Call for Coffee Chats and Seminars!

May 10, 2022October 17, 2026 Equine HistoryLeave a comment

The EHC is starting to plan another year of exciting equine-themed events, and you can help us by proposing Coffee Chats and Seminars!

EHC Coffee Chats

The virtual “coffee chat” series allows the EHC to share research and build connections. Organized as panels, roundtables, or conversations, the guest co-hosts organize the speakers for the event. The event is open to the public virtually, and recordings (with permission of speakers) are available online. The EHC started this series in response to the pandemic, and we have been incredibly pleased with the resulting rich discussions and strengthening of the community! The EHC is now reaching out to you to give you the opportunity to propose coffee chat ideas, volunteer as a speaker on a topic in equine history (broadly conceived!) that interests you, or volunteer as a host (co-host) to organize a conversation with multiple speakers. Use this form to submit your proposal! Though all our events so far have been in English, we welcome ideas for presentations in other languages.

We welcome proposals for Coffee Chats all year round.

Sometimes we even drink coffee on horseback. EHC VP Carolyn Willekes enjoying a quick cup of coffee following an early morning exercise session with Galahad.

EHC Seminars

EHC Seminars, composed of 8-14 researchers, propose to explore a subject of shared concern related to equine history, theory, and methods. Seminar leaders will guide their group of discussants in developing an end product, such as an article, a list of resources, an exhibit, or a new collaborative project. Each group will present its progress at the annual EHC conference in the spring.

Further information about the EHC Seminars can be found here

Send your proposal to admin@equinehistory.org by July 15, 2022!

We are looking forward to seeing your ideas!

EHC Coffee Chat: The Importance of Archival Collections

March 8, 2022October 17, 2026 Equine HistoryLeave a comment

Amanda Kay Gustin and Teresa Rogers will talk about the importance of archival collections.

Amanda talk will focus on the discovery and placement of records relating to equine history with research institutions – how to determine what belongs in a public collection, how to find the appropriate repository, and how to work with the staff of a research institution that might not specialize in equine history. Teresa will speak to her own experience of using what she calls ”archives witout walls” to find things that inform her equine history research and will show some examples.

Amanda Kay Gustin is the Director of Collections and Access at the Vermont Historical Society, where she works on statewide projects that examine and share Vermont’s history, including public programs, research projects, and exhibits, and supervises the work of the research library and museum collections. She holds degrees in history and museum studies from Middlebury College and Tufts University, and has held leadership positions with the American Association of State and Local History and the New England Museum Association.

Relevant to the Equine History Collective, she is also a lifelong horse person, a recovering eventer currently learning dressage with her BLM mustang. Her personal research focus of the moment is Morgan horse history, particularly the first Morgan horse, situating the myths and legends that have gathered around this extraordinary horse in the early American republic strategy of rhetorical nation-building.

Independent equine history researcher Teresa Rogers is a writer and editor who blogs about the history of horses, equine art, and horse figurines in twentieth century America. She has edited several horse books and magazine articles; her own writing has been featured in Arabian Horse Life magazine. Based in Southern California, Teresa also works with local historians, nonprofit groups, and faith-based organizations as an editor, strategic planning consultant, and grant writer. An award-winning broadcast journalist who worked in public media for many years, Teresa holds a BS degree in Broadcasting from Arizona State University.

Time: 18.00 Central European Time

Location: Zoom

Speakers: Amanda Kay Gustin and Teresa Rogers

EHC Coffee Chat Video: Native Horse Cultures & Healing Our Histories

November 26, 2021October 17, 2026 Equine HistoryLeave a comment

Last week the EHC sponsored this season’s second coffee chat, an informal conversation on “Native Horse Cultures & Healing Our Histories.” Thank you to all of the discussants (Jessica White Plume, Jimmy Hallum, Volney Fasthorse, Mariah Antell, Alyssa Star, and Roisin Seifert) for sharing their stories and experiences, and to the co-hosts, Elena Creef and Esther Liu, for organizing such a fascinating event!

The recording is now available on the EHC’s Archive.org page, accessible by clicking this link.

Stay tuned for news about future EHC events!

EHC Coffee Chat: Native Horse Cultures & Healing our Histories

November 8, 2021October 17, 2026 Equine History2 Comments

Continuing the caffeinated conversation begun in EHC’s Indigenous Equine Histories coffee chat a year ago, we will hear from a group of practitioners and researchers in the field what experiences and aspirations drive their participation in healing our histories through Native horse cultures. Join Jessica White Plume (Oglala Lakota), Jimmy Hallum (Santee), Volney Fasthorse (Standing Rock Sioux), Roisin Seifert, Elena Creef, and Esther Liu for this informal dialogue on contemporary equine cultural practices with a view to specific Native histories and futurities.

Co-hosts: Elena Creef (Wellesley College) and Esther Liu (University of Minnesota)

Date: Monday, Nov. 15, 2021

Time: 7pm Central European Time (UTC + 1)/1pm Eastern Standard Time (EST)/10am Pacific Standard Time (PST)

How to join: To receive the event’s Zoom link, register at the Eventbrite page by clicking here.

You can view last year’s conversation on our Archive.org page by clicking here.

EHC Coffee Chat Video: Stable Design and Horse Care in Renaissance and Modern Europe

October 22, 2021October 17, 2026 Equine HistoryLeave a comment

The Equine History Collective kicked off its 2021/2022 Coffee Chat series on October 9 with a pair of wonderful presentations on the stabling of horses in Renaissance and modern Europe. Thank you to both of our speakers – Sarah Duncan and Alexandra Lotz – for sharing their knowledge with us, and to the audience for their thoughtful questions which created a lively and fruitful discussion.

A video of the event is now available, and can be accessed through this link.

Stayed tuned for news of future EHC Coffee Chat events!

The Equine History Collective (EquineHistory.org) promotes the horse as a lens for trans-regional history, and serves as an interface for related historical research in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. If you would like to support our efforts to bring you engaging conversations about equine history, please consider making a donation following this link. To learn more about membership and to become a member, click here.

EHC Coffee Chat: Stable Design and Horse Care in Renaissance and Modern Europe

September 29, 2021October 17, 2026 Equine HistoryLeave a comment

Join the Equine History Collective for a discussion of the stabling and care of horses in Renaissance and modern Europe.

For access to the event’s Zoom link, please register in advance through eventbrite by clicking here

Saturday, Oct. 9: 10-11:30am Pacific DaylightTime/12:00-1:30pm Eastern Daylight Time/6:00-7:30pm British Summer Time (UTC +1)/7:00-8:30pm Central European Summer Time (UTC +2)

One of the Gonzaga’s favorite steeds. Life-size fresco in the Chamber of the Horses (16th century) inside Palazzo Te, Mantua, Lombardy, Italy.

About this event

Topics to be explored include the architecture and care of horses at court stables, and how their design and surrounding landscape shifted with modern needs. Bring your questions and curiosity!

Guest Presenters:

Sarah Duncan has a BA from the Open University, an MA in Renaissance Studies and in 2013 completed a doctorate on Italian court stables at London University. In November 2020 she published her book Privileged Horses: The Italian Renaissance Court Stable (Stephen Morris 2020). She grew up in the English countryside, having her own pony from the age of 5 and has been interested in horses ever since. She has lived in Scotland, where she had an interior design business; and in Belgium and the Sultanate of Oman, where her husband was a diplomat. She now lives in London with her husband and their wire-haired dachshund.

Alexandra Lotz has studied Interior Architecture, Architectural Conservation and World Heritage Management at Wiesbaden, Cottbus, Virginia and Melbourne. She is an active horse-woman and has been working for the German state studs Marbach and Neustadt (Dosse). As manager of the European State Studs Association she set up a network of European State Studs. Currently, she works at the State Office for Monuments and Archaeology Saxony. With her agency “Horses & Heritage” she focuses on equestrian heritage and especially on European stud culture. She has published widely about the subject and enjoys sharing her experience at international conferences and on tours she is organising for lovers of horses and heritage. For more information see www.horses‐and‐heritage.net.

The event will be moderated by Carolyn Willekes, Assistant Professor at Mount Royal University and author of The Horse in the Ancient World: From Bucephalus to the Hippodrome(I.B. Tauris 2016).

Registration is free. After registering, you will have access to the Zoom link for the event. Register by clicking here

EHC Coffee Chat: Wild Horses and Ritual in Spain with Dr. John Hartigan

May 1, 2021October 17, 2026 Equine HistoryLeave a comment

Date And Time

Fri, May 14, 2021

Noon – 1:30pm EDT/9:00 AM – 10:30 AM PDT

A conversation with John Hartigan about his new book, a multi-species ethnographic study of a wild horse population in Spain.

About this Event

Join us for a conversation with the author of Shaving the Beasts: Wild Horses and Ritual in Spain (University of Minnesota Press, 2020):

Each summer in Galicia, Spain, a 500-year old ritual unfolds in which free-roaming horses are herded up and their manes and tails are systematically shaved. Initially, their band structure and social forms of interaction collapse during this traumatic 4-day event, only to emerge newly reconfigured by its end. John Hartigan’s account of this transformation combines ethological techniques with an ethnographic perspective in an overarching analysis of how horse sociality responds to this ritual form of population management. Hartigan uses Erving Goffman’s concepts of “face” and “civil inattention” to analyze their social performances and inverts Clifford Geertz’s analysis in the Balinese cockfight by regarding the horses as ethnographic subjects.

John Hartigan Jr. is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Director of the Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies at the University of Texas, Austin. His previous books include Aesop’s Anthropology: A Multispecies Approach (Minnesota 2014), which examines how model organisms circuit through labs and everyday life, and Care of the Species: Races of Corn and the Science of Plant Biodiversity, featuring maize genomics research in Mexico and botanists’ field surveys in Spain.

The virtual “coffee chat” series allows the Equine History Collective to build connections over common interests — sharing ideas and passions with a spirit of generosity and enthusiasm. Please save the date and look for more to come soon!

EHC Coffee Chat: The Archaeology of Early Equestrianism

April 6, 2021October 17, 2026 Equine HistoryLeave a comment

Join us for a discussion about how archaeologists study horse use, riding, and chariotry!

About this Event

Join us for an informal conversation between Dr. Igor Chechushkov and Dr. Kate Kanne to explore how archaeologists study horses from the past. With exciting new finds from their research, the speakers will review current knowledge about early equestrianism across Eurasia in the 2nd millennium BC, and reveal how evidence of equestrianism is discovered through traces left on ancient horse teeth and bones, bits, and experimental archaeology. There will also be time for pre-submitted questions from attendees. We hope you’ll be able to join us!

Date and time:
Tuesday, April 13
Noon–1:30pm EDT/9:00am–10:30am PDT
To access the event, please register in advance at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-archaeology-of-early-equestrianism-tickets-149388760805. Registration is free.

Guest Co-Hosts:

Igor V. Chechushkov, PhD, is a Senior Researcher at the Eurasian Studies Research and Education Centre of South Ural State University in Russia. He is anthropological archeologist, studying Bronze Age Eurasia with research focused on understanding the role that the use of horses played in shaping early complex societies across the Eurasian Steppes from the Don River to Mongolia. Applied research methods vary from classic archaeological methods as artifact typology and seriation to archeozoology and experimental archeology, with recent publications in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology and the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Katherine S. Kanne, PhD, is a Lecturer and Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern University. An anthropological archaeologist, she is engaged in investigating the origins and spread of equestrianism in the European Bronze Age, the development of mounted warfare, and their effects on the long-term trajectory of sociopolitical and anthropogenic change. Her methods integrate the bioarchaeology of people and horses with stable isotope analysis, the study of ancient bits, and the spatial analysis of human-horse interactions. She has forthcoming articles in Current Anthropology and in the edited volume, Historical Practices in Horsemanship and Equestrian Sports. She serves as an assistant editor for Cheiron: The International Journal of Equine and Equestrian History.

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The virtual “coffee chat” series allows the EHC group to build connections over common interests — sharing ideas and passions with a spirit of generosity and enthusiasm. Please save the date and look for more to come soon.

EHC Coffee Chat: Human-Equine Interactions in Brazil from Past to Present

March 9, 2021October 17, 2026 Equine HistoryLeave a comment

Join the EHC to discuss human-equine interactions in Brazil in an informal conversation between Dr. Miriam Adelman and Dr. Ana Lucia Camphora that will explore intercultural exchanges from the past to the present. We hope you’ll be able to join us!

Friday, March 12, 2021
1:00 PM – 2:30 PM EST/10:00 AM – 11:30 AM PST
Event is scheduled for 15:00pm Brazil Standard Time (GMT-3:00).

You must register in advance to attend and receive the Zoom link. Registration is free. To register, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ehc-coffee-chat-human-equine-interactions-in-brazil-from-past-to-present-tickets-144064981237?keep_tld=1.

Guest Co-Hosts:

Dr. Miriam Adelman teaches in two graduate programs – Sociology, and Literary Studies – at the Universidade Federal do Paraná, in Curitiba, Brazil. She has been researching Brazilian equestrian cultures for over two decades.

Dr. Ana Lucia Camphora is an independent scholar of inter-species studies in environment, law, and medicine.

A new EHC Digital Event! “Chronicle of African Americans in the Horse Industry” August 13, 12pm EDT

August 4, 2020October 17, 2026 Equine HistoryLeave a comment

You are invited by the Equine History Collective to hear from the creators of the Chronicle of African Americans in the Horse Industry!

*Civil War soldier, ca. 1860, Rick Carlile Collection*

Join the International Museum of the Horse for a panel discussion with contributors to the Chronicle of African Americans in the Horse Industry, a brand new website soon to be launched that archives and displays photos, documents, artifacts, and oral histories of African Americans who have worked, and continue to work in equine industries.

Panelists include: Yvonne Giles, community historian; Jeremy Reese and Rev. Leslie Whitlock, horsemen and youth program leaders; Michael Phelps, graduate student intern and high school teacher. Moderator is Karen Lanier, Digital Project Manager.

Hear each of their perspectives as a team member and content contributor for the website. They have discovered the buried past in cemeteries, shared personal stories, written people profiles, and recorded stories for posterity. Together, they represent a diverse team of collaborators bringing the pieces of the past and present together for greater understanding of the important role African Americans have always held in equine history. Learn how you can get involved too!

This event will be held over Zoom. For access to the Zoom link, please register below. Registration is free.

Some further reading:

An interview with Katherine Mooney about her book “Race Horse Men: How Slavery and Freedom were made at the Racetrack“

An interview with Pellom McDaniels about his book “The Prince Of Jockeys: The Life Of Isaac Burns Murphy” the hall of fame jockey.

Jessica Dallow’s article “Narratives of Race and Racehorses in the Art of Edward Troye” in Equestrian Cultures (2019)

Richard Singleton with “Viley’s Harry, Charles and Lew”, 1834, Edward Troye (American, 1808–1874), oil on canvas. Paul Mellon Collection, 85.645

If you are enjoying these digital events, please consider donating to the Equine History Collective or buying a Horse T-Shirt!