Friday, March 13, 2026 
(all sessions at the University of Hong Kong Campus)

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9:30-10:00am: Registration

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10:00-10:30am: Welcome and Introductions, University of Hong Kong

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10:30am-12:00pm: Session 3 

 

Shifting Legal Regimes

• “Colonial Legitimacy and Revolution in the Dutch East Indies: Citizenship, Slavery and Legal Pluralism,” Bart Verheijen, Leiden University 

• “William Smith, Jr.’s Unfinished Legal Reforms: Governing Low Law in the British Settler Colonies and (Counter)Revolutionary America,” Kim Sung Yup, Seoul National University

• “‘Africans’ into Anglo-Saxons: Granville Sharp and Legal Ordering in Early Sierra Leone, 1787-1789” Timothy Soriano, University of Illinois, Chicago

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​Global Print Culture

• “Ink, Identity, and Insurgency: Print Culture as the Alchemy of Modernity and Social Resistance in Colonial Orissa,” Bebina Majhee, University of Hyderabad

• “The Print Revolution in the Indian Ocean World,” Joshua Ehrlich, University of Macau

• “Print, Pamphlets, and Parallel Revolts: American Revolutionary Influence on Colonial Indian Resistance,” J. Suresh, University College Thiruvanathapuram

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Mobility & Displacement​

• “American Revolutionary Refugees,” Kit Candlin, University of Newcastle 

• "Indigenous Travelers in the Revolutionary Atlantic,” Lori Daggar, Ursinus College

• “The Age of Exile: Rethinking the Age of Revolution as a Refugee Crisis,” Michael McDonnell, University of Sydney​​

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12:00-2:00pm: Lunch: Ming Pavilion 眀軒 14/F, KK Leung Building, The University of Hong Kong 

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2:00-3:30pm: Session 4

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Law, Enlightenment & Governance

• “Vattel’s ‘Law of Nations’ in British and Spanish America,” Theodore Christov, George Washington University

• “Ireland, America, and the Eighteenth-Century Re-set,” Coleman Dennehy, Dundalk Institute of Technology

• “The Meaning of Filadelfia: Views of America’s Republic and Revolution in the Kingdom of Naples,” Anna Vincenzi, Hillsdale College

 

Commercial Disruptions & Expansion B

• “The Rise of ‘Commercial Society’: The Debates about Business Corporations in the Early Republic Period of America,” Dong Yu, Nankai University

• “American Revolutions and Plantation Patriotism in the Indo-Pacific, 1780-1807,” Xu Guanmian, Peking University

• “Rice and Cotton in the Atlantic Amazon: Portuguese Reformism and the American Revolution in Northern Brazil,” Manoel Domingos Farias Rendeiro Neto, UC Davis

• “The American Revolution, the British Slave Trade, and Indian Cotton Textiles,” Kazuo Kobayashi, Waseda University

 

Roundtable--American Revolution International 

• “The Global Fourth: Internationalizing the Revolution, ca. 1777-1876,” Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, University of Southern California

• “The War for American Independence on the West African Coast,” Christopher L. Brown, Columbia University

• “A Global History of the American Revolution,” Sarah M. S. Pearsall, Johns Hopkins University

• “‘Colonial Law’: Past, Present and Future,” Tamar Herzog, Harvard University​

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3:30-4:00pm: Break: Light refreshments in the Faculty Lounge, room 4.30.

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4:00-5:30pm: Session 5

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Imperial Governance & Endurance

• “In the Aftermath of the American Revolution: The Collapse of the Old Order and the Risk of a Generalized War in Europe (1787-1790),” Gabriel Leanca, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Romania

• “Wolfe Tone’s Case and Imperial Governance,” Donal Coffey, Maynooth University, Ireland

• “Trans-Pacific Absolutisms: Russia, Spain, and Latin America in a Revolutionary Age,” Marcos G. Pérez Cañizares, Cornell University

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Religion: Conformity & Contestation

• “Understanding the Differences between Adams' and Burke's Conservative Political Thought: An Interpretation Based on the Dimension of Religion,” Li Haimo, Fudan University, Shanghai

• “Imperial Religious Freedom in the Age of Revolution: The Case of Thomas Law in British India and Thomas Jefferson in the Early United States,” Rosemarie Zagarri, George Mason University

• “Britain’s Popish Turn, c. 1755-1774: Imperial Tolerance and the origins of the American Revolution,” Evan Haefeli, Texas A&M

• “American Echoes in Colonial Calvinism: Ecclesiastical Ties and Reform in Batavia, 1775–1795,” Alexander van der Meer, Leiden University

 

Enlightenment Ideas

• "Du Pont’s Equinoctial Republics: The View from Monticello," Graham Clure, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

• “‘Scientia in Bello Pax:’ Rethinking Military Power in the American Revolution,” Sveinn M. Jóhannesson, University of Iceland

• “The American Revolution and Global Abolitionism: A Scottish Enlightenment Perspective.” Gideon Mailer, University of Minnesota, Duluth

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6:00pm: Busses depart for dinner from the University of Hong Kong
 

7:00pm: Dinner off campus at Grand Buffet, 62/F Hopewell Center, 183 Queen's Road East, Wan Chai. 

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