The Eisenberg Institute launches its 2025-26 program with a new theme, “Orders and the Unruly,” and a talk on September 11, 2025, by associate professor Kira Thurman (University of Michigan).
“History 'orders' the past into intelligible discourse, but it can do so in many ways," says Dario Gaggio, director of the Eisenberg Institute. "Unquestionably there have been authoritative and authoritarian histories, and few professional historians would question that the current winds are filling the sails of authoritarianism."
As such, "the work of this year’s Eisenberg speakers has a meta quality to it; they make orderly historical sense of a variety of historical actors’ efforts at (dis)ordering their world,” Gaggio notes. "Whether dealing with natural order and practices meant to perfect it, indigenous geohistorical knowledge, gender binaries, or categories of imperial rule, these scholars reveal the plurality, transience, and vulnerability of any and all order(s)."
Click the dates below to link to the event calendar entry to learn more about each event. Additional information will be posted when available. See below for the full "Orders and the Unruly" theme statement.
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Fall 2025 Events
September 11 • 4 pm • Lecture
Pop after Empire: Disco, Decolonization, and the Re-Making of a Music Industry
Kira Thurman (University of Michigan)
September 12 • 12 pm • Symposium
Orders and the Unruly: Engaging Primary Sources
Kathryn Babayan, John Carson, Yanay Israeli, Farina Mir, Dario Gaggio (moderator)
September 25 • 4:45 pm • Lecture
The Nature of Spanish Empire
Mackenzie Cooley (Hamilton College)
September 26 • 12 pm • Workshop
Constructing the Natural
Ira Anjali Anwar, Jenny Flores, Grant Halliday, Wanhan Xing, Henry Cowles (moderator)
October 17 • 12 pm • Symposium
Written in the Stars: A Visit to the Judy & Stanley Frankel Detroit Observatory
Hosted by Gregory Parker (Director, Judy & Stanley Frankel Detroit Observatory)
October 30 • 4 pm • Lecture
Pictures of Home Away from Home: Esther Bubley’s Wartime Family Album
Deborah Dash Moore (University of Michigan)
November 20 • 4 pm • Lecture
Narrating "Before" and "After": Linearity and Sequence in Indigenous History
David Chang (University of Minnesota)
November 21 • 12 pm • Workshop
Global Indigeneity
Addie Block, Gina Hsu, Lopaka O'Connor, Eric Toups (moderator)
Winter 2026 Events
January 29 • 4 pm • Lecture
Gregory E. Dowd (University of Michigan)
January 30 • 12 pm • Symposium
February 12 • 4 pm • Dr. Stephen and Lee Gork Lecture
Michelle Moyd (Michigan State University)
February 13 • 12 pm • Workshop
Political Mobilization, Authority and Collaboration
Amir Marshi, Markus Merin, Sylvan Perlmutter, Maya Sudarkasa, Carina Ray (moderator)
February 26 • 4 pm • Lecture
Howard Chiang (University of California, Santa Barbara)
February 27 • 12 pm • Workshop
Gender Unruliness, Power, and Order
Jess Hasper, Yee Ting Leong, Mel Monier, Kai Ngu, Scott Spector (moderator)
March 12 • 4 pm • Lecture
Paul Silverstein (Reed College)
March 13 • 12 pm • Workshop
Transpolitics of Postcolonial Orders
Vishesh Chander Guru, Shane Niesen, Leela Riesz, Clayton Van Woerkom, Yasmin Moll (moderator)
March 26 • 4 pm • Lecture
Paul Kosmin (Harvard University)
March 27 • 12 pm • Workshop
Identity-Making and the Environment
Richard Bachmann, Stephen Kolison, Katelin Mikos, Ian Moyer (moderator)
April 16 • 4 pm • Lecture
Rebecca J. Scott (University of Michigan)
"Orders and the Unruly" Theme Description
Categorical orders and linear narratives create a past that justifies the authoritarian structures of the present. Whether we are talking about the organization of nature, or the imposition of political power order makes claims to correct knowledge about the past, the present, and the future. But as powerful as this imposition of order can be, it inevitably creates possibilities for unruliness.
This year, to commemorate the Eisenberg Institute’s twentieth anniversary, we will explore our past attempts to impose order on the unruly subject of history while also examining the tensions between the authoritative and the authoritarian in times past and present. What constitutes authority, whether political, cultural, or historical? Can historical and other forms of knowledge be authoritative without being authoritarian and without contributing to authoritarian structures? Does unruliness subvert the authoritarian or help to sustain it?
