Your Chance to Win... A Roman Coin!

The Archaeology Students Association is now selling tickets for a chance to win an authentic Roman coin. The coin is a silver denarius from the Roman Republic (c. 104 BCE) with Roma on the obverse and Saturn in his chariot on the reverse.

Tickets are $5 each or three for $10. The draw date will be November 1st.

Tickets can be purchased from any one of the ASA executive (President Lyle Goldie, VP Jeffrey Seckinger, Treasurer Heather Kerr or Secretary Rebecca Jackson). Their office is on the third floor of the Archaeology building (rm. 334) and they can usually be found lurking around the coffee pot.

Images: Past, Present, Future

Former history instructor, Dr. Jack Coggins, shows us that historians need not only focus on history. His exhibition, Images: Past, Present, Future, is now on at the STM College Art Gallery.

Dates: September 20-October 23
Hours: Regular building hours
Location: STM College, 2nd Floor, outside the Library
Admission: Free

Graduate Student Success

Congratulations to Ph.D. student, Liz Scott, who has received two awards this year for her project "'I Bless the Hour I Came Here:' East London Emigration and Perceptions of Empire, 1867-1914".

This summer, she held an Andrew W. Mellon Pre-Dissertation Fellowship in the Humanities (Institute of Historical Research, London). She was paired with a mentor from Birkbeck College, Dr. David Feldman. Liz reports that it was a fantastic experience and lovely way to spend the summer months! [ed. comment: Indeed, the weather in London was far better than in Saskatoon this summer.]

In January, she will be off to London again. She has been awarded a SSHRC Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement and will be working as a Visiting Research Fellow, hosted by Dr. Barbara Taylor (University of East London) at the Raphael Samuel History Centre. This is part of a partnership between the Bishopsgate Institute, the University of East London and Birkbeck College for the Study of the History of East London. She is delighted that the centre is located just around the corner from Spitalfields Market and the old Petticoat Lane Market, which will provide excellent study-break spots! [ed. comment: What she does not note is the RSHC's close proximity to Brick Lane, which is one of London's top curry house destinations.]

Happy researching, Liz!

Oral History Workshop

Interested in learning more about how to do oral history in your own research?

Please join Omeasoo Butt, Liam Haggarty, and Mandy Fehr, PhD candidates in the Department of History, to share what they learnt from the Regional Oral History Office at the University of California, Berkeley this summer at the Advanced Oral History Summer Institute. Topics to be addressed include:
· Methodology – how to set up your interviews, the pre-interview, interview questions
· Theory – Understanding your role and the role of your interviewee
· Project Planning- where to start?
· Writing Oral History

Please RSVP to Mandy Fehr at abf948@mail.usask.ca no later than Wednesday September 29th. Space is Limited.

Date: September 30
Time: 1-4 p.m.
Place: Arts 1007

Place and Replace

On September 16-18, our History Department was well represented at the 'Place and Replace' joint meeting of Western Canadian Studies and St John's College Prairies Conference in Winnipeg. Although conference attendees still haven't come to a consensus on whether or not the west is the prairies, or the west includes BC, we nonetheless forged ahead with a diverse set of papers covering an expanse of topics that centred around examinations of 'place'. Topics included areas of Aboriginal, environment, gender, technology and migration history, indicative of the vibrant scholarship in western Canadian history. Members of our department included Tolly Bradford, Jon Clapperton, Stephanie Danyluk, Erika Dyck, Mandy Fehr, Liam Haggarty, Heather Stanley and former U of S student Margaret Robbins.

Story credit: Erika Dyck
Photo caption: Conference-weary travelers at the Winnipeg airport

Girl with the Pearl Earring

HUSA starts its annual film series with Girl with the Pearl Earring, introduced by Dr. Lisa Smith. The film is a beautiful depiction of seventeenth-century life, portraying the household of painter Johannes Vermeer from the perspective of young maidservant Griet. This movie has it all: simmering domestic tensions, the precariousness of art as an occupation and history by the bucketloads. Starring Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson.

When: September 29
Where: Arts 134
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Price: Free

Revival of the A.S. Morton Chair

Dr. Bill Waiser, SOM, FRSC, starts off the year as our newly appointed A.S. Morton Chair. The Chair, with a term of five years, was created in 1967 to recognise excellence in scholarly achievement: publications, national and international reputation, research grant success and peer reviews.

Bill has written widely (thirteen books!) on western Canadian social and environmental history. Recent titles include Tommy's Team: The People Behind the Douglas Years (2010, with S. Houston) and the award-winning Sasatchewan: A New History (2005). In addition to regular media appearances, he also hosted the CBC Saskatchewan T.V. program, Looking Back: 1999-2001. His list of accomplishments includes receiving the Saskatchewan Order of Merit (2006) and Centennial Medal and induction into the Royal Society of Canada (2007). At the U of S, he has received awards of excellence in teaching, research and alumni honour.

In the words of our Department Head, Valerie Korinek, Bill "exemplifies the Department's culture of research intensity, teaching excellence, and community engagement, and we congratulate him on this award. We know he will be an excellent ambassador for historical research."

Image: A very young Bill Waiser
Image Credit: Provided by Bill Waiser

Meet the Profs

Once again, HUSA's "Meet the Profs" night is upon us. History students, students interested in history and history professors all welcome!

Date: Thursday, September 23
Time: 7 p.m.
Place: Alexander's (second floor)

Dying and Dining in a Roman Cemetery

The Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program is very pleased to invite everyone to an illustrated lecture by Professor Lea Stirling, Canada Research Chair in Roman Archaeology at the University of Manitoba, entitled "Dying and Dining in A Roman Cemetery in Leptiminus (Lamta, Tunisia)."

When: Friday, October 1
Where: St. Thomas More College, Rm 344B
Time: Refreshments 3:30, Talk 4:00.

Roman Feast?

The University of Saskatchewan’s Museum of Antiquities is honouring its recent benefactors and sponsors with a themed dinner, “The Flavours of Ancient Rome”. Taste Roman-inspired delights created by Faculty club chef Kevin Calder! The event will take place in the Window Room of Faculty Club on Thursday September 30 at 6:00 pm. For information and tickets please contact Tracene Harvey at 966-7818, or visit the Museum of Antiquities Rm. 106 College Building. Ticket prices: $15.00 students. $50.00 non-students. All are welcome!

History of Medicine Seminar Series (2010-11)

The Canada Research Chair in Medicine (Erika Dyck) will be hosting the first ever History of Medicine Seminar Series this year. She's organised a fantastic line-up of speakers and everyone is welcome to attend. The seminars will be held at 4 p.m. at the Faculty Club (Club Room) -- and refreshments will be included.

October 21: Lucas Richert (U of S), "Protecting Americans to Death?: Revisiting Reaganomics, the FDA and Free-market Pharmaceuticals in the 1970s and 1980s"

November 18: Susanne Klausen (Carleton), "'We want to ensure that what happened in England will not happen here': The Abortion Debate in Apartheid South Africa"

January 20: Geoff Hudson (Northern Ontario School of Medicine), "'An Indescribable Level of Degradation': Pre-Nightingale Nursing Re-examined"

February 17: Lesley Biggs (U of S), "Beyond the Two Silos: A Framework for Theorizing Alternative and Biomedical Knowledges"

March 24: David Herzberg (SUNY), "'The Pill You Love Can Turn On You': Feminism, the Valium Panic, and Late 20th-century Prescription Scares"

For more information, contact Dr. Lucas Richert (Postdoctoral Fellow): lucas.richert@usask.ca .

Interesting New History Websites

Over the last year, I've been compiling a list of nifty new history websites. There may be a slight history of medicine bias... But if you've discovered some other sites that you think would interest people, let me know.

The Casebooks Project is putting the records of early modern astrologer-physicians Simon Forman and Richard Napier online, if you'd like to find out how astrology and medical treatment used to go hand-in-hand.

Recipes, Remedies and Receipts focuses on manuscript recipe collections (c. 1500-1900), providing finding aids, links to libraries with relevant holdings and historical context information (if you want to know more about "snail water" or "oil of swallows"). But why stop there? If you have a pre-modern manuscript recipe collection, the site authors would love to hear from you!

In related news, The Wellcome Library (London) has been digitizing their collection of seventeenth-century recipe collections, if you fancy trying your hand at reading them.

Six archives and libraries in the U.S. have formed a History of Medicine Finding Aids Consortium, bringing together their finding aids. It makes it possible to do easy searching for many American history of medicine topics. Carrying on the "recipe" theme, I found thirteen different entries at four different libraries.

Have you visited any history of medicine monuments or places recently? If so, Himetop (the History of Medicine Topographical Database) would like to know about it. There are only two entries for Canadians so far. It's a wiki, which allows contributors to share their knowledge and pictures of places related to the history of medicine.

The Livingstone Online project is an online edition of David Livingstone's medical and scientific correspondence. You can view the original documents, as well as read transcriptions. The site authors have provided a helpful "historical companion" to the letters.

London Lives is my current favourite, largely because I've discovered some rapscallions in my husband's family tree. The database brings together holdings from over eight archives, making it possible to search over 3 million names of Londoners (1690-1800). The documents can tell us much about crime, poverty, apprenticeship, voting... and makes it possible to reconstruct biographies of individuals.

How to be a Retronaut offers an irreverent look at history, bringing together the past and present in intriguing ways.

I'll end on a modern, rather beautiful note. If you want to see coloured photos of Russia a century ago, Boston.com recently had a series of fascinating images of the Russian Empire.