Possible Career Option for Historians

Although What's Up often highlights academic success, it is important to note that there are, in fact, other career options for historians.

Wendy Gillis, for example, has had a busy summer as a journalism intern at the Ryerson Review of Journalism and the Toronto Star. As of May, she was working on a magazine feature about hyper local online news sites and collaboration with readership at the Ryerson Review. More recently, Wendy began an exciting 10-week internship in the newsroom at the Toronto Star.

And Toronto, between blackouts, earthquakes and riots, is certainly a newsworthy place to be this summer! A quick search of the Toronto Star website reveals that Wendy has been covering a wide-range of issues, from alleged police brutality or the Niagara miracle to a medieval knight at the G20.

While a history student in our department, Wendy developed her journalistic chops by editing The Sheaf and writing occasional articles for the Saskatoon Star Phoenix. Wendy is currently a student in the Master of Journalism programme at Ryerson University and has had an embarrassment of riches to undertake her studies: an Ontario Graduate Scholarship (which she declined) and the prestigious SSHRC Bombardier Graduate Scholarship.

Well done, Wendy! We hope that you send us the occasional dispatch from the media trenches, but in the meantime we'll keep an eye out for your byline.

Any text is possible if you take Latin!

Two of our very own department members have created a hilarious send-up of a old deodorent ad. John Porter stars in a YouTube video filmed by Ann DeVito. It is one in a series: see if you can spot the guest appearances and voice-overs by other members of the department...

So make sure you register today! It's never too late to gain the ability to parse Latin verbs or to compose sentences in Latin--in short, to become the most Latinate (wo)man in the world.

Alumna Grand Slam

Becky Littlechilds, who graduated from our CMRS programme in 2008, has had four major life events in the last month. She successfully defended her M.A. thesis (University of Victoria) on June 4, 2010. She then gave birth to a bouncing baby boy named Emrys on June 17. She has also been accepted into the Ph.D. programme in classics at King's College London AND has received maximum funding: a tuition waiver and scholarship to round out her SSHRC grant. Fantastic news, Becky!

Good luck to you and Emrys in Londinium... and don't forget to check out the hidden Roman baths just around the corner from the Strand location of KCL.

Image: Sophocles, King's Building, Strand Campus, KCL
Image Credit: "King's College London", Wikipedia

Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Regina Riots

Bill Waiser spoke to Michael Enright on The Sunday Edition (CBC) on July 4 about the On-to-Ottawa Trek and the Regina Riots.

Image: Rioters and police during the Regina Riot, 1 July 1935

Credit: Regina Archives

Caregiving on the Periphery

Congratulations to Myra Rutherdale (Associate Professor, York University) on the publication of her edited collection, Caregiving on the Periphery: Historical Perspectives on Nursing and Midwifery in Canada (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010). Myra was a postdoctoral fellow in the department in 2003-4 when she came up with this project.

The book examines women's important cultural and medical roles as nurses and midwives in remote locations (Newfoundland and Labrador, northern Saskatchewan, northern British Columbia, and the Arctic). Topics also include Western Canadian Mennonite midwives, missionary nurses, and Aboriginal nursing assistants in the Yukon. Caregiving at the Periphery highlights religious, colonial and class themes, paying special attention to nursing in Aboriginal communities and the relations of race and medical work.

For more information on the book, please see: http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=2456.

Hewton Bursary

Congratulations to alumnus Lucas Richert (B.A., University of Saskatchewan) on being awarded a Hewton Bursary earlier this spring.

Lucas recently defended his doctoral dissertation on "Pills, Politics and the Food and Drug Administration During the Reagan Years" (University of London, U.K.). Among his many accomplishments, Lucas has also been a lecturer at the University of Portsmouth and a Historical Researcher and Copy Editor for the Literary Encyclopaedia.

Lucas will next research asylums in nineteenth-century Upper Canada and 1950s Saskatchewan (Weyburn and North Battleford). We heartily wish him luck in his future endeavours!

BOOK LAUNCH

A book launch for Bill Waiser and Stuart Houston will be held to celebrate their new book Tommy's Team: The People Behind the Douglas Years.

The book examines the people behind Tommy Douglas while he was premier of Saskatchewan. Although the individuals are interesting in their own right, it is their connection to Douglas that shaped and informed their roles. This collection of 36 stories provides a broad, nuanced perspective on Douglas and explains why Douglas was one of the most successful political leaders of his era.

Date: June 15, 7:30

Time: 7:30

Place: McNally-Robinson

Stand and Deliver:
Three Doctoral SSHRC Awards for Our Students

From community identities to highwaymen to Aboriginal blankets... You might think me biased when I say that our graduate students are coming up with rather cool research projects, but the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council agree. This year, three of our students won awards to undertake doctoral research projects.

Carla Fehr received the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship to research the pressures on community resources in several Guatemalan communities from the late 19th century to the end of the 20th century. She will explore the community identity that often forms around struggles to resist dispossession of resources. At the time of writing, she has not yet decided whether she will stay at the U of S or go to McGill for her Ph.D.

Kurt Krueger received a doctoral SSHRC and is off to the University of Victoria to work with Andrea Mackenzie. Kurt will be looking at highway robbery, particularly considering the intersection of masculinity, crime and culture in eighteenth-century Britain.

Katya MacDonald, who also received a doctoral SSHRC, will be staying at the U of S to work with Keith Carlson. Katya will be researching how blankets have featured in and represented historical narrative in Aboriginal communities.

Congratulations and good luck to our soon-to-be graduated graduates who will be moving on to their new projects in the autumn!

Image: Dick Turpin, Highwayman
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Tommy Douglas and the RCMP

Our own Bill Waiser and Steve Hewitt (department alumnus now working at the University of Birmingham) were interviewed by CBC's Michael Enright on the RCMP surveillance of Tommy Douglas over three decades. The subject of the show explores why those files are closed till this day.

This fascinating interview is still available as a podcast (May 16, The Sunday Edition) at:

http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/2010/05/may-16-2010.html.

Image: Premier Douglas, talking with Private Campbell of the Saskatoon Light Infantry (M.G.), Barneveld, Netherlands, 29 April 1945

Image Credit: Library and Archives Canada, PA-138035; Mikan ID 3524858.

More Graduate Student Success

Ph.D. student Camie Augustus will be leaving us for a year to take up a prestigious "Pre-doctoral Dissertation Fellowship Award in American Indian Studies" at Michigan State University. Camie is working on "Indigenous Mixed Blood Identities: A Comparative Approach (Canada, US, Mexico and Australia)" (supervisors: Jim Miller and Jim Handy).

Congratulations, Camie! We wish you the best of luck at MSU.

Spurred to Success

Dave Smith, a doctoral student supervised by Gary Zellar and Keith Carlson, has received two prestigious awards this past year. Last June, his article "Owen Wister's Paladin of the Plains: The Virginian as a Cultural Hero," won the Western Writers of America "Spur Award" for Best Western Short Nonfiction. The article was originally published in the peer-reviewed journal South Dakota History. (See above, picture 1: Dave in appropriate western attire, holding the Spurs.)

Dave continues to ride high. Last week, Dave was in St. Louis where he received the Popular Culture/American Culture association's William M. Jones Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper in American Culture for his essay, "American Nightmare: Images of Brainwashing, Thought Control and Terror in Soviet Russia." The essay will appear in a forthcoming issue of the society's journal. (See above, picture 2: Dave receiving the award from Dr. Kathy M Jackson.)

The second article comes from his M.A. thesis, but his first article comes from his doctoral dissertation, which is in progress. He is researching the use of western rhetoric and images by American presidents.

More Medical History

On March 12 and 13, seven of our students participated in the Annual History of Medicine Days at the University of Calgary. Five students presented papers and one presented a research poster. The conference was well-attended, with over 30 papers and 20 posters. Our students earned 3 prizes.

Heather Stanley: second runner-up, audio-visual category.
Mat Mossey: first runner-up, Bill Whitelaw Award in Internal Medicine.
Adam Fowler (alumnus and current medical student): first runner-up, overall category.

Other department participants included: Leslie Baker, Lucas Richert and Amy Samson. Congratulations to all of the students on such a fine departmental showing!

Congratulations to Rob Konkel

Fourth-year Honours History student Rob Konkel has won a highly-competitive AMS Hannah Summer Studentship to undertake a summer project. In addition to working with Dr. Lisa Smith on an online database, "Eighteenth-Century Medical Collection Letters Online" (to be made public in June), Rob will write a long research essay considering the ways in which scientific men established medical authority in the physician-patient relationship in early modern England. He will extensively use the U of S library's microfilm collection of Sir Hans Sloane's scientific and medical correspondence. This will be a great introduction to the nuts and bolts of managing and undertaking a large historical research project for Rob -- just in time for him to start an MPhil programme at Oxford in the autumn!

History Grad Banquet

Grad banquet tickets are now on sale in Arts 721 (The History Department Office) and must be purchased by April 1 in order to ensure that HUSA can keep the booking.

Date: April 8

Time: 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. (approximately)

Place: Royal Canadian Legion, Nutana Branch (Beside Eastview Bowl)

Cost: $20 each

There will be dinner and door prizes! And any speeches are guaranteed to be short and sweet! Please join us in celebrating your graduation.

Contact: Kristina Rissling (kar152@mail.usask.ca)

Image: George Cruikshank, Sailors Carousing (1825).

Image Credit: Wellcome Library, London

N.B. Smoking indoors illegal, dancing and drinking optional, feasting desirable.

Ides of March Trivia Night

The Museum of Antiquities will be hosting its annual Ides of March Trivia Night on Sunday, March 14. Tickets and t-shirts are on sale in advance in the Arts Tunnel March 5th and March 10th from 10am-2pm. Tickets and t-shirts are also available at the Museum of Antiquities office in the College Building, Room 116. Proceeds provide funding for the student volunteer programs.

Come cheer for either Caesar or Brutus and support the Museum of Antiquities!

Date: Sunday, March 14
Time:6:45 p.m. to 9:45 p.m.
Place: 1337 College Drive, U of S Grad Student Lounge, Emanuel St. Chad Chapel
Cost: $12 for Adults, $9 for Students, and $8 for children

For more information, please contact Tracene Harvey at the museum, 966-7818.

Image: Death of Caesar. Engraving, L. LeGrand after C. Eisen.
Image Credit: Wellcome Library, London

History Graduate Student Workshop:
How to Write Your Thesis/Dissertation

Friday March 12th, 10 am - 4:30 pm

Grad Commons (previously Emmanuel & St. Chad building)

All History Graduate Students Welcome!
_____________________________________

This workshop brings together a variety of experts and the otherwise-informed from the department and university to provide information, instruction, tips, and experiences towards writing a history thesis or dissertation. Sessions will be led by faculty, writing instructors, IT instructors, and formerly defended/graduated MA and PhD students.

Sessions include:

The Secret Wonders of Word: Using Word's "Master Documents" to Manage Your Thesis/Dissertation

Zotero the Great: Making Your Bibliography Before It Ends You - (Almost) No More Typing

Taking the Plunge: Starting Your Thesis/Dissertation

When It's Over, Is It Really Over? Submitting, Editing, Defending (And Editing AGAIN!)

See the HGSC website for the full schedule:
(http://www.usask.ca/groups/hgsc/Graduate%20Writing%20Workshop.htm).

Contact: Camie Augustus (camie.augustus@usask.ca)

Image: A man writing in a book supported by Time, while Mercury is assisted by winged figures in displaying the portraits of French kings; representing French history. Engraving.

Image Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

Movie Night

HUSA will be hosting its fourth movie night of the year: Full Metal Jacket. Professor Smith-Norris will be introducing the film.

Date: March 18th

Time: 6 p.m.

Place: Arts 146

Cost: Free!

HGSC Book Pub

The HGSC is hosting its annual book pub to raise money for the graduate student conference.

Date: Friday, March 5th
Time: 3:30 p.m.
Place: Grad Commons (between McLean Hall and College Drive)

The book pub includes a book auction, silent auction, appetizers and a cash bar (wine and beer).

Image: Group of three puffers (unintiated alchemists) reading books. A credulous peasant tries his luck at alchemy, while his weeping wife and child beg him to stop.

(Books can be dangerous, but are always exciting! Come try your luck at the book pub!)

Image Credit: Wellcome Library, London

French Psychiatry at the Front in the First World War

Hosted by the Department of History and the Medical History Group, Professor Pat Prestwich (University of Alberta) will be speaking on "French Psychiatry at the Front in the First World War".

Date: Monday, March 8
Time: 3:30
Place: Club Room, Faculty Club

For more information, please contact Erika Dyck (erika.dyck@usask.ca).

Image: "The Room of Recovery", from F.W. Mott, War Neuroses and Shell Shock (London, 1919).
Credit: Wellcome Library, London

Only Humour Helped

Special guest speaker Dr. Tim Cook (Canadian War Museum) will be talking on "'Only Humour Helped': Canadian Soldiers' Humour and Endurance in the Great War".

Date: Wednesday, March 3
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Place: Convocation Hall (College Building 120)

This talk will examine how Canadian Great War soldiers constructed and consumed humour in the Great War in order to cope with the unending stress on the Western Front. While the Great War is not normally viewed through a prism of jokes, laughter, or pranks, soldiers turned to these outlets to make sense of the war and deal with the unending strain. This is a story of resiliency rather than resignation.

Tim Cook is the First World War historian at the Canadian War Museum and an Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University. He has published four books, including the two-volume history of Canadians fighting in the Great War, At the Sharp End, which won the 2007 J.W. Dafoe Prize, and Shock Troops, which won the 2009 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction. His new book, The Madman and the Butcher: Sam Hughes, Arthur Currie, and the War of Reputations, will be published by Penguin Canada in 2010.

For more information, contact Professor Bill Waiser (bill.waiser@usask.ca).

Image: A Canadian enjoying blackberries which he had just gathered in Bourlon Wood. Advance East of Arras. October, 1918.
Credit: Canada Department of National Defence, Library and Archives Canada.