Workshop: “Polygamy Debates”
July 28, 2016
Radcliffe Instate for Advanced Study at Harvard University
By invitation, Professor Flake will participate in a workshop which will “bring together scholars working in the fields of history, religious studies, law, cultural studies, and literature to discuss nineteenth-century debates over polygamy within the context of a rejuvenated history of marriage and families that emerged in recent years in part because of interest in gay marriage.”
We will ask what the history of controversies over polygamy can tell us about changing understandings of monogamy, about the relationship between marriage and the state, and between marriage and race, between marriage and religion. We will explore historical connections between polygamy and slavery, polygamy and sexuality, and polygamy and women’s rights. And we will consider the ways in which systems of plurality and other developments reshaped gender relations in this period.” (Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) Participants include:
Professor Janet Bennion, Lyndon State University
Professor Brian Connelly, Rutgers University
Professor Sarah Barringer Gordon, University of Pennsylvania
Professor Annette Gordon-Reed, Dartmouth and Harvard
Professor Paul Reeve, University of Utah