The Umpteenth Annual History Grad Student Book Auction is upon us. Great books way cheap. Friday, April 1st (no kidding), Louis' Pub. 7 pm book perusal, 7:30 auction. Everyone welcome.

Impending graduates and others may wish to check out the following site from Channel 4 television in the U.K.: The Worst Jobs in History, presented by Tony Robinson (the immortal Baldrick of Blackadder fame). Click here to check it out.

Bill Waiser and Jim Miller spoke to a symposium on the history of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan sponsored by the Canadian Studies Programme at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies of the University of London, on Friday, March 18. On March 22nd, Jim gave a paper in the Canadian Studies Seminars series of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, also at the University of London, on "Compact, Contract, Covenant: Canada's Treaty-Making Tradition with Aborignal Peoples." Meanwhile, on March 21st, Bill gave a seminar on his forthcoming Saskatchewan centennial book in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Birmingham. Jim and Bill both insist, in a suspiciously strenuous fashion, that there is no truth to the scurrilous rumour going around that a great deal of time was also devoted to the continuing search for the perfect beer and the perfect Indian restaurant.

The Library is pleased to announce the availability of the The ARTFL Project. The Project for American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language (ARTFL) is a cooperative enterprise of Analyse et Traitement Informatique de la Langue Française (ATILF) of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Division of the Humanities, the Division of the Social Sciences, and Electronic Text Services (ETS) of the University of Chicago. The collection includes a large collection of French language texts and reference works, including a searchable version of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie. This is currently available from the A-Z list of Databases and from the Languages & Linguistics Subject page; it will also soon be added to the History and WGST Subject pages.

John Porter has a busy spring lined up, in which he will deliver three conference papers. On April 1st, he will be discussing "The Lustful Alcumena" at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South in Madison, Wisconsin. On May 14th, he will address the issue of "Speaking to the Point before the Areopagus and in the Ephetic Courts" at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of Canada in Banff. And on May 23rd, he will travel to Crete to present "A Tomb with a View: Petronius' Widow of Ephesus and the Comic Adultery Tale" at the 3rd Rethymnon International Conference on the Ancient Novel.

In February of 2006, the Classical Association of the Canadian West will be holding its annual meeting in Saskatoon. The theme will be Household and Society in the Ancient World, and the keynote speaker will be Lisa Nevett of the University of Michigan. A call for papers describing the nature of the conference can be found at: http://www.usask.ca/classics/cacw/. Further information can be obtained by contacting the conference organizer, John Porter at porterj@duke.usask.ca.

Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS) is for the first time offering an Intensive Summer Latin Program which will credit students with first year Latin (Latin 112.3, Intersession Terms 1 & 2; Latin 113.3, Summer Session Terms 1 & 2) upon successful completion of 14 weeks of study at 2 hours per day. Second year Latin will as usual be taught in the Winter Session (202.3, Term 1 and 203.3, Term 2). This means that summer Latin students, starting in May, will be able to do the equivalent of two full years of Latin in one calendar year; note that a minimum of two years of this language is generally needed to acquire a “reading knowledge” of Latin.

For all of you Latin-starved readers out there in the wider universe, this represents yet another reason to come to sunny, leafy, affordable Saskatoon to attend summer school at the U of S.

Don't get around much anymore? Maybe you need better maps. Check out the new Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/), which will lead you door-to-door just about anywhere on the continent, with maps notably more legible than some rival sites offer. Say, for example, you needed to get from the history department to the Saskatoon Travelodge for reasons explained below. In the search box on Google Maps, type "9 Campus Drive Saskatoon", which will quickly show where we are. When prompted for a "to here" or "from here" address, type "106 Circle Drive W. Saskatoon". Was that hard? You have no excuses now.

History Students Graduation Banquet. The graduation banquet will be help on Saturday, April 9th at the Travelodge Hotel (Circle Drive). Beverages at 6:30, food at approximately 7pm. All students, faculty, and family of students and faculty are invited to celebrate not only the graduation of one more wave of students but also the end of a successful year for the history department. Tickets are $20, available from a friendly HUSA rep in the tunnel from March 29 through April 8th.

Valerie Korinek gave a plenary session, entitled "Fighting for Equality and Justice: An overview of gay and lesbian activism in the Province of Saskatchewan,1970-the Present" for Breaking the Silence--2005: Issues in Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, College of Education, University of
Saskatchewan, March 18-March 19, 2005.

Call for papers: The 2005 Western Canada Undergraduate History Conference will be held at Red Deer College on May 13 and 14. The Conference provides an excellent opportunity for History students from all across Western Canada to share their work and ideas in an exciting and supportive environment. No papers will be refused, all papers will be adjudicated by our distinguished panel of Historians and prizes will be awarded to the top three papers in two categories: Junior (1st & 2nd year students) and Senior (3rd & 4th year students). There is a registration fee of $40 per paper (cheque or money order please, no cash) which will cover each student’s registration package and an awards dinner on Saturday May 14. Please forward submissions along with registration fee to: Dr. James Martens, Box 5005, Red Deer, AB, T4N 5H5. Deadline for submissions is Friday April 8.

The conference The Eighteenth Century: Current Research and Future Perspectives was held this past weekend at Luther College, University of Regina. The conference provided a chance for faculty and grad students from a number of departments at the U of S and the U of R to meet and present their work. Our department was represented by Clay Burlingham, who spoke on Louis XVI, Lisa Smith on medical patients and pain, Gordon DesBrisay on women and church seating, Warren Johnston on the prophet Anne Wentworth, and Karen Sander on women and debt litigation.

Brent McFarlane will present his paper, "The Roman Wore Bowling Shoes: Plautine and Terentian Devices and Resulting Reflections of Society in John Hughes' Uncle Buck," in a CMRS Undergrad Colloquium at STM 344B on Thursday, March 17th (gathering at 3:30, with the talk to commence at 4:00). Brent is currently an undergraduate at the University of Saskatchewan. His play, The Secret of All Literature, was produced on campus last term and will be playing at this summer's Fringe Festival. The paper he will be presenting was recently awarded first prize in the Classical Association of Canada's Junior Undergraduate Essay Contest. Click here for an online copy of the paper. The talk will be accompanied by clips of John Hughes' film and dramatic readings from the works of Plautus and Terence. Everyone welcome.

Google today released the finished version of Google Desktop, a powerful search engine that scours your hard drive for files or snippets of text, at lightening speed. There is simply no comparison to the utterly lame search facilities built into Windows. It now searches pdf files as well as Word, Powerpoint, and most popular e-mail programs. Google offers add-in bits to allow for the searching of Open Office files, as well. Google Desktop is free and powerful and simple to install and use, and will make you wonder how you ever got by without it. Click here to learn more.

And yet. Good as Google Desktop is, we here at What's Up still prefer the equally free and swift and easy and polished Copernic Desktop, which does all the same stuff while also searching WordPerfect files, which Google Desktop still does not. Both programs work fine with Windows XP, but Copernic is said to be the best choice for Windows 98 or ME. Click here to learn more, or here for a useful review.

Call for Papers. A reminder that The College of Graduate Studies and Research and the Graduate Students’ Association invites grad students to submit a paper for the 13th Annual University of Saskatchewan Graduate Student Conference. This year's theme is “Interdisciplinarity: Methodologies and Practices in Academia”, and presenters are encouraged to organize and develop their research and arguments through the vein of interdisciplinarity; considering questions such as: how does an interdisciplinary approach enhance or decrease specific research, is interdisciplinary studies beneficial to research, or does it diminish the product? What is interdisciplinarity? Are some disciplines more open to interdisciplinarity than others? Having said all that, the organizers are disarmingly honest (would that other conference organizers were so honest) in admitting that "Submissions need to be only marginally related to the theme."

Submissions are welcome from graduate students in Master’s, Doctoral, Post-Doctoral, and related graduate student programs, and from either full-time or part-time graduate students.

The deadline for submissions has been extended to April 10, 2005. Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words, and may be submitted by e-mail to bsa_admn@duke.usask.ca.

Tuesday, March 8. Whelen Visiting Lecture. John Borrows, Professor and Law Foundation Chair of Aboriginal Justice and Governance, University of Victoria. "Creating Canada: Constructing an Indigenous Country." 7:00 PM, Delta Bessborough. Everyone welcome. Public reception to follow. Click here for further details.

The March Graduate Student Colloquium will feature papers by Liz Scott, Kim Duong, and Jillian Staniec. Thursday, March 17th. Faculty Club downstairs, 7:30 - 9:00 pm. Faculty, Grad Students, and Honours Students.

Our friends at CMRS are crazy busy these days, with the following events imminent:

Thursday, March 3, CMRS Colloquium. Annabel Robinson, University of Regina. "The Falling Apple, the Fixed Stars, and the Circling Moon: the Creative Imagination of Jane Harrison". STM 344B, refreshments 3:30, talk at 4:00. Everyone welcome.

Friday, March 4. CMRS Research Workshop Seminar. Alan Reese, STM/History Department, "Erasmus' Christian Anthropology and the Correction of the Ascetic Tradition," Boffins, 3:30-5:30. Faculty and invited guests.

Thursday March 10. CMRS Colloquium. Joanne Rochester, Dept. of English. "'This my Poor Image': Renaissance Sculpture and Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale". STM 344B, refreshments at 3:30, talk at 4:00. Everyone Welcome.

Friday, April 1. CMRS Research Workshop Seminar, Peter Burnell, Department of History, "Just War and Pacifism in Early Christianity". Boffins, 3:30-5:30. Faculty and Invited Guests.

Jenn and Whitney Lackenbauer had a baby son, Harrison, last month. Mother and child are reported to be doing well, and Harrison is a good-as-gold baby, proving, Whitney says, that he takes after his mother. Congratulations to Harrison and his folks.