Diplomas/Degrees
Diplomas/Degrees
Ph.D., NYU (2006)
B.A., Yale (1992)
Professional Experience
Professional Experience
Prof. LaCombe has taught at Adelphi since 2004 and has taught almost twenty different courses in that time, from The Caribbean to an Honors Seminar in American Cultural History. His course on Food in US History was the first on the subject in the College of Arts and Sciences, and he now teaches four different courses in his core subject, Early America (five, if you count History 215/Tudor-Stuart England).
His service work has also been broad, beginning with his efforts to redesign the History Department's 201/Sophomore Seminar and to design and implement an assessment of that course. He has served on the General Education Committee, the Assessment Committee, the Senate Committee on Academic IT, and the Provost's Committee on Academic Integrity, which he co-chairs as of 2023 in his role as Academic Integrity Officer. He has also served on various task forces, search committees, and ad hoc working groups.
His research at the time he started at Adelphi focused on the subject of his dissertation, published as a book by Penn Press in 2012. After that, he continued the themes of the book into research on knowledge production in early modern travel writing, publishing an article on that subject in 2021. During a sabbatical leave spent in part researching manuscript sources at Hofstra's Long Island Studies Institute, he was introduced to the story of Robert Williams and Sarah (Washburn) Williams of Lusum, a strange place they imagined on the site of what is today Jericho. Lusum has been the focus of his research in recent years.
Personal Statement
Personal Statement
Professor LaCombe was raised in the forest near the little village of Paris (Maine) and has lived in big, bad Bath Beach, Brooklyn, since 2014 in the house his lovely wife grew up in. His oldest daughter has finished college and left home, and his younger daughters are toiling away in middle and elementary school.
Together they like to travel when they can and when they can't to explore New York City, visit museums and the theater, and try new restaurants. At home, Professor LaCombe is an avid cook and reader; he fusses continually with his photographs, of which he takes far too many; he tries to improve his gardening (his fig tree is bountiful; his persimmon, not so much); and he spends all the time that remains fixing a house that never seems to stay fixed.
Recent Courses
Recent Courses
First Year Seminar: Rebels And Indians In Early America
Colonial America 1680-1763
Senior Seminar: American History
Sophomore Seminar Research Skills
Courses Previously Taught
Courses Previously Taught
Early America: 1492-1680
Colonial America: 1680-1763
The American Revolution
Tudor/Stuart England
Native American History: North America
Food in US History
Senior Seminar: American History
History 201: Jamestown 1607-1624
Honors Seminar: American Cultural History
Specialization/Interests
Specialization/Interests
Professor LaCombe teaches courses in early America, the American Revolution, Native American history, food and history, antebellum cultural history, and a research methods seminar on Jamestown's first fifteen years.
Teaching Philosophy
Teaching Philosophy
Professor LaCombe incorporates Reacting to the Past in as many courses as he can. The term refers to a series of role-playing games in which students represent the positions and ideas of historical figures in distinct scenarios in which they must find allies, scheme, and strategize to achieve their goals.
As of 2023, he has included five Reacting games in his courses and hopes to find room for others. They are an especially excellent way to finish a semester.
Books
Books
Michael A. LaCombe (2012). . Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Articles
Articles
“Roundtable: Teaching with Games,” EAS Miscellany, Fall 2022: https://web.sas.upenn.edu/earlyamericanstudies/2022/12/31/roundtable-teaching-with-games-introduction/.
“‘To the end that you may the better perceive these things to be true’: Credibility and Ralph Hamor’s A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia,” Early American Studies vol. 19, number 2 (Spring 2021): 294-321
“Subject or Signifier?: Food and the History of Early North America,” History Compass 11/10 (2013): 859–868, 10.1111/hic3.12086 (www.history-compass.com).
Michael A. LaCombe (2010), "'a continuall and dayly Table for Gentlemen of fashion': Humanism, Food, and Authority at Jamestown, 1607-1609". American Historical Review, 115, 669-687.
Conference Presentations
Conference Presentations
"Staking Claims: Property Formation on Seventeenth-Century Long Island, 1648-1745," invited presentation to the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, April 2023.
“Presentations and Receptions: Food and English Diplomatic Strategies in Early America,” invited talk presented as part of the Material Culture of Indigenous-European Diplomacy Lecture Series, Regensburg University, Germany, June 14, 2021
“‘And for you, sir? Roast venison? Or “sod bread made up round [like] a tennis ball?’”: Serving Out Status in Early English Travel Accounts,” invited presentation at the conference Empowering Appetites: The Political Economy & Culture of Food in the Early Atlantic, Huntington Library, October 12-13, 2019.
“Making Knowledge of Foreign Places: The Conventions of English Travel Writing in the Americas and Elsewhere,” Scientiae 2018, Minneapolis.
“Is a Dining Table a Middle Ground?” presented at the Society of Early Americanists Eighth Biennial Conference, Savannah, Georgia, February 28-March 2, 2013.
“‘Would rather want then borrow, or starve then not pay’: Refiguring English Dependency, 1580-1650,” invited paper presented at the 17th Annual Conference of the Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture, SUNY New Paltz, June 17-19, 2011.
“‘All Sachams do Justis by thayr own men’: Dependency, Theft, and Authority in the English Atlantic World, 1614-1623,” presented at the European Early American Studies Association annual conference in Venice, Italy, December 13, 2008.
“‘by shewing power purchasing authoritie’: Status, Authority, and Exchange in the English Atlantic World,” presented at the British Group for Early American History’s annual conference in Manchester, England, September 13, 2008. Sponsored by the Mellon Fund, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, The United States Embassy, The Institute for the Study of the Americas, and the Department of History, University of Manchester.
“a continuall and dayly Table for Gentlemen of fashion”: George Percy, Captain John Smith, and the Politics of Food at Jamestown, presented at the British Group for Early American History’s annual conference in Swansea, Wales, September 8, 2007. Sponsored by the Mellon Fund, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, The United States Embassy, The Institute for the Study of the Americas, and the Departments of History and of American Studies, University of Wales Swansea.
“Commensality and Competition in Early America: Manners and Status at Anglo-Indian Meals, pre-1640,” presented at the 20th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Food and Society, Victoria, BC, June 1, 2007.
“Translating the Go-between: Pocahontas and Henry Spelman in the Atlantic World,” presented at the 13th Annual Conference of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture commemorating the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, Williamsburg, VA, June 8, 2007.
““by shewing power purchasing authoritie”: The Politics of Food Exchange in the English Atlantic World,” Presentation at the conference “Strange Currencies: Dynamic Economies in the Early Modern World,” CUNY Graduate Center, February 16, 2007.
“Feasting and Foodways as Cultural Mediators: Jamestown, 1607-1624,” Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture Conference, “The Atlantic World and Virginia, 1550-1624,” March 2004.
“English Humanism and the New World in the Sixteenth Century: The Case of Sir Humphrey Gilbert,” New England Historical Association, October 1999.
Invited Presentations
Invited Presentations
"Staking Claims: Property Formation on Seventeenth-Century Long Island, 1648-1745," invited presentation to the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, April 2023.
“Presentations and Receptions: Food and English Diplomatic Strategies in Early America,” invited talk presented as part of the Material Culture of Indigenous-European Diplomacy Lecture Series, Regensburg University, Germany, June 14, 2021
"And for you, sir? Roast venison? Or 'sod bread made up round, like a tennis ball?": Serving Out Status in Early English Travel Accounts," invited presentation at the Huntington Library conference "Empowering Appetites: The Political Economy & Culture of Food in the Early Atlantic," San Marino, CA, October 12-12, 2018.
“Symbolic Communication in the English Atlantic World: Why Early American History Should Take Food Studies Seriously, and Vice Versa,” invited presentation at the Ohio State University Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies symposium “A Trans-Atlantic Perspective on Early-Modern Foodways (15th–18th centuries),” April 8-9, 2016.
"Expert Language: Seventeenth Century Land Deeds in the Sylvester Manor Collection," invited presentation to the Sylvester Manor Working Group, Fales Library, NYU, February 6, 2013.
“‘with all my right of Cominage, Woods, Underwoods, Bit of mouth & Turburd’: Robert Williams of Lusum and the Early Long Island “Deed Game,” precirculated paper presented at the May 12, 2015 meeting of the Columbia Seminar on Early American History.
“Is a Dinner Table a Middle Ground?” invited presentation at the conference “Methods and Approaches to Histories of the Atlantic World: A Conference in Celebration of Karen Ordahl Kupperman,” New York University, Glucksman Ireland House, April 19-20, 2013.
“‘Would rather want then borrow, or starve then not pay’: Refiguring English Dependency, 1580-1650,” invited paper presented at the 17th Annual Conference of the Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture, SUNY New Paltz, June 17-19, 2011.
“‘by shewing power purchasing authoritie’: Status, Authority, and Exchange in the English Atlantic World,” precirculated paper (chapter length) for discussion at the McNeil Center’s conference “The Worlds of Lion Gardiner: c.1599-1663,” SUNY Stony Brook, March 20-21, 2009. Sponsored by The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, The McNeil Center for Early American Studies, The Columbia Faculty Seminar on Early American History, and State University of New York at Stony Brook.
“‘Political Gastronomy’ in Early America: Meals and the Struggle for Authority, 1570-1650,” invited presentation at the NYU Department of Food Studies and Nutrition “Feast and Famine” Colloquium, December 7, 2007.
“Commensality and Contest in the English Atlantic World: Meals and the Struggle for Authority, 1570-1640,” precirculated paper (chapter length) presented at the International Seminar for the Study of the Atlantic World, Harvard University, August 11, 2007. Sponsored by the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History and with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
“‘I Never Had But One Squirrel Roasted’: Provisions, Eating, and Authority in Early Jamestown,” John Carter Brown Library Fellows’ Talk, October 2002.
Professional Activities
Professional Activities
In addition to recent presentations at conferences in the United States, Canada, and overseas, Professor LaCombe is a regular participant in the Columbia University Seminar in Early American History and Culture.
University Service
University Service
University:
University Integrity Officer, Fall 2022-present
Committee on Academic Integrity (co-chair), Fall 2022-present
Anti-Discrimination Panel, Title IX Office, Spring 2022-present
Faculty Advocate, Student Conduct Office, Fall 2021-Fall 2023
Online Quality Task Force, subgroup chair, 2020-2021
General Education Design Team, 2019-2020
Middle States Working Group 3, 2017-2018
Senate Committee on Academic Information Technology, fall 2017-spring 2022
Chair, fall 2020-spring 2022
University General Education Committee, fall 2011-spring 2016
Humanities subcommittee, fall 2010- spring 2016; chair, spring 2013-spring 2022
chair, Global/Civic subcommittee, spring 2013-fall 2015
President’s Advisory Committee on Academic Calendars, fall 2007-fall 2014
University Assessment Committee, fall 2009-fall 2011.
School/Department:
Chair, fall 2016-spring 2018
UPRC Chair, fall 2013-fall 2016.
Departmental All-But-Curriculum Committee, fall 2013-spring 2016.
Departmental Internship Coordinator, fall 2013-spring 2018.
Departmental Curriculum and Assessment Committee, fall 2006-fall 2012; 2016-2018.
Departmental Search Committees:
Medieval/Early Modern Europe, 2011-2012, Chair
Latin America, 2010-2011, Chair: Michael Christofferson
Europe/Department Chair, 2009-2010, Chair: Lou Starkey
Europe, 2008-2009, Chair: Patrick Kelly
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