Congratulations to Peter Bietenholz and Tom Deutscher, whose magisterial three-volume Contemporaries of Erasmus (1985-1987) has just been reprinted by the University of Toronto Press in a single volume - without any editorial changes. Between the covers you will find biographical information about more than 1,900 people mentioned in the correspondence and other writings of Erasmus. It amounts to a biographical dictionary of the Renaissance and Reformation, and now that you can get all three volumes in one softcover tome for less than the price of a single volume in hardcover, you really have no excuses for not buying it.

History T.A.s might wish to check out a new feature of the Department website. From the pulldown menu for Graduates, click on "Resources For Grad Students" (or click here) and note that we have added a new section on Resources for History T.A.s. The links on offer provide guidance on marking essays, managing discussions, budgeting your time, and other matters that will seem more pressing next month.

Congratulations to Jim (a.k.a. "J.R.") Miller, who has just published Reflections on Native-Newcomer Relations: Selected Essays (University of Toronto Press, 2004), a collection of some of his finest essays on Native people in Canada. Early reviews confirm that these essays "embody both careful attention to sources as well as great historical imagination." Some have been widely cited by scholars for years, others will find the wider audience they deserve for the first time. (You will be invited to click here for more details should the University of Toroto Press website ever work. In the meantime, feel free to proceed to your nearest bookstore and purchase the book.)

The Oxford Companion to Canadian History has just been published to considerable fanfare. It is a massive undertaking, though not as massive as the Globe reviewer implied when he described it as "bigger than a breadbox", when in fact it is the size of a large book. Our own Bill Waiser served on the Editorial Advisory Board, and the 527 contributors include Ken Coates (now of Sea to Sky University), Steve Hewitt (now of the University of Birmingham, England), Valerie Korinek, Maureen Lux, Jim Miller, Dale Miquelon, Ted Regehr (Emeritus), and Bill Waiser himself. Click here to learn more, but be aware of discounts on offer at online bookstores.

Jim Handy has just published “Chicken Thieves, Witches, and Judges: Vigilante Justice and Customary Law in Guatemala”, Journal of Latin American Studies, 36:3 (2004) 533-56. If you are in the U of S library loop, click here to read it.

For those interested in Scottish History (and who among us is not?) there are several new or upgraded web sites of interest. At http://edina.ac.uk/statacc/ you can find the entire text of the 1791-1799 and 1845 editions of the Scottish Statistical Account, a comprehensive and often quirky contemporary account of Scottish life on a parish-by-parish basis. The indispensible Dictionary of the Scots Language is available at http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl. At http://data.scottishscreen.com/home/ the Scottish Screen Archive offers clips from archival film footage, while the Virtual NLS at http://www.nls.uk/digitallibrary/index.html offers a wonderful array of online exhibitions from the collection of the National Library of Scotland -- including not just a fine rendition of Parson James Gordon's 1660 map of Aberdeen (always a big draw), but a fascinating three-way look at the lives of a general, a nurse, and a regular soldier in World War I.

Alumna sighting: Signa Daum Shanks, who completed the first of her four degrees in our department and is currently pursuing a doctorate in law at the University of Toronto, is one of six winners of a new competition on law reform research aimed at graduate students. The competition is sponsored by the Law Commission of Canada and the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Signa's paper, which is to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, is titled "Who's the Best Indian?", and focusses on a claim by the Dene of northern Saskatchewan, whose caribou hunts historically carried into the Northwest Territories, until their right to hunt was superceded at the creation of Nunavut. Read more about Signa in the August-September issue of University Affairs.

Grad Students please note: the annual History T.A. Workshop will be held on Friday, September 10th, from roughly 11:am to 3:30pm. Stay tuned for further details.

Valerie Korinek was interviewed by CTV News yesterday regarding the telephone-clogging phenomenon of Canadian Idol. Valerie will be teaching an honours seminar on the history of Canadian popular culture this coming year.

Canadians, we are frequently told, love the British (sorry, Canadian) monarchy. For a firm reminder, be sure to catch the last few days of Happy and Glorious: The Royal Presence in Canada at the Diefenbaker Centre on campus. The exhibition ends on August 29th. Click here for further details.

On August 5th, while What's Up wasn't looking, Erin Millions crossed the finish line in glorious fashion, successfully defending her MA thesis, "Ties Undone: A Gendered and Racial Analysis of the Impact of the 1885 Northwest Rebellion on the Saskatchewan Territory". Congratulations, Erin.

Call for papers: Historians of medicine, in particular, may wish to note that the department of Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh, will host a conference in April 2005 on the theme of Diaspora and Disease. The conference will explore issues relating to the transnational circuits of people and associated medical discourses. The movement of people has long been associated with the spread of disease and infections, and the conference will stress historical context by way of understanding current practices. Themes to be developed include: Plague, contamination and international migration; Homeland and healthcare; Infection and the source of disease; Movement of medical staff; and Assimilation and accessing health resources. It is intended that a selection of papers will form the basis of a special edition of a journal focused on diaspora studies, and an edited volume. Abstracts of 300 words should be sent to Paru Raman (pr1@soas.ac.uk) by September 30th 2004. (The full text of the call for papers is posted in the Department Mail Room.)

Doctoral candidate Brendan Edwards is just back from a month in Europe. In late July he presented a paper on Charles A. Cooke at the 12th annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP) in Lyon, France. For the remainder of the month he taught English in Modra, Slovakia. Upon returning he has taken over as Interim Special Collections Librarian at the U of S Library, a temporary half-time position while Janet Catterall (our regular Special Collections Librarian) is on maternity leave. Brendan invites all History faculty and graduate students who are not already aware of the treasures in Special Collections to visit the third floor of the Main Library soon!

The department has issued an updated timetable for undergraduate classes in 2004/05, including a complete list of instructors and room assignments. The page will be updated as any changes occur. It can be accessed under the "Undergraduates" tab at the top of any page on the department web site, or you can go straight there by clicking here.

Alumnus John Friesen (BA.Hons, MA) recently completed his Ph.D. in the history of science at the University of Leeds, and has been awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. He will be settling into Baltimore this September. Congratulations, John, on these outstanding achievements.

Congratulations to Julie Gibbings, who today successfully defended her M.A. thesis,"Becoming Green Citizens and Other Subjects: Community Forests in the Mayan Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala." We wish Julie all the best as she moves on to doctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Genealogists, family historians, and historians generally can find an ever growing body of documentation on the web. Two new for-profit sites may be of interest to those tracing British families. Now in its 107th edition, the venerable Burke's Peerage and Gentry, founded on the principle (familiar to many dog and horse lovers) that breeding counts, can be accessed at http://www.burkes-libraries.com/. Meanwhile, 1837online.com "is part of an independently-owned business that is dedicated to providing high quality genealogical services to professional and non-professional researchers. On this site you will find the entire copy of the indexes of Birth, Marriages and Deaths for England and Wales from 1837 to 2002".

As part of Research Services Day 2004 (September 2nd, in fact), Jim Miller will present a "Session on Grant Writing" for new faculty, current researchers, and graduate students planning to apply to SSHRC in the near future. Jim's presentation runs from 11:am to 12:20. The event runs all day. To pre-register, call 966-8578 or email kathy.wulf@usask.ca, or turn up on the day at the Physics Foyer.

Alumnus Sighting: John Sookocheff (BA 2002) sent in the following bulletin. "I'm currently a second year participant on the JET Programme. I work for the Susaki City Board of Education in Kochi Prefecture, Japan. I teach English to elementary and junior high school students and engage in "internationalization" throughout the prefecture, attend English-language exchanges, cultural events, et cetera. I enjoyed the first year so much, I signed up for a second. I'm looking forward to the challenge and surprises that rural Japan has to offer. My girlfriend and I do a blog so that our families can keep track of us. The address is www.onegaishimasu.blogspot.com."

The M.A. oral examination for Julie Gibbings will be held tomorrow, Wednesday August 18th, at 2:pm in Arts 710. Julie will defend her thesis, "Becoming Green Citizens and Other Subjects: Community Forests in the Mayan Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala." Everyone welcome.