First World War Commemoration Launch, August 7, 2014.

American Association for the History of Medicine meeting

Be sure and checkout Erin Spinney's account
of the graduate students and Prof . Erika Dyck and their trip to the Windy City to attend the annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine.
 http://hgscresearch.blogspot.ca/2014/05/the-u-of-s-goes-to-aahm.html

Luis Fondebrider Lecture, Feb. 10th, 7-8:30 p.m.

Luis Fondebrider

Bones, Ghosts 

and 

Human 

Rights:

How Science Can Further Justice

Feb. 10, 2014:  

Neatby Timlin 

Theatre

7:00-8:30 pm 

(reception to follow)

            (source: Mail On Line, July 3, 2013)

Luis Fondebrider teaches in the Department of Legal Medicine at the University of Buenos Aires.  He is President of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team and has been involved in international tribunals on political violence and human rights, focusing on the use of forensic anthropology in identifying victims of mass violence, in over forty countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe.

Sponsored by the Department of History.

Funded by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Culture and Creativity, College of Arts and Science, Humanities Research Unit, the Vice-President Research, and the CRC in Medical History;

with the support of Departments of Psychology, Anthropology and Archeology, Political Studies,  Sociology, Community Health and Epidemiology, and English.

Guy Vanderhaeghe Lecture at St. Thomas More College

Thursday October 24, 2013 7:30 p.m.

Father O'Donnell Auditorium

Blogs promoting more blogs, long may the blogs proliferate! New blog announcement.

The History Graduate Students Committee (HGSC) has started a research blog.   The address is http://hgscresearch.blogspot.ca . Be sure and check it out!

Our friend, colleague, and globe-trotting scholar, Jim Handy, will be on hand for a three-day celebration September11-13 commemorating Jacobo Arbenz to be held in Guatemala City at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. The second day of the celebration will be devoted to a round table discussion of Jim's book,.Revolution in the Countryside: Rural Conflict and Agrarian Reform in Guatemala, 1944-1954. Jim will then make his way to the "Food Sovereignty: A Critical Dialogue" International Conference at Yale University, September 14-15. Jim's paper is titled "The ‘non-economy’ and the Radical Dreams of Food Sovereignty” and will no doubt elicit serious dialogue. Good luck Jim!

Former University of Saskatchewan History undergraduate student Jameel Hampton awarded Mellon Fellowship. 

History Department graduate (B.A. Hons.), Dr. Jameel Hampton, has won a prestigious Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship to be held at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Dr. Hampton completed his Queen’s University M.A. thesis, “The Old Régime in New Jerusalem: Inequality in the United Kingdom, 1945-1951,” before taking a SSHRC and British ORS to Bristol University where he completed his Ph.D. under the direction of Professor Rodney Lowe, Official Historian on the Service of her Majesty the Queen. The book based on his doctoral thesis, “Disability and the Classic Welfare State,” is under contract with The Policy Press UK.

Dr. Hampton will utilise resources at Witwatersrand’s Historical Papers Collection to study Organised Labour, Human Rights, and Disability under Apartheid.

Mitchell Smith wins Margaret E. Vanderhaeghe Award in History and Art History

The Department is pleased to announce that the winner of the inaugural Margaret E. Vanderhaeghe Award in History and Art History is our own Mitchell Smith, for his essay “Alaskan Orthodoxy: The Culturally Distinct Christianity of the Aleut, Alutiiq, Yupiit, Athabaskan, Tlingit, and Creole Peoples of Alaska,” which was submitted to the awards committee by Professor Gary Zellar. This award is presented each year to the best essay on social history, intellectual history, the history of Saskatchewan, or the history of art. It has been instituted by Guy Vanderhaeghe in memory of his wife Margaret, who earned a B.A. in History at the UofS before going on to become a renowned painter and an active member in the Saskatchewan arts community.

Congratulations Mitchell!

Announcing the institution of the Saskatoon Latin School

The Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies program is instituting
a non-credit course in high-school level classical Latin.

During the 2013-2014 academic year The Saskatoon Latin School will
offer a non-credit course in Beginner's Latin to students aged 14 and up.

The course is designed to be an enjoyable and informative exploration of
the Latin language and the Roman world. In addition to learning how to
read and write Latin, students will be introduced to various facets of
Roman civilization, including history, art, architecture, literature and
daily life. While the course is directed at high school students, adults are
also welcome.

The course will not be offered for high school credit in 2013-
14, but we are working on that option for future years.

Classes will be held on Saturday afternoons, 1:30 to 3:30,
on the University of Saskatchewan campus from late
September through June.

For more information, please visit our website at
saskatoonlatinschool.blogspot.com or contact
saskatoonlatinschool@gmail.com

Food For Thought

Join our own Valerie J. Korinek, along with co-editors and authors, Franca Iacovetta, Marlene Epp, James Murton, and Ian Mosby as they discuss food issues and food politics featured in their recently published Edible Histories, Cultural Politics: Towards a Canadian Food History on this podcast from NICHE.

http://niche-canada.org/node/10644

Franca Iacovetta, Valerie J. Korinek, and Marlene Epp. Edible Histories, Cultural Politics: Towards a Canadian Food History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.

From Katherine Katherine Zwicker comes this announcement for the upcoming Manitoba-Northwest Ontario-Minnesota-Saskatchewan (MOMS) & Society for the Social History of Medicine sponsored conference.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Manitoba-Northwest Ontario-Minnesota-Saskatchewan (MOMS) & Society for the Social History of Medicine Postgraduate/Early Career

History of Medicine Conference

September 12^th-14^th, 2013

University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

Connections and Communities in Health and Medicine

In September 2013 the University of Saskatchewan will host the Society for the Social History of Medicine (SSHM) Postgraduate/Early Career Conference in conjunction with the 4^th Manitoba-Northwest Ontario-Minnesota-Saskatchewan (MOMS) History of Medicine Conference.  This conference marks the first occasion upon which the SSHM Postgraduate Conference will be held in Canada and hosted by the newest institution to join the MOMS community—the University of Saskatchewan. 

                                                                                                                                  

Highlighting both organizations’ commitment to crossing borders, whether regional or disciplinary, the theme of the 2013 conference is “Connections and Communities in Health and Medicine.”  The conference will provide graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty the opportunity to present papers that consider issues in the history of medicine including, but not limited to professionalization; medical research, technologies and institutions; and networks in health and medicine.  Submissions from all eras and regions of the world are welcomed, as are submissions from various disciplinary perspectives.

Individual and panel proposals (3-4 papers) are invited and will be peer reviewed.  Please submit an abstract (no more than 300 words) and a one-page curriculum vitae with contact information to Katherine Zwicker, katherine.zwicker@usask.ca.   For programming purposes, please indicate if you are a member of one of the MOMS institutions.  Deadline for submissions is April 30^th, 2013.  We hope to notify participants by the end of May. 

*Though yet to be determined, travel assistance may be available for student participants.

Lisa Smith sends along this link to a blog--Larkfall---that gives our own Frank Klaassen recognition for his work on magician, and Elizabethan gentleman adventurer, Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
http://larkfall.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/visionary-magicke-an-elizabethan-gentleman-in-the-underworld/

Battlefield Study Tour 26 May to 9 June 2013 Now in its 19th year, the Canadian Battlefields Foundation Study Tour is intended for Canadian university students who want to learn more about the role Canadians played in the liberation of Europe in the World Wars. This year’s tour, led by Prof. Andrew Iarocci (UWO) and Prof. Graham Broad (King’s University College, UWO) will visit Ypres, the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Dieppe, the Normandy battlefields, and participate in ceremonies marking the anniversary of D-Day. The Foundation offers a bursary to each successful applicant but requires them to contribute $1000 towards the cost of the tour, which includes air and ground travel from Toronto, accommodation, meals, and study materials. Students will be expected to prepare for the trip academically, to lead one on-site discussion, present a short biography of a Canadian soldier buried at one of the sites on the itinerary, and keep a detailed journal describing their experiences. Outstanding undergraduates, graduate students, and very recent grads are encouraged to apply. Submit five copies of the application form found at www.cbf-fccb.ca by February 25th, 2013, along with official university transcripts and two academic letters of reference to: Prof. Graham Broad, Dept of History King’s University College, UWO 266 Epworth Ave., London, ON N6A 2M3 For more info, contact Prof. Andrew Iarocci aiarocc@uwo.ca, Prof. Graham Broad gbroad@uwo.ca

CBF Battlefield Study Tour, 26 May to 9 June 2013Canadian Battlefields Study Tour

Congratulations Christian Elcock

Congratulations to Christian Elcock, for winning the William M. Jones Award for the Outstanding Graduate Student Paper in American Culture for his paper, The Psychedelic Movement Beyond the Sixties: Continuity and Discontinuity. Christian is Erika Dyck's Ph.D. student in the History of Medicine. 

The award will be presented at the PCA/ACA Conference in Washington D. C. at the Wardman Park Marriott on Friday, March 29, 2013, at the 11:30A.M. special Awards Ceremony. 

Congratulations Melanie Racette-Campbell

Melanie Racette-Campbell (MA in CMRS 2007) is continuing to do us proud.

This past year (2011-2012) she was awarded the U of T CAMWS award for outstanding accomplishment by a student in Classical Studies.

She also helped to organize and chair a three-part international panel on "“Women and the Reception of the Classical World" at the Spring 2012 meeting of the Classical Association of Canada.

And, in addition to having just successfully defended her PhD thesis at the U of T, she now has an article based on her MA thesis that is set to come out out this Spring in Classical Journal: "Marriage Contracts, Fides, and Gender Roles in Propertius 3.20" (set to appear in vol. 108.3). 

Please congratulate Melanie if you have occasion to correspond with her.

Keewatin Conference

Magic in the Archives What do historians do in the archives? Read a lot, take a lot of notes… sometimes get excited (quietly) when they find something wonderful. But Wi-fi and social media can also allow historians to share their moments of archival thrills. The last couple days, Lisa Smith (who is on sabbatical) has been transcribing an eighteenth-century French witch’s spell book at the Wellcome Library, London. It’s a fascinating source, as you might expect, and she’s been sharing her delight. Why stop at transcribing, when you can tweet magical spells? Her spell tweets have been rounded up by Daniel Goldberg on Storify under the grand title, “In the Archives: Recipes, Remedies & Spells in #HistMed: An historian of medicine works with an 18th c. spellbook. Awesome in so many ways . . .” For some spells on talking to the animals, chasing away snakes, you can read the story as it emerges here: http://storify.com/prof_goldberg/in-the-archives-recipes-remedies-and-spells-in-his When asked what tweeting adds to the research experience, Smith noted that she thinks more closely about the meaning of each spell while she transcribes, in part because she is spending more time at an early research stage on closely translating each line. And besides, it’s fun.

Looking for a 400-level seminar? And the chance for hands-on history...?

Then consider History 462.3 ("Orality, Literacy, Memory, Tradition and History") offered by Ph.D. candidate, Mandy Fehr, this term (Mondays, 2:30-5:20).

Explore ideas of orality, literacy, memory, tradition and history in a variety of temporal and geographic contexts! Conduct original oral and archival research for a project at the Diefenbaker Canada Centre!

In this course, you will...

• Gain experience conducting oral interviews while working with a local museum.
• Connect theory and practice  in intensive seminars, and while conducting original research. Research and write history for public and academic audiences on a topic that interests you.
• Meet and work with people practicing history in a variety of settings.

For more information, and to learn how this course can compliment your interests contact Amanda Fehr, mandy.fehr@usask.ca

Virility and the Psychology of the Crowd in Anti-Fascism

Mark Meyers will be giving a public lecture for the Association Francophone pour le Savoir on « La virilité et la psychologie des foules dans l’antifascisme de Georges Bataille des années 30».

Date: Wednesday, 5 December
Time: 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Place: Arts 108

Entrance is free and a reception will follow.

For more information or to register, please contact:
Éléonore Daniel-Vaugeois, 966-7943 or eleonore.daniel@usask.ca .

EDITOR'S UPDATE DEC. 5 : This event is being rescheduled for January instead. Details will follow.

Three Cheers for our Alumnae!

Wonderful news from two alumnae this November.

Amanda Shea  (B.A. History Hons., 2012) was awarded the North American Conference on British Studies Undergraduate Essay Prize for her essay, "The Ramblings of a Madman: Narratives of Mental Suffering in Early Modern England". She wrote this excellent essay, discussing the significance of losing language and expressing one's suffering, for "The History of Pain" (History 481), taught by Lisa Smith.

Melanie Racette-Campbell (MA, CMRS, 2007) has just successfully defended her PhD thesis in Classics at the University of Toronto. The title of her thesis is “The Construction of Masculinity in Propertius” and her wider research interests are gender and poetry in the classical world. Besides submitting and defending her thesis this autumn, she has been keeping busy teaching two courses and doing the occasional bit of blogging. I imagine that she's now looking forward to using her own new title of 'Dr.' very soon.

Congratulations and huzzahs all around!

The Chilkoot Trail: Then and Now

On November 15, the Saskatoon Nature Society hosted their November monthly meeting (open to all) on campus in the Biology Lecture Theatre, near the big dinosaurs.

This month's speaker was Bill Waiser, invited for his expertise in western and northern Canadian history, who spoke on "The Chilkoot Trail: Then and Now". In addition to discussing the historical significance of this famous trail, he mentioned what hikers can experience on the trail today.

After a Q and A, homemade cookies, tea and coffee were provided, along with a chance to meet fellow nature-lovers.

A good time was had by all--including the dinosaurs listening from outside the theatre.

Pharaohs & Flappers

Applying to Grad School Workshop

Thinking of Applying to Graduate School in History? Come to this information session for U of S senior undergraduate students in history!

Date: Thursday, November 15
Time: 4:30-5:45 p.m.
Place: Arts 710

RSVP by November 13
to angela.kalinowski@usask.ca and ingrid.mcgregor@usask.ca

Program

4:30 – 4:40 Welcome and Introductory Remarks

(Dr. Angela Kalinowski, Undergraduate Chair)

4:40 – 4:55

Should I do an MA? A student’s view from the trenches.

(Ms. Madeleine Peckham, MA candidate)

4:55 – 5:15

U of S History MA: what’s the program about?

(Dr. Matthew Neufeld, Graduate Chair)

5:15 – 5:30

Applying to Graduate School in the USA

(Dr. Katie Labelle, Term Lecturer)

5:30 – 5:45

Elements of the Application and Doing the Groundwork

(Dr. Angela Kalinowski, Undergraduate Chair)

Sponsored by the University of Saskatchewan History Department

How about a film? A Saskatchewan film!

Attention lovers of film and/or Saskatchewan! Have you heard about the film series on Saskatchewan films being hosted by Broadway Theatre and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Culture and Creativity?

The next film is Billy Bishop Goes to War. This feature film was inspired by the life of the legendary WWI flying ace from Owen Sound. Canadian acting legend Eric Peterson and award-winning writer/composer John Gray reprise their iconic two-man stage play that has captivated audiences for over three decades.

There will be a post-film discussion with a panel (including the broadcaster and author Ted Barris).

Date: Wednesday, November 14
Time: 7 p.m. (Doors open at 6:30.)
Admission: $7 (regular), $5 (seniors, students, Legion members)
Please come, bring a friend, and be part of the post-film discussion!

History in the News!

In case you didn't spot it last week... History Ph.D. student, Victoria Lamb Drover, was featured in a StarPhoenix article.

To learn more about Vickie's exciting research on ParticipAction, you can read the article here:  

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/health/Humour+media+savvy+ParticipAction+success/7461991/story.html

Just do it!

Two Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)?

History major Matt Kerr went paddling with Bill Waiser on the South Saskatchewan River on the Thanksgiving weekend. Matt had successfully bid for the canoe trip at the annual HGSC Book Pub fundraiser.

Meet the Profs Night!

HUSA and Comitatus present...

The CMRS and History
Meet the Profs Night

Date: Thursday, October 11th
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Place: Museum of Antiquities, 106 MacKinnon Building

Meet your profs and enjoy delicious food!

SSHRC Graduate Scholarship Workshop

The Department of History is hosting a workshop for history students applying for M.A. or Ph.D. SSHRC grants.

Date: Friday, September 28
Time: 2:30 to 4:30 pm
Place: Arts 710

The speakers inlcude:

• Dr Matthew Neufeld: Qualifications and Important Dates
• Dr Lisa Smith: How Does a Doctoral Fellowships Committee Think?
• Dr Keith Carlson: How Does a SSHRC Review Committee Think?
• Dr Katie Labelle: Elements of a Successful PhD Application
• Ms Claire Thomson: Elements of a Successful MA Application

Please contact Matthew Neufeld, Director of Graduate Studies, if you have any questions (Arts 621; matthew.neufeld@usask.ca)

Demystifying the Academic Job Application

HGSA has organised a workshop on demystifying the academic job application. Topics include:

• Decoding Job Postings; 
• The Application; 
• The Teaching Portfolio;
• and Perspectives from Recent Hires and Hiring Committee Members.

Date: Friday, September 21
Time: 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Place: Graduate Student Commons

Coffee & Snacks Provided
Informal Discussion to Follow at Louis Pub

For more information contact Mandy Fehr (mandy.fehr@usask.ca) or Michael Kirkpatrick
(kirpak@hotmail.com)

Special Thanks to The History Department, Professor Erika Dyck (CRC in the History of Medicine) and
Dr. Matthew Neufeld and the Graduate Committee for sponsoring this workshop.

Book Launch Tonight

Congratulations to Lesley Biggs, one of the editors of Listening Up, Writing Down, and Looking Beyond and Gendered Intersections, 2^nd Ed.

The book is being launched TONIGHT!

Date: Tuesday, September 18^th at 7:00 p.m.

Location: McNally Robinson – Travel Alcove

For more information, see the following URL for information on this book launch: http://artsandsciencelists.usask.ca/attachments/6184/Roy_Gingell_Biggs_invitation.pdf

Summer in the City, Oh the Humidity

By Frances Reilly, Ph.D. Student

Summer in Montreal is hot. The cicadas’ electric buzz was broken only at night by the soft chirp of crickets in the garden across from the apartment where I sat for months, reaming through old RCMP surveillance files. But the process of writing and research, a predominantly sedentary activity interrupted occasionally by revelation, requires rewards and so my otherwise deskbound existence was broken up by historical tourism.

Battle Fields Park, Québec

Among the various sights in Montreal are the remains of Expo ’67, one of the many events celebrating Canada’s Centennial. Visible from Montreal’s Old Port on the St Lawrence is the Île St. Hélène the site of the Expo Pavilions, one of the more iconic structures being the American Pavilion or the Biosphere.

Osheaga Music Festival, Montreal

The city of Québec is a three hour bus ride from Montreal. As many Canadians are aware, 1759’s epic 20 minute battle between the French and the English took place outside of the city. The Plains of Abraham Battlefield now contains the classic historical monuments, along with a Museum of Fine Arts and a green space for community activities like Saturday morning Pilates.

Musée National des Beaux-arts du Québec

Most of my activity however took place at home and as I sorted through last summer’s research I could hear the student demonstrations parading through the downtown streets outside. Printemps Érable, a clever play on the French for “Arab Spring,” began in the winter semester. By May the demonstrations extended to address the right to protest in addition to questioning the current trends of education’s commodification. These concerns have been compounded by local politics and police surveillance, the latter having several parallels to my research on RCMP profiles of communist subversives and the construction of a Cold War enemy. The summer events provided the delicious reminder that historical research is indeed relevant to contemporary concerns.

22 August Student Demonstration, Montreal 

London 2012: A Research Trip in an Olympic Year

By Jason Underhill (Ph.D. student)

The Olympic Stadium

 They all said I was crazy embarking on a research trip to London during the Olympics. “It will be impossible to get around!” they cried. “You’ll never get any research done during the Olympics” others warned. I am happy to report that the naysayers were absolutely wrong.* I went to London this summer looking for alchemical recipes and returned with enough material for my dissertation, a 100 level history course, and a 300 level chemistry course.

The British Library

I love the British Library. I think it’s one of my favourite buildings in the world. It’s one of the few places where, just by entering, you stand upon the steps of tomorrow. A place in which something innovative is always being developed that will take the world by surprise. Contained within the holdings of the library, however, are manuscripts that allow you to sink into the past and discover all the plans and schemes that have led to the dreams of all mankind.

Letter from William Medley to Lord Burleigh, process for transmuting iron into copper (1572)

The staff at the library were exceptional even during a time when the library was overrun with a combination of tourists, scholars, and literary fanatics visiting the “Writing Britain” exhibit. I was able to finish my research in only two days and obtain copies of the five recipes I needed, plus a few letters that I'd missed last year.

The first of these recipes was one that detailed the process by which Edward Kelley (John Dee’s skryer) coated copper with silver in such a way that it would convince all those watching that it had been transmuted. The second is the process that William Medley used to supposedly transmute iron into copper, copperas and alum. This recipe would form the foundation of the Society of the New Art which attracted many prominent Elizabethan nobles including secretary of state Thomas Smith, Lord High Treasurer William Cecil, the queen’s favourite Robert Dudley, the poet Edward Dyer, the Countess of Pembroke Mary Sidney Herbert and her husband and brother. The final recipes were by Raymond Lully and detailed ways in which to manipulate lead, antimony, silver, mercury and other metals to become potent medical treatments for various diseases.

These will be used for my dissertation, as part of a potential publication--and my joint project with the Chemistry Department this term: to test alchemical recipes in theory, which may lead to practical tests of these recipes in the future.

That, of course, was not the end of my work. Knowing that I would be teaching History 110 this fall I visited the British Museum to take advantage of their Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Chinese and Roman exhibits.

                      

At the British Museum

I look forward to using images like these in my teaching when we examine ancient art and architecture. Of course, my experiences at the London 2012 Olympics will also be used to lecture on the Ancient Greek games. In all, this turned out to be one of my most promising and productive summers yet despite all of the doom and gloom forecasts for London 2012!

* The editor, having spent the summer in London, agrees with Jason. The centre of London was very quiet--and reading rooms at various libraries, nearly empty.

Research Tales: Remembering That You're Not in Charge

By Sarah York (M.A. student)

When I started research for my thesis three months ago, I was mistaken. I believed I was in charge. The truth is I’m only partly in charge.

It first struck me while I was speaking with a librarian on the telephone. I was trying to arrange a date to visit his library’s archive when he explained, “We’re a small library with only a handful of staff. Since it is the summer most of our staff is away on holidays. You can try to come do research but I can’t guarantee anyone will be able to retrieve anything for you.” Since this library is in a community several hours away, I was not going to show up and hope someone could help me.

I watched helplessly as the days I planned to do ‘out-of-town’ research passed by. I kept myself busy reading newspapers on microfilm and visiting local archives. But then I hit a roadblock. I was running out of sources and I did not know where to look for new ones.

My supervisor suggested I e-mail James Gray’s daughter, Patricia Fennell. James Gray’s book Red Lights on the Prairies is the first investigation of the early sex trade in Canada’s Prairie Provinces. I coveted Gray’s sources. Not only did he use newspaper articles and police reports, he had access to first-hand accounts of the early sex trade – sources that were impossible for me to acquire today. I learned from Patricia that Gray had destroyed these accounts to protect his informants. However, Patricia’s husband, Bill Fennell, had some information he wanted to share with me.

Bill is the great-nephew of Walter Johnson, a name I immediately recognized. Johnson was the Police Chief and subsequent mayor of Moose Jaw during my period of study. Bill wrote:

When he [Johnson] was Police Chief, he used to park his vehicle in front of the Police Station with one of the windows rolled down a bit. Every Friday afternoon, weather permitting, the Ladies of the Night would stroll by and, somehow, they would drop a few envelopes into Chief Johnson's vehicle through the window, containing their political contributions to his cause.

Moose Jaw’s sex trade workers wanted to see Johnson become Mayor.

Bill’s family history was the human element I was searching for. But I came across it in an unexpected and serendipitous way. Our e-mail ‘conversation’ showed me again how much I am not in charge. I’ve learned to cope with this disconcerting fact by surrendering to it and by recognizing that sometimes relying on other people isn’t so bad.

Public Lecture: Baseball and Race in Canada

Baseball fan? Interested in race? Canadian history buff? Then mark your calendars now for John Herd Thompson's (History, Duke University) lecture “Baseball and Race in Canada: The Case of Jackie Robinson”. 

Discussing the intersections of sport and race in Canada from the late 19th Century through the 1940s, Thompson will focus on baseball and Robinson's year in Montréal to consider changing conceptions of "race" in the city, the province, and in Canada. He will consider Canada's role in creating, maintaining, and (eventually) breaking Organized Baseball's "color line" during Jackie Robinson's year with the Montréal Royals from October 1945 until the end of the 1946 International League season. 

Date: Monday, September 24, 2012 

Time: 7:30 pm 

Place: Arts 241 (Neatby-Timlin Theatre)  

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

The lecture is sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Culture and Creativity and the Department of History. 

History Slam! With Vickie Lamb Drover

Back in May, we heard news that Vickie was interviewed by The National Post . But her fame continues! Check out her fun "History Slam" interview at Active History for revelations about the personal lives of Body Break people, the problems of doing academic history, the pleasures of her research -- and so much more!


(And if you're looking for some summer diversion, Active History has lots of other posts and podcasts, ranging from "Historical Fiction as a Gateway Drug" to clothing history and happiness in the past...)

It's that SSHRC time of year!

Congratulations to Mark Geldof (alumnus), Jason Grier, Jennifer Jozic, Claire Thompson, and Sarah York! They recently learned that they were successful in the graduate funding competitions for SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada). 

Back in August 2011, Mark Geldof defended his M.A. thesis on late-medieval and early-modern English works of martial instruction (supervisor: Sharon Wright). He will start a DPhil at Oxford (Merton College) in the autumn, studying the changing attitudes towards violence and the value of prowess amongst fifteenth and sixteenth century English elites and gentry. This past May, Mark presented a paper at the 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies on "It's Not Over Until it's Overkill: Mixed Messages from the Archaeology of Violence."

In his M.A. thesis, Jason Grier analyses a scientific dispute between Newton and Robert Hooke during the 1670s ("Hypothesis non fingo: Isaac Newton's Literary Technology", supervisor: Larry Stewart). His case study reveals the process by which scientific authority and credibility was constructed in early modern natural philosophy. Jason's SSHRC grant is for his doctoral research at York University where he will examine the means by which 'science' came to be seen as an objective authority and tool for hegemony in eighteenth-century Britain.

Jennifer Jozic is writing her Ph.D. dissertation (supervisor: Bill Waiser) on "Data-mining the Legacy of Natural History on the Northern Great Plains". Her dissertation looks at nineteent-century collections of plants, birds, and animals to measure temporal and geographic change in diversity. She is using statistical and modelling work to analyse the  climatic cycles, changes in flora and fauna populations, human migration paths, and land use methods in the Missouri Coteau. These results will be compared with existing narratives, emphasizing concurrent landscape use by aboriginal groups. The interaction between naturalists, government, universities, museums, and herbaria will be emphasized.

Claire Thomson's M.A. research will consider the history of the Lakota people at Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan, with a focus on the Lakota women. Her supervisor is Jim Miller.

Sarah York is writing her M.A. thesis on the social responses to and histories of Saskatchewan's early sex trade in Moose Jaw, Regina, Prince Albert, and Saskatoon, 1885-1930. Her supervisor is Bill Waiser.

Exciting--and diverse--research topics all around! Best of luck to all of you, whether you'll be staying with us or continuing your studies elsewhere!