The Vann Seminar is a group of faculty and graduate students who meet about six times a year on a Sunday afternoon to discuss a scholarly paper distributed in advance. Papers represent work in progress in early modern European history, with occasional forays into medieval or ancient. The atmosphere is informal and the discussion lively. The seminar has generated a lot of interest throughout the region. Participants come from a number of departments and schools in the Atlanta area, and announcements also go out to a wider regional mailing list.
All interested scholars are welcome.
The seminar's origins lie in a study group created by James Allen Vann when he came to the Emory History Department from the University of Michigan in 1985. After his untimely death in 1986, J. Russell Major obtained funding from the College to continue the seminar in Vann's honor. Now in its fifteen season, the Vann Seminar regularly invites distinguished scholars as well as local colleagues to present papers. The work reflects the best scholarship of the field and frequently draws in explicitly interdisciplinary approaches. In recent years invitees have included Merry Weisner-Hanks, David Sabean, Dena Goodman, Keith Baker, Peter Lake, Edward Muir, Guido Ruggiero, Ronald Witt, Barbara Harris, and Laura Mason.