Brendan Cook (BA hons, MA), currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto (a well-regarded institution in central Canada), has just been awarded an Ontario Graduate Scholarship . Brendan also reports that he passed his Ph.D. Latin exam at the Centre for Medieval Studies, along with his Latin Paleography class. Congratulations, Brendan!

Empire Online is a new document collection available through the U of S Library, a searchable database containing full text images of original manuscripts and printed material, 1492-1969, taken from libraries and archives around the world. It covers Africa, the Americas, Australasia, Oceania and South Asia. It also includes a strong core of document images from the British Library and from the Oriental and India Office Collections at the British Library. Two of the five sections are available thus far:

Section I: Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969 (March 2003)
Section II: Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire (March 2004)
Section III: The Visible Empire (Winter 2004/5)
Section IV: Religion and Empire (Winter 2005/6)
Section V: Race, Class and Colonialism, c1783-1969 (Winter 2006/7)

Check it out at http://library.usask.ca/scripts/access?EMPIRE

Note to instructors: course packs and electronic reserves permitted for a "reasonable portion."

The U of S Library has just added links to a batch of new history-related electronic journals. Click on the titles to see:

Cromohs: Cyber Review of Modern Historiography

Delaware Review of Latin American Studies

E-Journal of Portuguese History

Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies

Electronic journal of oriental studies

Eras

Fundus: Forum fr Geschichte und ihre Quellen

Gottinger Forum fr Altertumswissenschaft

Historia

History of Intellectual Culture

International Journal of Naval History

Intersections: gender, history & culture in the Asian context

Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies

The 2004 Grad Student Book Pub was a huge success, raising a world-record total of $754.50! Since the amount of money surpassed the wildest dreams, the HGSC has decided to donate a portion of the profits to the Dave De Brou Memorial Scholarship Fund.

MA candidate Paul Jenkins has just published "'Fire Sparkles Ordinarily From the Collision of Two Bodies': Sir George MacKenzie and the Decline of the Scottish Witch-Hunts in Context", in S.K. Kehoe and Iain H. MacPhail, eds. A Panorama of Scottish History: Contemporary Considerations (University of Glasgow, 2004). Congratulations, Paul.

Two new journals pertaining to American history have been added to the U of S Library EJournal database: click on the titles to see the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era and Oregon Historical Quarterly.

On Saturday May 2 CRC post-doctoral fellow Myra Rutherdale will present a paper "Autobiographical Approaches To Nursing History: Methodological Pitfalls and Promises" in a session called "Approaches To Remoteness or Was There A "Normal" In Canadian Nursing History," at an international conference in Banff, Alberta on Qualitative Health Research. From there she will fly to Yellowknife, NWT for a week of research at the territorial archives. Click here for the conference program.

A major collection of rare books, manuscripts, historic documents, maps and art of the Americas has been donated to the Library of Congress by the Jay I. Kislak Foundation of Miami Lakes, Fla. The collection contains some of the earliest records of indigenous peoples in North America and superb objects from the discovery, contact and colonial periods, especially for Florida, the Caribbean and Mesoamerica. Click here for details.

Whitney Lackenbauer, current CRC Postdoctoral Fellow and soon to be a member of the History Department of St. Jerome's University in Waterloo, has been busy. He delivered the lecture on Vimy Ridge to the Command and Staff Course at Canadian Forces College in Toronto on 9 February. In late February and early March, he undertook a research trip to the Northwest Territories and Yukon, where he participated as an "augmentee" on a Canadian Rangers field exercise in the central Yukon. Whitney learned a tremendous amount about northern cultures, and the Ross River Ranger patrol made him an honourary Ranger. The valuable research he collected will provide the basis for an article in The Army Doctrine and Training Bulletin on Ranger instructors due out this summer, as well as the monograph he is writing on the history of the Canadian Rangers.

Another New Book: Congratulations to Brett Fairbairn, who has just published Living the Dream: Membership and Marketing in the Co-operative Retailing System (Centre for the Study of Co-operatives, 2003). Aimed at both academic and civilian readers, the book serves as a primer on the co-operative system, offering a fascinating glimpse into a successful community-based business model that has adapted in surprising ways to the challenges of globalization. Brett's earlier book, Building a Dream: The Co-operative Retailing System in Western Canada, 1928–1988, has just been reprinted by the Centre. Click here for details.

New Book: Congratulations to Jim Miller, who has just published Lethal Legacy: Current Native Controversies in Canada (McLelland and Stewart, 2004). The book explores the deep historical roots that underpin and bedevil Native-newcomer relations in general and recent controversies in particular. In five sections this book covers topics such as Native identity, self-government, treaties, attitudes to land and ownership, and assimilation. Jim acknowledges the fact that there are no easy solutions, but argues that greater understanding is the foundation for building successful relations between Natives and non-Natives in Canada. There is no need for to wait for the library to acquire a copy, because it is available in fine bookstores everywhere. Click here to read more about it.

Research Excellence: Members of the History Department have once again done well in the annual competition for research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Congratulations to Ken Coates, Angela Kalinowski, John McCannon, Jim Miller, and Myra Rutherdale, all of whom won standard research fellowships, and to Whitney Lockenbauer who won a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship.

Fond Farewells: Speaking of Myra Rutherdale and Whitney Lockenbauer, our two postdoctoral fellows in Native-Newcomer history, they have each been successful in their hunt for a tenure track position. Myra has accepted a postion at York University in Toronto (taking her research grant with her), while Whitney (who will have to turn down his postdoc award) has accepted a position at St. Jerome's University at the University of Waterloo. Congratulations and best wishes to both of them.

Ph.D. candidate Brendan Edwards will be presenting two papers this summer on the literary efforts of Charles A. Cooke (Thawennensere), a Mohawk employee of the Department of Indian Affairs, 1893-1926. One at a Symposium on History & Print Culture in June at the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities in Winnipeg; and the other in July at the twelfth annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP) in Lyon, France.
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Lisa Smith is just back from a lightning raid on England, where she presented a paper entitled "The Duties of a Man: Making Medical Decisions in Early Modern England and France" at an interdisciplinary conference, Masculinity, Patriarchy and Power, at the University of Southampton. The programme (or program, if you would rather) for the conference can be found at: http://www.soton.ac.uk/~pes1/masculinity/programme.html.

Mark Meyers has been named a Fellow of the Ninth Annual Summer Institute for the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization, which will take place at Northwestern University from June 20 to July 2nd of this year.

London's Past Online, produced by the Centre for Metropolitan History in association with the Royal Historical Society Bibliography, is a free online bibliography of published material relating to the history of the Greater London area. In it, you will be able to find everything relating to the history of the capital, from counting house to music hall; from the Fire to the Blitz; from Whittington to Livingstone. It should represent a starting point for all enquiries concerning London's development over the centuries or any conceivable aspect of London life, whether from the academic historian, the amateur or the general enquirer. See it here at http://www.history.ac.uk/cmh/lpol/.

British History Online is the digital library of text and information about people, places and businesses from the medieval and early modern period, built by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust. The site contains a treasure trove of primary documents, including 17th century records of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, a 1695 list of the inhabitants of London, and a growing number of county histories. See it at http://www.british-history.ac.uk/.

The Manitoba Historical Society is about half way through a major digitization project which will eventually see all of the society's 125 years worth of publications up on the web. So far the important Transactions series, dating from 1881 to 1980 have all been digitized. This is an important resource on the web for students, both k-12 and university, researchers and the general reader. Almost any topic in Manitoba history has been covered in the Transactions. Many famous Manitobans from John Christian Schultz to Francis Beynon and W.L. Morton published work in the Transactions. See it at http://www.mhs.mb.ca/info/pubs/transactions.shtml

The History Grad Students' Book Pub is now scheduled for Friday April 23 at Louis. As before, the doors will open at 7:00 pm and the auction will start at 7:30. We've had so many donations of books this year that we can't possibly auction them all so besides having the regular auction we will also be selling the books that are not in the auction for 50 cents for paperbacks and $1.00 for hardcovers. So people may want to come at 7:00 to buy some of the books that are for sale and check out the auction lots before we start the auction.

Attention History Honours Students. Did you know that the the Kathleen R. McKenzie Scholarship of roughly $1700 is awarded annually to the student with the highest cumulative percentage average in all courses who is entering the fourth year of an Honours program in History? Oh, yeah. You betcha. Selection is made by the Department of History. But you must apply to be considered for this award. So, if your grades are there or thereabouts be sure to fill out the simple, short application form: you never know who won't! The deadline is April 30th. Application forms are available in the bin attached to the wall by the door to the mail room, or print your own right here at: http://www.usask.ca/history/undergrad_awards_mckenzie.shtml.

A reminder that the library trial for the online resource Empire Online: Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969 ends April 15, 2004 . The site enables faculty, graduate, and undergradute students to examine "cultural contacts throughout five centuries of Empire, from Columbus to decolonisation, [drawing] upon manuscript sources such as the diaries and eyewitness accounts of European travellers, correspondence and periodical literature." See it here at http://library.usask.ca/eresources/trials/trials.htm#eicc.

The University of Regina and University of Saskatchewan HISTORY GRADUATE STUDENTS' CONFERENCE will be held on Friday, 30 April, 4.00 pm - Saturday, 1 May, 4.00 pm at the Park Town Hotel in Saskatoon. This event will feature presentations by Masters and Doctoral Candidates in History from the U of R and the U of S on a wide range of historical subjects. Professor Bill Waiser will deliver the keynote address on Friday, 30 April entitled, "Looking back at Looking Back: doing Saskatchewan history on television." All are welcome to attend and are encouraged to register for this event before 16 April, 2004. Registration is $40, though there are cheaper options depending on your dining preferences. The registration form is available in the History Department mail room, or direct from Jennifer Hamel at jenniferxhamel@yahoo.ca. Forms and cheques made out to "Department of History, University of Saskatchewan" should be placed in Jennifer's mailbox on the 7th floor.

MIT's OpenCourseWare is a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world. Instuctors developing courses may find these materials especially interesting. There is an OCW unit for History, with a wide range of courses on offer. See http://ocw.mit.edu/.

The Library of Congress has announced the release of the online collection A Civil War Soldier in the Wild Cat Regiment: Selections from the Tilton C. Reynolds Papers, available on the Library's American Memory Web site, at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/tcrhtml/.

MALVINE is an online search service for post-medieval manuscripts hosted by the Berlin State Library and maintained by a European consortium of libraries, archives, and museums. MALVINE provides details on the nature and location of manuscripts held by a wide range of cultural heritage institutions. See it at http://www.malvine.org/.

If you wish to offer condolences to Denise De Brou and to Norma, Bruce, Audrey, and grandson Tyson, you can write to park@arbormemorial.com.

If you were a student or colleague or friend of Dave's and would like to share your memories of him, please e-mail desbrisay@usask.ca and we will post them on the department web site, on the Memories of Dave page.

Astonishing as it is to have to report this, the arrangements for the funeral of our dear friend Dave De Brou are as follows:

Funeral:
10 a.m. Monday April 5th
St. Philip Neri Roman Catholic Church
1902 Munroe Ave. (Taylor and Munroe)
Reception to follow in the school gym.

Any of Dave's students who care to attend will be especially welcome.

Interment later in the afternoon at Woodlawn Cemetary
(1502 - 2nd Ave. N.)