INVITED TALKS (Last updated Nov. 2023)

• “Crisis and Contagion: Researching Disease and Disaster in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World,” invited speaker for the Open Digital Seminar in Eighteenth-Century Studies, or ODSECS (December 5, 2023).

• “The Great Plague Scare of 1720,” invited book talk for the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies (IHB) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna (November 29, 2023).

• “On The Great Plague Scare of 1720.” Invited speaker for panel on “Epidemics and Public Health in Port Cities” (with David Barnes and Andrew Wehrman) for Villanova University Lepage Center’s webinar series on Cities in Historical Perspectives (November 16, 2023).

• “Why the Medical Humanities?” For Film and Medicine event, UTSA (September 14, 2023).

• “The Great Plague Scare of 1720: Reflections in the COVID Era,” invited book talk and panel (with Christine Adams, Sarah Black, Jessie Hewitt, Junko Takeda) hosted by H-France Salon (June 9, 2023).

• “Digital Humanities for the People(?): Past, Present, and Future,” invited speaker for roundtable “Digital Humanities: A Decade of Experience” for the Society for French Historical Studies conference titled “Digital Humanities: Ways Forward, A Conference in Honor of David Kammerling Smith” (March 20, 2021).

• “History in Times of Crisis: Lessons from the Plague of Provence,” invited speaker for the Phi Alpha Theta Induction Ceremony at Belmont Abbey College (March 5, 2021).

• “Plague, COVID, and Empire: 1720 & 2020,” Texas State University, (November 12, 2020).

• “Health, Culture, and Society,” invited speaker and workshop leader, Bowdoin College (October 26, 2020).

• “Cities and Urban Development in Times of Plague,” for The History of Now: Plagues and Pandemics, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (October 2, 2020).

• “History in the Time of COVID: Reflections on the 1720 Plague of Provence,” invited speaker and workshop leader for the Preyer Lecture Series at Queens University of Charlotte on “History for Our Time” (September 7, 2020).

• “COVID-19: Past, Present, and Future,” for Urgent Matters: Times of Pandemics, co-hosted by Latin America and Latino Studies (LALS) and the Lewis Global Center at Smith College (April 23, 2020).

• “On Environmental Disaster in the Gulf South: Two Centuries of Catastrophe, Risk, and Resilience,” Author book talk at Louisiana Book Festival (November 10, 2018).

• “Disruptions in Time: Historical Reflections on Disaster, Revolution, and the Digital Humanities,” Atlantic Colloquium, Florida International University (October 25, 2018).

• “The Great Plague Scare of 1720: Disaster and Society in the Eighteenth-Century World,” Center for Biology and Society, Arizona State University (August 28, 2018).

• “Understanding Disaster and the Environment in the Long Eighteenth Century,” Symposium on Disasters and Catastrophes in the Enlightenment, Mount Royal University (March 9, 2018).

• “The Spectre of Death: An Early Modern Epidemic in Transnational Context,” for forum, Early Modern Plagues: Histories of Resilience, Arizona State University (April 11, 2017).

• “Plague and Crisis in the Eighteenth Century,” Arizona State University’s Institute for Humanities Research (April 10, 2017).

• Plenary: “Communicating Disease: Information Networks During the Plague of Provence,” The Enlightenment in Motion Symposium, Mount Royal University (March 17, 2017). 

• “Plague Cultures: Managing the 1720 Plague of Provence in France,” Department of Modern Languages, University of Lethbridge (October 3, 2016).

IN THE MEDIA (For published op-eds and academic journalism, see Publications on CV)

Print Media Interviews (National and Local)

• The Conversationalist: Invited interview with Elena Sheppard for article on “‘Patria y Vida’: the Cuban song that has become a global rallying cry” (April 1, 2021).

• The Atlantic: Invited Q & A with Alexis C. Madrigal, “Why the Gulf Coast Is Uniquely Vulnerable to Disasters: It isn’t just because of the weather, a historian argues” (August 29, 2017).

• Lethbridge News Now: Interviewed for feature article on “Learning the lessons of a catastrophic storm,” by Geoff Smith (August 29, 2017).

Radio Interviews

• BBC World Newsday: Live interview with Bola Mosuro on the dangers of President Trump’s plan to prematurely “Open Up America Again” (April 17, 2020).

• CJOC FM Lethbridge News 94.1: Radio interview on the history of modern disasters and Hurricane Harvey (August 30, 2017).

Television Appearances/Interviews

• Univision: Spanish-language interview on the history of heat waves in South-Central Texas (July 14, 2022).

• Univision: Spanish-language interview on the history of the “Spanish” Flu as we battle COVID-19 (April 15, 2020).

• CTV Lethbridge: Interview on vulnerability of Gulf South to natural hazards (August 31, 2017).

• Al Jazeera English “NewsHour”: Live appearance to discuss disaster management of Hurricane Harvey in context of Gulf South’s larger history of disaster (August 30, 2017).

Podcasts Interviews

• “COVID Calls,” Disaster STS Network: Historians’ Roundtable on “Pandemics Across Time” with Scott Knowles (January 26, 2021).

• Cited Media’s “Secondary Symptoms” Podcast: Interview for “Return to Normalcy?” episode, with Jay Cockburn (July 27, 2020).

• Cited Media’s “Secondary Symptoms” Podcast: Interview for “Pandemic Amnesia” episode on the history of public health crises, disaster, and memory, with Gordon Katic (May 7, 2020).

• Cited Media’s “Secondary Symptoms” Podcast: Appearance on “Not So Fast” episode on the history of pandemics, with Gordon Katic (April 30, 2020).

• Disaster STS Network: Interview on “Pandemics in History,” for “COVID Calls” podcast/YouTube Live, with Scott Knowles of Drexel University (March 30, 2020).

• Reddit’s “AskHistorians” Podcast: Interview on “La Peste! The Great Plague of Marseille,” with Andrés Pertierra of UW Madison (May 6, 2017).

• “Catastrophe is Our Bedtime Story Podcast”: Interview on “Catastrophe in the Age of Revolutions,” with Michael Egan of McMaster University (October 28, 2016).

ROUNDTABLES, CONFERENCE PAPERS, & CHAIRED SESSIONS

Roundtables

• “So, You Want to Publish in an Academic Journal?,” American Historical Association, San Francisco, CA (January 4-7, 2024).

• “Publishing in an Academic Journal,” Western Association of Women Historians, Costa Mesa, CA (April 21-23, 2022).

• “Coping in the Midst of a Pandemic,” Town Hall on COVID-19, University of Texas at San Antonio (April 8, 2020). 

• “Using Digital Tools to Do Public History,” Society for French Historical Studies, Indianapolis, IN (April 4-6, 2019). 

• Academic Blogging Roundtable: “Networks, Perspectives, and Trajectories,” American Historical Association, Chicago, IL (January 3-6, 2019). 

• “Disaster and Crisis: Eighteenth-Century Perspectives” for roundtable, “Eighteenth-Century Environments” (Science Studies Caucus), American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Orlando, FL (March 22-25, 2018). 

• “Home of Disaster: Katrina, BP, and the Gulf South, 5 and 10 Years Later: A Roundtable Discussion,” Louisiana Historical Association, Lafayette, LA (March 5-7, 2015). 

Conference Papers & Panel Organization

• Organizer and chair for “AI and the Historical Profession: Applications and Implications,” American Historical Association, San Francisco, CA (January 4-7, 2024).

• “The Sète Affair of 1721: Crisis and Resistance in the Early Eighteenth-Century French Colonies,” American Historical Association, New Orleans, LA (January 6-9, 2022).

• Chair and commentator for “Material and Digital Approaches to Labor, Health, and the Political Ecology of Slavery,” Omohundro Institute Annual Conference, Williamsburg, VA (June 18-20, 2021).

• Co-organizer and co-chair for the Age of Revolutions’ Webinar on Miguel La Serna’s Masses and Arms: Peru’s Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, co-hosted with Smith College and UNC Press (July 23, 2020).

• “Plague and Crisis in the Eighteenth Century: Reactions to the Plague of Provence in Atlantic Port Cities,” Port Cities in the Atlantic Conference, Charleston, SC (May 14-16, 2020). (Accepted, but canceled due to COVID-19.

• Chair,  “Sulphur and Sailing: Science and Medicine in the Revolutionary Era,” Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Tallahassee, FL (February 27-29, 2020).

• “Revolution as Disaster,” Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Tallahassee, FL (February 27-29, 2020). 

• Chair, “Plants as Case Study in the History of Philosophy, Sciences, and Medicine, 16th-19th Centuries,” History of Science Society, Seattle, WA (Nov. 1-4, 2018)

• “Plague and the Port City: Movement and Migration During an Eighteenth-Century Crisis,” Western Society for French History, Reno, NV (November 2-4, 2017). (“Disasters and Dislocation in France and the Empire,” H-France Salon, Vol. 9, Issue 26)

• Chair, “The Growth of Trade, Economic Liberalism, and Attitudes to Absolute Monarchy at the End of the Old Regime,” Western Society for French History, Reno, NV (Nov. 2-4, 2017).

• Chair, “Consent and Coercion in Revolutionary and Napoleonic Policy,” Society for French Historical Studies, Washington, DC (April 20-23, 2017).

• Chair, “Cities and Disasters in the Eighteenth Century,” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Minneapolis, MN (March 30-April 2, 2017).

• “The 1720 Plague of Provence and Bourbon Reform in the Eighteenth Century,” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Minneapolis, MN (March 30-April 2, 2017).

• “Bourbon Centralization in Spain During the Plague of Provence, 1720-1724,” Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies, San Diego, CA (March 17-20, 2016). 

• Chair, “Gender and the Birthrate in Modern France and Empire,” Society for French Historical Studies, Nashville, TN (March 3-6, 2016).

• Chair, “Visualizing Rural Life and Labor in a Time of Industrial Agriculture, 1945 to the present,” Society for French Historical Studies, Nashville, TN (March 3-6, 2016).

• “The Peste of Provence and the Centralization of Crisis Management in the Early Eighteenth Century,” Society for French Historical Studies, Colorado Springs, CO (April 16-19, 2015).  (“Learning from the Courte Durée: Moments in Mediterranean Environmental History,” H-France Salon, Vol. 7, Issue 8)

• “The Politics of Disaster: Risk and Exploitation in Spain during the Marseille Plague and Beyond,” American Historical Association, Washington DC (January 2-5, 2014).

• “Plague in the Port City: The Marseille Plague of 1720 in Transnational Perspective,” American Association for the History of Medicine, Atlanta, GA (May 16-19, 2013). 

• “Pestilence and Politics: The 1720 Peste of Provence in Cádiz and Marseille,” Society for French Historical Studies, Cambridge, MA (April 4-7, 2013).

• “The Good Friday Fire of 1788: Implications of a Disaster in Spanish Colonial New Orleans,” Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Charleston, SC (February 25-27, 2010).

• “The Fire of 1788: Managing Disaster in a Spanish Colonial Urban Landscape,” Florida Conference of Historians, Wakulla, FL (February 18-20, 2010).