Evenings with History, “Concepts of Citizenship in Zones of U.S. Control, 1900-1950”

Join us for a lecture by Professor Charles Romney. The United States Supreme Court established a limited set of rights for people living in America’s new overseas empire between 1898 and 1922. Recent cases involving prisoners at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and migrants from Latin America have renewed interest in the debate over rights for non-citizens during that period and after, and has prompted research on alternative ideas of “concepts of citizenship” for people living in zones of U.S. control between 1900 and 1950. Dr. Romney will explain how the arguments from that period frame our current understanding of citizenship, and how alternative claims for the rights of non-citizens in the fifty years after 1900 might inform our renewed discussion of national identity today.