History Lab Bulletin 4 March 2012
Dear all,
See below for projects and events that may be of interest to History Lab members.
In this issue:
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Next in History Lab
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Workshop
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Conferences
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Events
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Studentship
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Essay prize
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Visiting scholarship
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Next in History Lab:
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Meet the historian: Mary Beard, Tuesday 6 March, 18:00 – 20:00, Gordon Room (Room G34), South Block, Senate House
'Meet the Historian’ events are an opportunity to hear at first hand from noted historians how and why they became historians in the first place, their thoughts on research and the discipline generally, and about their latest work. There will be the chance to ask questions and enter into discussion, and to join the speaker for drinks after the talk.
Mary Beard is one of Britain’s best-known classicists, a distinguished Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge where she has taught for the last 27 years. She has written numerous books on the Ancient World, including the 2008 Wolfson Prize-winner, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town which portrays a vivid account of life in Pompeii in all its aspects from food to sex to politics. Previous books include The Roman Triumph, Classical Art from Greece to Rome and books on the Parthenon and the Colosseum as part of a series on wonders of the world. Her interests range from the social and cultural life of Ancient Greece and Rome to the Victorian understanding of antiquity. In addition Mary is Classics editor of the Time Literary Supplement and writes an engaging, often provocative, blog, A Don’s Life, a selection of which has been published in book form. Mary’s academic achievement was acknowledged, in 2010, by the British Academy which elected her as a Fellow and in October 2011 Mary was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a Foreign Honorary Member.
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Seminar: R. Matthew Poteat (Birkbeck), 'Mission Impossible: Confederate Governors in the American Civil War, 1861-1865. A Study in Leadership', Thursday 15 March, 17:30 – 19:30, Holden Room (Room 103), Senate House
This paper will address leadership. Specifically, it will address the leadership difficulties faced by governors of the individual southern states during the American Civil War (1861-1865). As heads of their respective state governments, Confederate governors were the public face of the war at home and, in some instances, abroad. They were the leaders who carried out the directives of the Confederate government, provided for their state’s defence, and mobilised and supplied soldiers for southern armies. These leaders were responsible for maintaining the Confederate war effort in their states, ensuring the public safety (including the suppression of slave unrest), and, as the war progressed, providing relief to their people. However, as this paper will show, these leaders were unable to lead their people effectively because of Confederate battlefield failures and, more indirectly, their support for the institution of slavery.
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Workshop
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Postgraduate Funding: Considering the Alternatives Workshop, Monday 16th April 2012 - 6pm to 9pm, Room 151, Main Birkbeck Building, Malet Street.
'Need extra funding? For fees, living expenses, research, travel, conferences, or 4th year PhD study?If the answer is ‘Yes’ to any of these, then consider this workshop. It explores the thousands of alternative grant-making bodies in Britain: principally charities, trusts, and foundations. By the end of the course, participants will be able to: identify the appropriate and best alternative funding bodies for them, find them via books and the internet, and apply strongly and correctly.
The course leader, Luke Blaxill, won 45 separate awards from charities and trusts throughout his PhD. Spaces are limited to 30 on this workshop, to register for a place, please complete the short form:
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Conferences
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Darwin and Human Nature, Thursday 19 April - Friday 20 April 2012
at CRASSH, Alison Richard Building,
7 West Road, Cambridge
A series of intersecting boundaries have defined the human from the mid-19th century to the present: human/animal, civilized/savage, woman/man, mind/machine, and nature/culture. This conference will examine how different disciplines have constructed and contested these boundaries, and will reflect on the legacy of Darwinian frameworks of the 'human' today.
Speakers include: Gillian Beer, Carolyn Burdett, Tim Crane, Sophie Defrance, John Dupré, David Feller, Phillipa Levine, Tim Lewens, Francis Neary, Sadiah Qureshi, Angelique Richardson, James Secord, Roger Smith, Kathryn Tabb, Paul White, Catherine Wilson and Elizabeth Wilson.
The conference is convened by Paul White (Darwin Correspondence Project/History and Philosophy of Science), Sophie Defrance (Darwin Correspondence Project) and James Secord (History and Philosophy of Science) with the support of CRASSH, the Arts & Humanities Research Council, the National Science Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.
For full details of the programme and speakers, please click here: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1710/. Online registration will open closer to the event; if you would like to be informed when it opens, please email rhr32@cam.ac.uk.
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Ancients and Moderns, 81st Anglo-American Conference of Historian, 5-6 July 2012, Senate House
Registrations are now open for this year’s Anglo-American Conference of Historians, this year on the theme of Ancients and Moderns.
With the Olympics upon us in the UK it seems an appropriate moment to think more broadly about the ways in which the classical world resonates in our own times, and how successive epochs of modernity since the Renaissance have situated themselves in relation to the various ancient civilisations. From political theory to aesthetics, across the arts of war and of peace, to concepts of education, family, gender, race and slavery, it is hard to think of a facet of the last millennium which has not been informed by the ancient past and through a range of media, including museums, painting, poetry, film and the built environment.
The Institute’s 81st Anglo-American conference seeks to represent the full extent of work on classical receptions, welcoming not only those scholars who work on Roman, Greek and Judaeo-Christian legacies and influences, but also historians of the ancient kingdoms and empires of Asia and pre-Colombian America. Our plenary lecturers include: Paul Cartledge (Cambridge), Constanze Güthenke (Princeton), Mark Lewis (Stanford), Sanjay Subrahmanyam (UCLA) and David Womersley (Oxford).
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Psychoanalysis in the Age of Totalitarianism, 21 - 22 September 2012, Wellcome Collection Conference Centre, 183 Euston Road, London. From 1pm Friday and all day Saturday.
This two-day conference, supported by the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism (Birkbeck, University of London), Birkbeck College, University of London, and the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies of the University of Essex, will bring together historians, social theorists and psychoanalysts to explore the impact of the Second World War and totalitarianism on psychoanalysis, and of psychoanalysis on the understanding of the war and totalitarian systems.
Topics include:
the role of psychoanalysis in the war effort, military intelligence and in postwar reconstruction, the crisis of psychoanalysis in Central Europe, the work of Hannah Arendt and other theorists of totalitarianism, cultural anthropology, fascism and the Cold War, visions of the child and the creation of the War Nurseries, the psychoanalytic sociology of the Frankfurt School, war and the origins of group therapy, neo-Freudianism, the psychoanalytic theorization of anti-Semitism, mourning, memory and trans-generational trauma, Winnicott and the social democratic vision.
Presentations will be 20-minutes arranged in panels, followed by discussion, all in a plenary format. Confirmed speakers include:
Sally Alexander (Goldsmith's College)
David Armstrong (Tavistock Consultancy Service)
David Bell (British Psychoanalytical Society)
Ronald Britton (British Psychoanalytical Society)
José Brunner (Tel Aviv University)
Matt Ffytche (Essex)
John Forrester (Cambridge University)
Stephen Frosh (Birkbeck College)
Peter Mandler (Cambridge University)
Knuth Müller (Free University, Berlin)
Daniel Pick (Birkbeck and BPAS)
Michael Roper (Essex)
Michael Rustin (Tavistock/UEL)
Michal Shapira (New York University)
Lyndsey Stonebridge (University of East Anglia)
Eli Zaretsky (New School for Social Research, New York).
Discounted advance ticket prices (up until 1 May): £80 / £55 (students and unwaged). Full cost ticket prices (after 1 May): £95 / £65 (students and unwaged)
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Events
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Exhibiting research VI, Museums without Walls: Showing Art in a Digital Age
Wednesday, 7 March 2012, 18.00 - 19.30, Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre
Visit a museum online, search a collection, or join a digital art market. Everything is possible on the internet. But what implications does the virtual presence of art images and collections have for the future of the ‘real’ museum experience? How do museums meet the public’s need for online content? How have digital platforms affected the role of the art curator?
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An insight into the library of Sir Louis Sterling, Tuesday 20 March 2012, 6-7pm, Senate House Library, Dr Seng Tee Lee Centre
The record magnate and philanthropist Sir Louis Sterling (1879-1958) was an avid collector of first and fine editions of English literature. In 1956 Sterling donated his collection, one of the finest privately owned libraries of its kind, to the University of London, where it now forms part of the special collections of Senate House Library.
This session, comprising an informal illustrated talk and the chance to see rare printed and manuscript material, offers an insight into Sterling the collector and the rare and beautiful books he acquired.
If you would like to attend this event please contact:
Jonathan Harrison, Rare Books Librarian, Senate House Library, Senate House, Malet Steet, London WC1E 7HU; tel: 020 7862 8477; email: jonathan.harrison@london.ac.uk
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Studentship
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Essay prize
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The German History Society, in cooperation with the Royal Historical
Society, is pleased to announce its annual Essay Prize competition. The
winner will receive an award of £500.
Essays must be submitted by Monday, June 4, 2012. Full information on
eligibility and procedures can be found on the German Historical Society
website:
http://www.germanhistorysociety.org/essay-prize/
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Visiting scholarship
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Syracuse University Library and the SU Humanities Center, along with
their partners in the Central New York Humanities Corridor (Colgate
University, Cornell University, Hamilton College, Syracuse University,
and the University of Rochester), will award four visiting scholar
grants of $2,500 each in 2012 to support research at two or more
Corridor institutions. This program’s primary goal is to attract
national and international attention to Central New York’s primary
source collections. Applicants, therefore, need not be based at a
Corridor institution. Similarly, projects need not focus on central or
upstate New York topics, but rather draw upon shared collection
strengths of Corridor institution libraries.
Those strengths include:
Abolitionism (Gerrit Smith, Samuel J. May, Frederick Douglass archives)
Design and Architecture (Marcel Breuer, William Lescaze, Claude Bragdon, Andrew Dickson White archives)
Archival Sound (Belfer Audio Archive, Hip Hop Collection, Sibley
Music Library)
Cultures of Print, in particular New York State
Gender and Sexuality (Human Sexuality Collection, Grove Press
Records, Suffrage Collections)
Modern Literature (T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Walt Whitman, Rudyard
Kipling, Joyce Carol Oates Papers)
Photography (Andrew J. Russel and Margaret Bourke White Papers,
George Eastman House)
Popular Culture (Dime Novels, Pulp Magazines, Children’s Literature,
War Posters)
Post-colonialism & Ethnic Studies, in particular Native American Studies
American Religion (Shaker and Oneida Communities, other Communal
Societies, Anti-Catholic and Masonic propaganda, Norman Vincent Peale
papers)
Current faculty and graduate students are eligible to apply. It is
expected that each visiting scholar will spend one to two weeks in
residence; however, the amount of time spent at each institution need
not be equal. Visiting scholars will be expected to present their work
at Syracuse University towards the close of their stay. Criteria for
selection include the anticipated impact of the project on the
applicant’s field of inquiry (and on the humanities generally), the
degree to which targeted collections support the proposed project, and
the innovative use of primary sources in research.
Applications should include the following elements:
Narrative. The narrative should frame the overall scope of the
project and detail the project’s significance within the context of
the applicant’s discipline. It should identify specific target
collections from at least two corridor institutions. (3 pages)
Project timeline. This should include start and end dates for the
project and the amount of time the scholar will spend at each
institution. Applicants may wish to designate a “home base” and then
detail how he or she will access other collections in the Corridor. (1
page)
Budget. The budget should show expenses for transportation, lodging,
and board. Other expenses may be allowed. (1 page)
Curriculum vita. (2 pages)
2 letters of support. (Sent with other application materials.)
Please send completed applications no later than April 15, 2012 to:
Barbara Brooker
Assistant to the Senior Director
Special Collections Research Center
Syracuse University Library
bbbrooke@syr.edu
Applications will be evaluated by a selection committee composed of
directors, curators, and faculty from each Corridor institution. Grant
recipients will be announced in May 2012. Research visits may commence
as early as the summer of 2012.
Special Collections in the CNY Humanities Corridor
Syracuse University Library, Special Collections Research Center
URL: http://library.syr.edu/find/scrc/
Cornell University Library, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections
URL: http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/
University of Rochester, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation
URL: http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?page=169
Hamilton College Library, Special Collections
URL: http://www.hamilton.edu/library/collections/specialcollections
Colgate University Libraries, Special Collections and Archives
URL: http://exlibris.colgate.edu/speccoll/
About the CNY Humanities Corridor
The Mellon Central New York Humanities Corridor
(http://www.syracusehumanities.org/mellon/) is a unique regional
collaboration between Syracuse University, Cornell University, and
University of Rochester in seven different areas of research and
humanistic inquiry. Each institution brings a vibrant and
distinguished humanistic scholarly tradition to the collective work of
the CNY Humanities Corridor. In the aggregate, the Corridor’s programs
bolster the relationships, productivity, and reciprocity common to the
region’s humanities community, as well as heightened visibility,
enhancing public engagement in its activities. The initiative is today
regarded as a highly visible scholarly presence in the region, if not
nationally, as a new model of collaboration and resource-sharing that
can also be adapted to other regions and inter-university
partnerships.
Since its establishment in 2006, through a one million dollar award by
the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the CNY Humanities Corridor’s mission
has gradually evolved over the last five years to represent the
following objectives:
To sustain a scholarly network of faculty members and graduate
students who share teaching, research, and public engagement across
the humanities.
To support research in specialized disciplinary areas under fiscal duress.
To support emergent areas of interdisciplinary inquiry that are not
consolidated or financially supported at the academic level.
To enhance the overall profile, scholarly prominence, and impact of
the interdisciplinary humanities in Central New York through the
advancement of individual and collaborative teaching, research, and
public engagement.
To increase connectivity and collaboration among academic humanists
throughout the Central New York region.
To foster cross-institutional partnerships and resource-sharing
mechanisms in emerging and established scholarly fields through
thematic research clusters and faculty working groups.
Sean M. Quimby
Senior Director of Special Collections
Special Collections Research Center │ Belfer Audio Archive
Syracuse University Library
t. 315.443.9759 │w. scrc@syr.edu
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Regards,
The History Lab team.
