 

2:00 - 7:30 PM

Sessions and a Reception: An Afternoon at the Wadsworth Atheneum

The Wadsworth Atheneum

The quality and range of fine and decorative arts at the Wadsworth Atheneum place it among the dozen greatest art museums in the United States. Its world-renowned collections include Hudson River School landscapes, Old Master paintings, modernist masterpieces, French and American Impressionist paintings, Meissen and Sevres porcelains, costumes and textiles, American furniture and decorative arts of the Pilgrim Century through the Gilded Age, and contemporary art.

The following two sessions take full advantage of the materials and built environment of the Wadsworth Atheneum: they will be held in the museum, in the presence of the works themselves, in the space to be explored. The Wadsworth Atheneum is a short walk from the conference site. ASA conferees receive free admission to the museum with their badges. A reception follows the sessions.

 

2:00 - 3:45 PM

On Site: The Wadsworth Atheneum and American Visual Culture

An Experimental on-site session sponsored by the Visual Culture/Art History Caucus of the American Studies Association, with David Brody, Thomas Denenberg, Patricia Johnston, Laura Brugger, Catherine Whalen, and Roger Stein.

Chairs:

David Brody, Department of Art, West Chester University

Thomas Denenberg, Curator of American Decorative Arts, Wadsworth Atheneum

Papers:

Patricia Johnston, Department of Art, Salem State College
Varieties of Visual Culture: An Overview of Printmaking Media and Audiences for Early Nineteenth-Century Religious Prints

Laura Brugger, Department of Art History and Archeology, Columbia University
Constructing Taste: The Role of Gothic Forms and Literary Associations in the Design of A. J. Avis and Ithiel Town’s Wadsworth Atheneum, 1841-42

Catherine Whalen, American Studies Program, Yale University
Collecting/Creating Colonial America in Connecticut: The Material Imaginations of George Dudley Seymour and Francis P. Garvan

Comment:

Roger Stein, McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia

4:00 - 5:45 PM

Is there an American Studies Gallery in this Museum?

A Roundtable co-sponsored by the Task Force on Public Practice, featuring Jochen Wierich, Margaret Bullock, Derrick R. Cartwright, Margaret Conrads, Catherine M. Lewis, Margaretta M. Lovall, William H. Truettner, and Alan Wallach.

Chair:

Jochen Wierich, Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture

Panelists:

Margaret Bullock, Portland Art Museum

Derrick R. Cartwright, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College

Margaret Conrads, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Catherine M. Lewis, Atlanta History Center

Margaretta M. Lovell, Department of History of Art, University of Berkeley, California

William H. Truettner, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Alan Wallach, American Studies Program, The College of William and Mary

Comment:

The Audience

6:00 - 7:30 PM

Reception of the Material Culture and Visual Culture/Art History Caucuses

(Sponsored by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art; Boston University's American & New England Studies Program; Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library; and the University of Kentucky Press)

 

3:00 - 4:30 PM

Walking Tour: Exploring Coltsville, Antiquarian and Landmarks Association

The American Industrial Revolution dramatically changed Hartford as the city became the manufacturing capital of the country. Large groups of immigrants came to the city seeking work and spurred an increased need for housing, new places of worship and social clubs. One of Hartford's leading industrialists was Sam Colt. Credited with inventing the revolving pistol, Colt had survived earlier failures to become a leading manufacturer of firearms. Colt's Armory was located on 250 acres of land that had been reclaimed from the Connecticut River Plain and surrounded by worker's housing where Irish, German and English lived side by side. Following Colt's death, his widow Elizabeth assumed control of the company and had the factory rebuilt following a devastating fire, reputedly by Southern sympathizers during the Civil War. Join this walking tour to explore the Coltsville complex and view still extant worker housing, the Armory, and Colt's Italianate mansion. Participants will discuss challenges facing Coltsville and plans for its use in the twenty-first century. Tour begins in the exhibition center at Butler-McCook House. (See directions to House below.) Cost: $8. Register by October 10 at: 860-247-8996 x15.

Directions to Butler-McCook from the Hilton Hotel. (Travel time by foot: Approx 15 minutes) Start on Morgan street Turn right (South) onto Main Street Continue on Main St/ State House Square Continue on Main Street past Financial Plaza/ Tower Square and find the Butler McCook House on the left hand side 396 Main Street. It is a mustard yellow building.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2003