Other historical and cultural subjects to be explored in this Project include:
The political sophistication of the Iroquois Confederacy, remarked upon by Benjamin Franklin and other contemporary observers; the influence of Native American thinking on suffragettes and abolitionists; the course of indigenous history in the region.The relationship between religious ferment and entrepreneurial ferment, particularly during the 19th century, when the Erie Canal and its enhanced commerce coincided with fifty years of explosive religious growth in the so-called “Burned-Over District.”The Biblical roots and self-understanding of Americans of this region, especially during the extraordinary religious developments of the first half of the 1800s; the persistence of the idea of Jerusalem and the Jews as templates for interpreting the New World and Americans.Central and Western New York as the fulcrum of the Revolutionary War, particularly in the Battle of Oriskany; as the center of manufacturing in the twentieth century; as home to many recruits in the All-Volunteer Military Force throughout Vietnam and afterwards; as a microcosm in the twenty-first century of the opioid academic.The rise and fall of manufacturing; the effects of globalization; and the relationship of the Rust Belt to so-called deaths of despair, and today’s cultural renewal.The endurance of local literary traditions and storytelling despite the encroachments of modernism and postmodernism on the American/European literary scene. Also making appearances will be Upstate’s unique authors, from James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving to contemporary examples of novelists and others who have kept local storytelling alive.
