CURRICULUM VITAE PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DATA Joseph A. Conforti EDUCATION: Brown University, 1969-1975 Ph.D., American Civilization, 1975 A.M., American History, 1972 American and New England Studies Program University of Southern Maine P.O. Box 9300 Portland, Maine 04104-9300 207-780-4898 W 207-797-0682 e-mail: conforti@maine.edu Springfield College, 1963-1967 B.S., Cum Laude, History and English, 1967 HONORS AND GRANTS: Neal W. Allen, Jr. History Award, Maine Historical Society, 2012 Constance Carlson Public Humanities Prize, 2010, Maine Humanities Council Distinguished University Professor, 2007- Choice Outstanding Academic book, 2007, for Saints and Strangers Certificate of Merit, Association for the Study of State and Local History, 2006, for Creating Portland University of Southern Maine Trustees Research Fellowship, 2004 Annual Best Book Award, Northeast Popular Culture-American Culture Association, 2002, for Imagining New England National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, 1994-1996, for "Region and the Imagination: New England and the South," a three-year project for teachers in conjunction with the Maine Collaborative and the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, $275,000 (Co-author and co-lead scholar) National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, 1993-94, for "Creating New England:
Page 2 Memory, Nostalgia, and Tradition" a three week summer institute, academic year seminars and a conference for teachers, $140,000 (Co-author and lead scholar) Richard Beale Davis Prize for the Best Essay Published in Early American Literature, 1991, MLA Division of American Literature to 1800 National Endowment for the Humanities Grants, 1988-1989, 1989-1990, for Faculty and Curriculum Development in New England Studies, total $73,616 (Writer and Director) Davis Foundation Grant, 1990, New England Studies Program Development, $15,000 (Writer and Director) National Endowment for the Arts Grant for a Project on Traditional New England Town Design, 1989-1990, (Contributing writer and Project Co-Director), $39,000. USM Faculty Achievement Award, 1988 Rhode Island College Faculty Research Grants, 1984-1987 Rhode Island College Summer Research Grant, 1985 NEH Project for American Studies, Ball State University, August 1979 Runner-up, Honorable Mention Citation, Brewer Manuscript Prize Competition, for Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement, American Society of Church History, 1979 Brown University Nominee, Institute of Early American History and Culture, Post-doctoral Fellowship, 1975 Passed Ph.D Orals with distinction, 1973 Phi Beta Kappa TEACHING AND ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE: Professor of American and New England Studies, University of Southern Maine, 1987- Director and Professor of American and New England Studies, University of Southern Maine, 1987-1997 Associate Professor of English and History, Rhode Island College, 1982-1987 Assistant Professor of English and History, Rhode Island College, 1980-1982 Assistant Professor of History, Rhode Island College, 1978-1980
Page 3 Instructor of History, Rhode Island College, 1976-1978 Teaching Assistant, American Civilization Program, Brown University, 1972-1974 Teacher, Fall River, Mass., Public and Catholic School Systems, 1967-1970, 1970-1971 OTHER EXPERIENCE: Executive Committee, New England Historical Association, 2000-2004 President, New England Historical Association, 2001-2002 Vice-President, New England Historical Association, 2000-2001 NEH Panel Reviewer, Regional Humanities Centers grant competition, Washington, D.C., May 2000 NEH Site Evaluator, Winterthur Museum Fellowship Program, Delaware, Nov. 1999 Book Award Committee, New England Historical Association, 1998, 1994 Visiting Oral Ph.D. Examiner, University of Maine-Orono, 1997 Member, Executive Council, New England American Studies Association, 1992-1994 External Evaluator, History Program, Pine Manor College, 1994 Review Panelist, NEH, Division of Higher Education, Summer Fellowships, 1992 Project Scholar and Consultant, New England Foundation for the Humanities, Program on "Yankees and Strangers: The New England Town, 1630-1990," 1989-1992 External Evaluator, B.A. in History, Plymouth, N.H., State College, 1992 Nominating Committee, New England Historical Association, 1990-1993 (chair, '90-'91) Review Panelist, NEH, Division of State Programs, 1990 Steering Committee, "Maine in the Age of Exploration and Discovery," Maine Humanities Council Project, 1987-88 Visiting Ph.D. orals examiner in American religious history, Brown University, 1982-1983 Member, State of Rhode Island American Studies Team, sponsored by the NEH, 1979-1980
Oral History Researcher, Rhode Island College Ethnic Studies Program, 1976 Consultant, Rhode Island State Historic Preservation Commission, 1976 Joseph A. Conforti Page 4 Associate Editor, Monarch Publishing Company, White Plains, New York, 1975-1976 Publications and Research: Books: Lizzie Borden: Victorian Womanhood and Family Violence on Trial (University Press of Kansas, forthcoming). Another City upon a Hill: A New England Memoir (University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, 2013). Saints and Strangers: New England in British North America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006; reprinted, 2011). Choice Outstanding Academic Book, 2007 Creating Portland: History and Place in Northern New England (University Press of New England, 2005) editor and contributor. Certificate of Merit, ASSLH, 2006 Imagining New England: Explorations of Regional Identity from the Pilgrims to the Mid- Twentieth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2001). [NEPCAC Book Award] Jonathan Edwards, Religious Tradition and American Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 1995). Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement: Calvinism, the Congregational Ministry, and Reform in New England between the Great Awakenings (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1981) [Brewer Prize Runner-up]. A History of East Providence, Rhode Island, 196 pp. (White Plains, N.Y.: Monarch Publishing Co., 1976).
Page 5 Articles/ Essays: New England, in Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History (Oxford University Press, 2012). New England Landscapes and Regional Identity, invited essay to be published in A Landscape History of New England (MIT Press, 2011) pp. 17-34. Connecticut: A Historic Identity-Free Zone, invited essay for special commemorative issue of Connecticut History ( Fall, 2010). The Salem Witchcraft Hysteria, The Encyclopedia of American Disasters and Catastrophes (New York: Facts on File, 2007). Celebrations of New England s Past, Encyclopedia of New England Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press 2005), pp. 745-46 New England Theology from Edwards to Bushnell, Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History, (New York: Scribner s, 2001), pp. 208-14. "Samuel Hopkins," Makers of Christian Theology in America, edited by James D. Duke and Mark G. Toulouse (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1997), pp. 73-78. Edwards A. Park and the Creation of the New England Theology, 1840-1870, in Stephen Stein, ed. Jonathan Edwards s Writings: Text, Context and Interpretation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), pp. 193-207. The New England Religious Heritage: Some Aspects of Tradition, Horizons (Bangor Theological Seminary), (Fall 1995), pp. 27-47. "Jonathan Edwards and American Culture," Bulletin of the General Theological Library of Bangor Seminary (Spring 1993), pp. 3-12. "Mary Lyon, the Founding of Mount Holyoke College and the Cultural Revival of Jonathan Edwards," Religion and American Culture (Winter 1993), pp. 205-225. "The Invention of the Great Awakening, 1795-1842," Early American Literature (Fall, 1991), pp. 99-119. [Davis Prize, MLA] "Jonathan Edwards and American Studies," review essay American Quarterly (March 1989), pp. 165-171. "Unitarians, Edwardsians, and the Memory of the Great Awakening," in Conrad Wright, ed., American Unitarianism, 1800-1860 (Northeastern University Press, 1989), pp. 31-50. "Ice and Granite: The New England Character," Maine Historical Society Quarterly (October
Page 6 1988), pp. 92-108. "Antebellum Evangelicals and the Cultural Revival of Jonathan Edwards," Journal of Presbyterian History (Winter 1987), pp. 227-241. "Irving Fain and the Fair Housing Movement in Rhode Island, 1958-1970," Rhode Island History (February 1986), pp. 21-35. "David Brainerd and the Nineteenth-Century Missionary Movement," Journal of the Early Republic (Fall 1985), pp. 309-329. "Jonathan Edwards's Most Popular Work: 'The Life of David Brainerd' and Nineteenth- Century Evangelical Culture," Church History (June 1985), pp. 188-201. "Joseph Bellamy and the New Divinity Movement," New England Historical and Genealogical Register (April 1983), pp. 126-138. "The Rise of the New Divinity in Western New England, 1740-1800," Historical Journal of Massachusetts (Winter 1980), pp. 37-47. "Samuel Hopkins and the Revolutionary Antislavery Movement," Rhode Island History (May 1979), pp. 38-49. "Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity: Theology, Ethics, and Social Reform in Mid- Eighteenth-Century New England," William and Mary Quarterly (October 1977), pp. 572-589. "Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity...," reprinted in Peter C. Hoffer, ed., Collected Essays on Early America (New York: Garland, 1987); also in William J. Scheick, ed., Jonathan Edwards: Critical Essays (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980), pp. 37-47. CONTRIBUTIONS TO REFERENCE WORKS: 11 Biographical and critical essays in: American National Biography. John Garraty, General Editor. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). The Blackwell Dictionary of Evangelical Biography: 1730-1860. Donald Lewis, Editor. (London: Basil Blackwell, 1991). Dictionary of Christianity in America. Harry Stout, et al., Editors. (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1991). American Writers before 1800: A Biographical and Critical Reference Guide, 3 vols. James Levernier and Douglas Wilmes, Editors. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1983).
Page 7 REVIEWS: Approximately 30 reviews in American Quarterly, Church History, Early American Literature, Journal of American History, New England Quarterly, Religious Studies Review, William and Mary Quarterly, and others. PAPERS AND PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATIONS: Plenary Session Panelist on Plymouth, New England American Studies Association, Fall 2011, Plymouth, Mass. Re-thinking Regional Identity, invited presentation Central Connecticut State University, April, 2005 Chair and Commentator, Moving in and Out of New England: Ethnicity, Mobility, and Regional Identity, Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Seattle, January. 2005 Comment, Puritans and Others in Colonial New England, panel session New England Historical Association, Rhode Island College (October 2002). Creating New England, panel session, American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, October 1999. Imagining New England: Regional Identity and the New Regional Studies, invited paper by NEH for panel on Regionalism in American History at the American Historical Association Meeting, Washington, D.C., 1999 Chair, Doctrine and beyond in the Nineteenth-Century Evangelical Periodical, panel session, American Society of Church History, Washington D.C., January 1999. Chair and Commentator, New Perspectives on Revivalism, Institute of Early American History and Culture Annual Conference, Worcester, Mass., June, 1998. Reinventing Jonathan Edwards in the 19th Century: Puritan Tradition and the Colonial Revival, invited presentation, joint meeting Pew Foundation Funded Conference on Jonathan Edwards and Philadelphia Center for Early American Studies, American Philosophical Society, October 1996. Andover Seminary, New England Theology, and Edwardsian Tradition, Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Chicago, 1996. The Invention of New England: Cultural Politics and Regional Identity, 1790-1850, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, May 1995.
Page 8 The New England Religious Heritage: Aspects of Tradition, The Church in New England Conference, Bangor Theological Seminary, Hanover, N.H., April 1995. "Images and Artifacts: Jonathan Edwards and American Culture, 1870-1903," post banquet address, Conference on the Writings of Jonathan Edwards: Text and Context, Text and Interpretation," Indiana University, June 1994 "Edwards A. Park and the Creation of the New England Theology, 1840-1880," Edwards Conference, Indiana University, June 1994 "Bringing Content to the Classroom: The Historian as Teacher," panel session on Historians and Educational Reform, New England Historical Association, Spring Meeting, Bentley College, April 1994 "Images, Artifacts and Narratives: Jonathan Edwards and Puritan Tradition in the Colonial Revival," University of New Hampshire, April 1994 "The Creation of Christmas in New England," an historical piece on the emergence of the celebration of Christmas that appeared in newspapers throughout Maine and New England. Comment, "American Missionaries and Their Encounter with Other People," panel session Academy of American Religion Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., November 1993 "Regional Studies and the Humanities," panel, Federated State Humanities Council Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., October 1993 Comment, "Vacationing and Social Class on Maine's Gold Coast, 1880-1920," panel session, New England Historical Association Spring Meeting, 1993, University of Southern Maine "Jonathan Edwards and American Culture," Bangor Theological Seminary, Portland, March 1993 "New England Town Centers: From Historic Reality to Symbolic Landscape," University of New England, January 1992 "The Invention of the Great Awakening, 1795-1842," New England Historical Association, Spring Meeting, April 1991, American Antiquarian Society "Images of the New England Town, 1630-1991," typescript prepared for scholars participating in the New England Foundation for the Humanities reading and discussion project on the New England Town, 1991 "The Second Great Awakening and the Problem of Tradition," Society for Historians of the Early Republic, Annual Meeting, August 1990, York University, Ontario, Canada
Page 9 Comment, Graduate Student Panel Session, New England Historical Association Meeting Lowell Heritage Park, April 1989 "Training Tomorrow's Historians: An Interdisciplinary Approach," Bowdoin College, November 1988 "Ethnicity and New England's Distinctiveness in the Twentieth Century," Bates College, March 1988 "'Ice and Granite', The New England Character," Eleanor Pickering Sprague Lecture, Maine Historical Society, November 1987 "Edwardsians, Unitarians, and the Social Memory of the First Great Awakening," invited paper presented at the conference on Unitarianism, 1800-1860, sponsored by the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, May 15-16, 1987 "Antebellum Evangelicals and the Cultural Revival of Jonathan Edwards," Rhode Island College, November 1985 Chair, Early American Literature Session, Northeast Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Fall Meeting, Providence, November 1984 "Jonathan Edwards's Most Popular Work: 'The Life of David Brainerd' and Nineteenth- Century Evangelical Culture," Fall Meeting, New England Historical Association, Framingham State College, October 1984 "The New Divinity and the Edwardsian Evangelical Tradition," Annual Meeting, Organization of American Historians, Cincinnati, April 1983 "Teaching American Studies in the Secondary Schools," (with Melinda Ryan), National Education Society of Rhode Island Teachers Institute, October 1980 "Roger Williams and the Bloody Tenent of Persecution," Lectures sponsored by the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities, August 1980 "Two Aspects of New England Regionalism: The Sea and the Landscape," Rhode Island College History Colloquium, moderator and discussant with Benjamin Labaree of Williams College and Cecelia Tichi of Boston University, April 1979 OTHER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES: Reader: American Quarterly Church History Journal of American History Religion and American Culture
Page 10 The Historian Maine Historical Society Quarterly William and Mary Quarterly Johns Hopkins University Press Oxford University Press Religion in America series University of Massachusetts Press University of North Carolina Press Member: Organization of American Historians New England Historical Association Maine Historical Society Advisory Board: New England Studies Series, University Press of New England, 1997-2000 Retrospection: The New England Graduate Review in American History and American Studies, 1990-95 Editorial Board: Religion and American Culture, 1998-2005 Maine Historical Society Quarterly, 1992-present UNIVERSITY AND DEPARTMENTAL SERVICE: At the University of Southern Maine: African-American Archive Advisory Committee, 1995-1997, 2004-2008 Honorary Degrees and Awards Committee, 1999-2005 Graduate Council, 1988-1991, 1994-1997 EEO Advisory Committee, 1991-1992 Advisory Committee, L.M.C. Smith Cartography Collection, 1987-1994 American and New England Studies Admissions Committee, chair, 1988-1997 American and New England Studies Curriculum Committee, chair, 1988-1997 American and New England Studies Personnel Committee, chair, 1988-1997 Advisory Committee for the Lewiston-Auburn Campus of USM, 1987-1989 Convocation Committee, 1987-1988 Advisory Committee on USM s Wolfe Neck Farm, 1987-1989 At Rhode Island College: 1978-1987 All major college committees dealing with academic policies, curriculum, distinguished teacher awards, faculty research, governance, the library, etc. All major departmental committees dealing with curriculum, evaluation, hiring, honors, personnel, etc.
Page 11 COMMUNITY SERVICE (selected): Ongoing: Numerous lectures to Maine professional groups, historical associations, educators and religious and civic organizations on topics relating to New England history and culture. Maine Humanities Council 1987-present Co-leader of Program on Philanthrophy and Civic Tradition, a Maine effort that was then expanded to New England, and is now being piloted nationally, 1997 Project scholar or Evaluator, various programs, 1987-present Keynote speaker, Conference on Moby Dick, Bowdoin College, March 2000. Steering Committee, Maine in the Age of Exploration and Discovery 1987-88 Member, Board of Trustees, Spirits Alive, organization working to preserve and interpret the history of Eastern Cemetery, Portland s oldest cemetery Member, Education Committee, Maine Historical Society, 1998-2000 Member, Maine Council, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, 1994-97 Member, Academic Advisory Board, Washburn Humanities Center, Norlands Living History Museum, 1993-98 Member, Academic Board, The Maine Collaborative, 1994-97 Member, Board of Trustees, Greater Portland Landmarks Preservation Organization, 1993-1996 Member Board of Trustees, General Theological Center of Maine, 1988-1991; Chair of Program Committee, 1989-1991 Member, Advisory Committee, Bangor Theological Seminary, Portland Campus, 1991-1994 Board Member, New England Foundation for the Humanities, 1989-92 Board Member, Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities, 1986-87 Judge, History Day, R.I. (1983-87), Maine (1991-92) c:\anes Files\facultyfiles\conforti\joecv 5/24/12