Winter 2024

January 22: Alexander Statman UCLA Law school

“Conspiracy Theory in American Courts: The Antimasonry Defamation Cases of the 1820s-1830s”

The Antimasonic Party, which advocated for “the abolition of Freemasonry in these United States,” was briefly a major player in the early American republic. Antimasons governed two states, served in congress, and launched the first major third-party presidential campaign. The Party emerged in western New York in 1826, when William Morgan was kidnapped and probably murdered by freemasons for threatening to reveal Masonic secrets. A slew of trials followed: first a series of prosecutions for criminal conspiracy, then libel and slander cases against the partisans who commented about them. In this paper, I explore Antimasonry as an episode in the legal history of American conspiracy theories. I argue that defamation cases allowed the legal system to engage in a series of meta-trials of Masonry and Antimasonry, evaluating truth, belief, and peoples’ attitudes toward both. As the first mass political movement animated by conspiracy theories in American history, the Antimasonic moment offers lessons for the adjudication of conspiracy theories in American courts today.

Alexander Statman is a historian of science and JD candidate at UCLA. He completed his PhD in history at Stanford University and has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Huntington Library and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His first book, A Global Enlightenment: Western Progress and Chinese Science, was published in 2023 by the University of Chicago Press.

February 20, 12:00-1:30: Eric Jennings (in conjunction with the European Colloquium)

“Vanilla: A World History”

An enslaved teenager should be credited with the main vanilla pollination method still used today the world over.  Prior to his discovery, vanilla had only been fertilized by Central American bees; no pod had grown beyond their natural range.  In 1841, the young Edmond on Ile Bourbon completely transformed the vanilla sector. Like many brilliant inventions, his seems disarmingly simple after the fact. He discovered a straight-forward and efficient way of artificially pollinating the vanilla orchid in a matter of seconds with a toothpick or a needle. Even more astonishing is the fact that he received credit for his method, despite several other botanists trying to rob him of it.  Edmond’s 1841 discovery changed everything.  Vanilla planifolia could now be grown outside of the range of vanilla’s natural pollinator, the Central American melipona bee.  French settlers introduced Edmond’s technique to Mexico.  The world soon experienced a vanilla craze. Réunion planters soon sought out cheaper labor on nearby Madagascar, which became by far the top producer of vanilla in the 20^th century, after falling under French control in 1895.  This chapter aims to tell Edmond’s story and to place it in context, braiding his experience with that of the vanilla sector he transformed.”

Eric T. Jennings (PhD UC Berkeley, 1998) is Distinguished Professor of the history of France and the Francophonie at the University of Toronto (Victoria College). His World History of Vanilla is under contract with Yale University Press in English, and CNRS Editions in French. His previous books include Escape from Vichy: The Refugee Exodus to the French Caribbean (Harvard UP, 2018); Free French Africa in World War II(Cambridge UP, 2015), Imperial Heights: Dalat and the Making and Undoing of French Indochina (University of California Press, 2011), Curing the Colonizers: Hydrotherapy, Climatology and French Colonial Spas (Duke UP, 2006), and Vichy in the Tropics (Stanford UP, 2001). His books have all been translated into French, and one into Vietnamese. He has also contributed to many edited volumes, including France and the World (Histoire mondiale de la France). He held a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2015-2016.

March 4: Postponed to Spring 2024