American Antiquarian Society
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609
United States
In January 2026, the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) will host the Scholars’ Workshop in Early African American Print. This four-day, in-person program will bring together graduate students and early-career scholars focused on African American history and culture before 1900.
Participants will sharpen their skills working with primary sources and develop current writing projects—such as dissertation chapters, book proposals, scholarly articles, or other works in progress. Geared toward researchers who are new to archival work, the workshop offers hands-on experience, professional development, and direct access to AAS’s extensive collections of early African American newspapers, pamphlets, books, and other rare materials.
Tara Bynum, assistant professor of English and African American Studies at University of Iowa, will lead the workshop in collaboration with AAS staff.
More information about the Scholars’ Workshop in Early African American Print and application instructions will be available in August. For questions, contact John J. Garcia, AAS director of scholarly programs and partnerships, at jgarcia [at] mwa.org or 508-471-2134.
Dr. Tara A. Bynum is a scholar of early African American literary histories before 1800 and an assistant professor of English and African American Studies at University of Iowa. Her book, Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America (2023), is part of a larger, ongoing project that thinks more deeply about how black communities in the early republic made and shaped the very meaning of nation-building in the greater New England area and beyond. Related essays have appeared or are forthcoming in: Early American Literature, Common Place, Legacy, J19, Criticism, American Periodicals, and African American Literature in Transition, Vol. 1, 1750-1800. Bynum’s work has been supported by Washington College’s CV Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and the John Carter Brown Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Library Company of Philadelphia’s Program in African American History, Rutgers University’s Department of English, and the University of Pennsylvania’s McNeil Center for Early American Studies. She held a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at AAS in 2016 and was elected to membership in 2022.