Page of Reason | March 2025
Dispatches from your most humble servant
Page of Reason is the newsletter of the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies (ITPS) at Iona University in New Rochelle, New York. Learn more about the ITPS and our activities at our Research Portal. You can follow us on X @TheITPS, BlueSky @theitps.bsky.social, and Mastodon @ITPS@historians.social.
In this newsletter, you’ll find:
Register for Quaff & Quill | Book talk with Eran Zelnik | April 10 at 6:00pm
Upcoming Paine Scholars Field Trip | March 30
Study abroad in Lewes, England | Deadline extended to April 4
Apply for the C. Dallett Hemphill Summer Internship
Register for Quaff & Quill: Book Talk with Eran Zelnik
Thursday, April 10, 2025
Ryan Library, Iona University
6:00-7:00pm
Free
Register here
Join us in Ryan Library on the Iona University campus for a talk with Professor Eran Zelnik (California State University, Chico) about his new book, American Laughter, American Fury: Humor and the Making of a White Man’s Democracy, 1750-1850, to explore how humor helped to define whiteness and masculinity in early North America.
Light refreshments will be served. Books will be available for sale.
The Quaff & Quill program series is presented by the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies in partnership with the Huguenot & New Rochelle Historical Association.
Upcoming Paine Scholars Field Trip | March 30
Iona students in the first cohort of the Paine Scholars Program will head off campus for a field trip on Sunday, March 30 to the Van Cortlandt House Museum, the oldest standing building in the Bronx. Built in 1748-1749, the house is the centerpiece of a 1,000-acre urban park that was once part of the family’s plantation. Three generations of the Van Cortlandt family enslaved Africans on the property from about 1698 to 1823. During the visit, students will learn more about the history of enslaved labor on the Van Cortlandt’s plantations, as well as the house’s role in the Revolutionary history of the New York City region.
New Study Abroad Program In Lewes, England, Sponsored by the ITPS
Iona students have the opportunity to develop and curate a physical and digital exhibition commemorating the 250th anniversary of the publication of Common Sense while in residence at Bull House, the historic home and business of Thomas Paine in Lewes, England.
Over the course of a three-week program, three Iona students will work on site with Dr. Leanne O’Boyle, director of Bull House and Thomas Paine Legacy, and Dr. Adam Arenson, faculty affiliate of ITPS, producing an exhibit and visitor interpretation materials. The exhibit will open in January of 2026 in conjunction with a joint conference between the ITPS, Bull House and the University of Sussex, “Common Sense at 250: Legacies of Democracy from Paine to Today.”
The nearby University of Sussex will provide housing, social events, gym-access and a weekly excursion to different places in southern England, from London to Brighton. Thanks to the generosity of the Lapidus Initiative for Early American Inquiry at the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies (ITPS), this is a funded opportunity, and students will also receive three course credits (DH 492, “Internship in Public and Digital History”) for their work.
The application deadline has been extended to Friday, April 4. For dates, schedule, costs, and application information, click here.
Apply for the C. Dallett Hemphill Summer Internship
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania will sponsor two undergraduate internships in the summer of 2025, at Historic Trappe and the Dialogue Institute of Temple University. The stipend for each internship is $4,500. These internships are open to undergraduate students enrolled at McNeil Center Consortium institutions and are designed to introduce students to professional work in public history settings. Interns are expected to work 35 hours per week for 8 weeks. Beginning and end dates will be arranged between the partner institution and the intern, but internships should be completed by September 1, 2025. One-half of the stipend will be paid at the beginning of the internship, and the other half will be remitted at its completion.
Please submit applications by April 25, 2025.
Please submit applications and inquiries by email to Peter Olsen-Harbich, Associate Director, McNeil Center at peteroh@sas.upenn.edu.
For more details about partner institutions, position descriptions, and application instructions, see the McNeil Center website here.