What is happening in the United States? Our televisions are filled with trade war, 51st state, and masked ICE agents dragging parents and children off to detention and deportation. Government websites deny science and health research grants have been cancelled. What is happening? Why is it happening? What are the implications for Canada?
This one-day colloquium provides us on-the-ground perspectives from US colleagues. Join us to understand the situation and help develop strategies.
When: January 9, 2026, 9:30 am-5:00 pm
Where: In Person MDCL 3020 and on zoom.
To attend by zoom, please register in advance here:
https://mcmaster.zoom.us/meeting/register/D4vIrQNOTzm-oamM3AaiVA
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
This colloquium is organized by the Jason A. Hannah History of Medicine Unit (FHS) as part of the History of Medicine and Medical Humanities Speaker Series at McMaster University, funded by AMS.
Colloquium Schedule January 9, 2026:
9:30 am-10:00 am
Welcome and opening remarks, Dr. Ellen Amster, Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine, McMaster University
10:00 am-11:00 am
Keynote Address, “The Third Red Scare, Big Carbon, and the Destruction of American Science”
Speaker: Dr. Juan R. I. Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Distinguished University Professor of History, University of Michigan
11:00 am-11:40 am
Title: “A Social and Political History of Medical Facts in the U.S. since 2020, with a postscript on Mnyime Afe”
Speaker: Dr. Steven Feierman, Professor Emeritus of the Departments of History and History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania
11:40 am-12:20 pm
Title: “Organizing at the Speed of Trust: Testimonio of a Mexican-American Scholar Activist”
Speaker: “Dra Sandy” (pseudonym), Member of the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights
12:30 pm-2:00 pm Break
2:00 pm-2:40 pm
Title: “From Rule of Law to Rule through Law: Putin’s Russia, and now Trump’s US”
Speaker: Dr. Abby Schrader, Professor of History, Franklin & Marshall College
2:40pm-3:20 pm
Title: “Freedom and Power: Using Early Republican Politics to think about American Higher Education”
Speaker: Dr. Kirsten E. Wood, Professor of History, Florida International University
3:20 pm-4:00 pm
Title: “The Current State of the African American Struggle for Political Economic Power and Civil Rights in Urban America”
Speaker: Dr. Clem Harris, Director of Africana Studies and Associate Professor of History and Public Affairs, Utica University
4:00 pm-4:40 pm
Title: “Can the US still be considered “Indispensable” in world affairs?”
Speaker: Mr. Gerald Loftus, US foreign service (retired)
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Speaker Biographies
Dr. Steven Feierman
Bio: Dr. Steven Feierman is Professor Emeritus of the Departments of History and HSS (History and Sociology of Science), University of Pennsylvania. He received the Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University, and D.Phil. in Social Anthropology, Oxford University. He is the author of Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania,and other books and articles. Feierman is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has done ethnographic research in Tanzania, periodically over 50 years. He engaged in collaborative research in Africa and India with faculty from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.
Dr. Kirsten Wood
Bio: Dr. Kirsten E. Wood is Professor of History at Florida International University, where she is also affiliated with the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies and the African and African Diaspora Studies programs. Her research and teaching center on the “early American republic,” circa 1789-1861 in US history. She is the author of two books,Masterful Women: Slaveholding Widows from the American Revolution through the Civil War (2004) andAccommodating the Republic: Taverns in the Early United States (2023). She also worked as Associate Director of FIU’s federally funded Office to Advance Women, Equity, and Diversity before changes in Florida law shuttered the office.
Dr. Juan Cole (Keynote)
Bio: Dr. Juan R. I. Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Cole has devoted his career to understanding the Middle East and the Muslim world and its relationship with the North Atlantic states. His most recent book is Rethinking the Qur’an in Late Antiquity (DeGruyter 2025). Other books include ‘ Peace Movements in Islam, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation from the Persian.Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires (Bold Type Books, 2018) and The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East (Simon & Schuster, 2014), and translated works of Lebanese-American author Kahlil Gibran. He has appeared on the PBS News Hour, ABC World News Tonight, Nightline, the Today Show, Anderson Cooper 360, Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes’ All In, CNN, the Colbert Report, Democracy Now! and many others. He is proprietor of the Informed Comment news and analysis site. A bibliography of his writings may be found here.
Ms. “Dra Sandy”
Bio: Ms. Dra Sandy is the pseudonym for a Mexican-American scholar-activist and member of the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
Dr. Clem Harris
Bio: Dr. Clem Harris is the Inaugural Director of the Africana Studies Program and an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Utica University in Utica, NY. He is finishing a book manuscript for Temple University Press entitled: Reconstructing Philadelphia: The Persistence of Racism and the African American Struggle for Political Power and Civil Rights in the Urban North. Prior to earning his Ph.D., Dr. Harris worked as senior advisor to former New York Governor David A. Paterson. Dr. Harris is also a retired criminal investigator with the New York State Police and a former drill sergeant with the United States Army Reserve.
Dr. Abby Schrader
Bio: Dr. Abby Schrader is Professor of History at Frankin and Marshall College in PA and has been researching and teaching the history of the Russian Empire for close to forty years. She is the author of the book Languages of the Lash: Corporal Punishment and Identity in Imperial Russia (2002) and co-editor of Peopling the Russian Periphery: Borderland Colonization in Eurasian History (2007) and has authored articles on various aspects of imperial Russian cultural history. For the past two decades, she has been teaching a course called “Making Sense of Putin’s Russia.”
Mr. Gerald Loftus
Bio: Mr. Gerald Loftus’ diplomatic career began in 1979 in Barbados as Vice Consul, and ended in Luxembourg in 2002, as Chargé d’Affaires of the American Embassy. Passing through posts in Alexandria, Tunis, Muscat, Algiers, Oran, Mauritius, and London, as well as at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, since his retirement from the US Foreign Service, he has continued in international relations. He has organized conferences in Africa for ACSS, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies of National Defense University in Washington. Between 2010 and 2014, he directed the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies. He is currently based in Brussels, Belgium.
We thank our co-sponsors:
The MA program in Globalization, Faculty of Social Sciences
The Mary Heersink School of Global Health, Faculty of Health Sciences
Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences
