Scottish historians, in particular, may wish to note that the Special Libraries & Archives facilities at the University of Aberdeen will be closed for renovations from the end of June until the end of August, 2004.

Keith Carlson's PhD dissertation "The Power of Place, the Problem of Time: A Study of Aboriginal Identity and History" received honourable mention in the competition for the John Bullen Prize for outstanding historical dissertation written by a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant living in Canada and attending a Canadian university. Keith's dissertation examines the history of collective identity among the Aboriginal people of the lower Fraser River watershed in British Columbia. He received his award at the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg on June 5, 2004. Congratulations, Keith!

Laurence Kitzan retires from the department on July 1. He joined the Department in 1962, and over the years taught everything from Canadian history to European surveys. Generations of undergrads will remember him best for his classes on British and Imperial history. He supervised many graduate students and ran our grad program for many years. He published Victorian Writers and the Image of Empire: The Rose-Colored Vision in 2001, and is now working on missionaries and governors in India in the 1920s and on 18th & 19th century travellers. Laurence's kettle may have steamed the place up, but the man himself has always been a model of good grace and easy humour. We wish him well, and now that he is Emeritus we hope that he will be a regular visitor to the 6th and 7th floors.

Bill Waiser has received the University of Saskatchewan Distinguished Researcher Award for 2004. Bill is one of Canada's leading historians, with thirteen articles and eight books to his name. His ninth book will be the much-anticipated official history of the province. Best known to a wider public for his Looking Back series on the CBC news, Bill's skills as communicator and teacher on campus brought him a College of Arts and Science Teaching Excellence Award in 2002. Bill is horribly young to be winning these life-time achievement awards, but fortunately for us it is quite likely that the best is yet to come. Click here to read more about Bill and this latest honour.

Congratulations to Professor Emeritus Michael Swan (known to his publishers as Peter Michael Swan) for his recently published monograph, The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History Books 55-56 (9 B.C.-A.D. 14) (Oxford University Press: 2004). Writing in the third century A.D., historian Cassius Dio is our fullest surviving historical source for the reign of the Emperor Augustus. Michael's book offers the first new commentary on this segment of Dio's work to appear since the eighteenth century. As one would expect of Michael, the book is addressed to both students and scholars. Click here for further details.

Paul Jenkins has successfully defended his MA thesis, "Witchcraft on Trial? Sir George Mackenzie, Rebellion, and the Politics of Witch-hunting in Late Seventeenth Century Scotland". Paul has also recently been awarded an Overseas Research Students (ORS) award, administered by Universities UK and the British government's Department of Education and Skills, to assist him in pursuing his doctoral studies in Scottish history at the University of Glasgow, starting this fall. Congratulations, Paul!

Brendan Edwards, just back from delivering a paper at the recent Congress on the topic of book culture in Canada, reports the founding of a new scholarly society, the Canadian Association for the Study of Book Culture / Association Canadienne pour l’étude de l’histoire du livre, dedicated to bringing together those residents of Canada who are interested in the study of written communication in its various forms and processes, and to encouraging the interdisciplinary study and teaching of these subjects. For further details, contact the founding president of the CASBC/ACEHL, Professor Leslie Howsam of the Dept. of History, University of Windsor.

The U of S History Department had a strong presence at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, held in Winnipeg June 3-5 in conjunction with the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Keith Carlson gave a paper entitled "Coyote Goes to London: Literacy and Promises in Aboriginal Oral Traditions and Native-Newcomer Relations", and participated in a roundtable discussion of Cole Harris' Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia (Vancouver: UBC Press), winner of the Sir John A. Macdonald Prize for the best non-fiction work of Canadian history. Whitney Lackenbauer gave a paper on "The Methodological Challenge of “Non-Events”: A Reflection Using Comparative Case Studies on Military-Aboriginal Relations over Land Use in Twentieth-Century Canada". Myra Rutherdale presented a paper on "An Arctic Fashion Show: Northern Women and Southern Clothing, 1930-1970", and chaired a session on mission and residential schools. Jason Zorbas gave a paper on "The Politics of Personalities: Canada and the Organization of American States, 1957-1963". Brendan Edwards delivered a paper at the Symposium on Book and Print Culture. And Jim Miller was the commentator for a session on the "Confluences of Popular Culture, Orality, Racial Stereotypes, and History".

Tonya Lambert (MA 2002), has been awarded a SSHRC doctoral fellowship for her work at the University of Alberta on "Conceiving Rape: Sexual Violence and Reproduction in England, 1250-1750". Her thesis is being supervised by Profs. Andrew Gow and Lesley Cormack. In other news, Tonya participated in the Canadian Society of Medievalists conference at the recent Congress of the Humanities and Social Science, presenting a short paper entitled "Rape and Reproduction in Late Medieval England: Con/De-ception and the Body". Congratulations, Tonya.

John Porter’s article, “Never Give an Adulescens an Even Break (Naevius Com. 36-38 Ribbeck),” has just appeared in The Classical Journal vol. 99 for 2004, pp. 395-403. Professor Porter proposes the emendation of a fragment of the Roman comic playwright Naevius, with reflections on the portrayal of pimps, procuresses, and prostitutes in Roman New Comedy, and on their relationship to their young male customers.

With the D-Day 60th Anniversary coming up this Sunday, the City College of New York Libraries have created the website Government Views of D-Day 1944. The site concentrates on online primary government documents/information from the United States, as well as Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Canada. There are 38 subject headings ranging from Air Operations to Underwater Archaeology and Weather. See it at http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/library/Divisions/Government/DDay.html

The National Library of Scotland's online collection of nearly 1,800 broadsides (posters, early newssheets) lets you see for yourself what The Word On The Street was in Scotland between 1650 and 1910. Crime, politics, romance, emigration, humour, ballads, royalty, superstitions - all these and more are here. Each broadside comes with a detailed commentary and most also have a full transcription of the text, plus a downloadable PDF facsimile. You can search by keyword, browse by title or browse by subject. Here at What's Up, things Scottish have always struck us as more interesting than other things. See what we mean at http://www.nls.uk/broadsides/.