Lisa Smith sends along this link to a blog--Larkfall---that gives our own Frank Klaassen recognition for his work on magician, and Elizabethan gentleman adventurer, Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
http://larkfall.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/visionary-magicke-an-elizabethan-gentleman-in-the-underworld/

Battlefield Study Tour 26 May to 9 June 2013 Now in its 19th year, the Canadian Battlefields Foundation Study Tour is intended for Canadian university students who want to learn more about the role Canadians played in the liberation of Europe in the World Wars. This year’s tour, led by Prof. Andrew Iarocci (UWO) and Prof. Graham Broad (King’s University College, UWO) will visit Ypres, the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Dieppe, the Normandy battlefields, and participate in ceremonies marking the anniversary of D-Day. The Foundation offers a bursary to each successful applicant but requires them to contribute $1000 towards the cost of the tour, which includes air and ground travel from Toronto, accommodation, meals, and study materials. Students will be expected to prepare for the trip academically, to lead one on-site discussion, present a short biography of a Canadian soldier buried at one of the sites on the itinerary, and keep a detailed journal describing their experiences. Outstanding undergraduates, graduate students, and very recent grads are encouraged to apply. Submit five copies of the application form found at www.cbf-fccb.ca by February 25th, 2013, along with official university transcripts and two academic letters of reference to: Prof. Graham Broad, Dept of History King’s University College, UWO 266 Epworth Ave., London, ON N6A 2M3 For more info, contact Prof. Andrew Iarocci aiarocc@uwo.ca, Prof. Graham Broad gbroad@uwo.ca

CBF Battlefield Study Tour, 26 May to 9 June 2013Canadian Battlefields Study Tour

Congratulations Christian Elcock

Congratulations to Christian Elcock, for winning the William M. Jones Award for the Outstanding Graduate Student Paper in American Culture for his paper, The Psychedelic Movement Beyond the Sixties: Continuity and Discontinuity. Christian is Erika Dyck's Ph.D. student in the History of Medicine. 

The award will be presented at the PCA/ACA Conference in Washington D. C. at the Wardman Park Marriott on Friday, March 29, 2013, at the 11:30A.M. special Awards Ceremony. 

Congratulations Melanie Racette-Campbell

Melanie Racette-Campbell (MA in CMRS 2007) is continuing to do us proud.

This past year (2011-2012) she was awarded the U of T CAMWS award for outstanding accomplishment by a student in Classical Studies.

She also helped to organize and chair a three-part international panel on "“Women and the Reception of the Classical World" at the Spring 2012 meeting of the Classical Association of Canada.

And, in addition to having just successfully defended her PhD thesis at the U of T, she now has an article based on her MA thesis that is set to come out out this Spring in Classical Journal: "Marriage Contracts, Fides, and Gender Roles in Propertius 3.20" (set to appear in vol. 108.3). 

Please congratulate Melanie if you have occasion to correspond with her.

Keewatin Conference

Magic in the Archives What do historians do in the archives? Read a lot, take a lot of notes… sometimes get excited (quietly) when they find something wonderful. But Wi-fi and social media can also allow historians to share their moments of archival thrills. The last couple days, Lisa Smith (who is on sabbatical) has been transcribing an eighteenth-century French witch’s spell book at the Wellcome Library, London. It’s a fascinating source, as you might expect, and she’s been sharing her delight. Why stop at transcribing, when you can tweet magical spells? Her spell tweets have been rounded up by Daniel Goldberg on Storify under the grand title, “In the Archives: Recipes, Remedies & Spells in #HistMed: An historian of medicine works with an 18th c. spellbook. Awesome in so many ways . . .” For some spells on talking to the animals, chasing away snakes, you can read the story as it emerges here: http://storify.com/prof_goldberg/in-the-archives-recipes-remedies-and-spells-in-his When asked what tweeting adds to the research experience, Smith noted that she thinks more closely about the meaning of each spell while she transcribes, in part because she is spending more time at an early research stage on closely translating each line. And besides, it’s fun.