History End of the Year Barbecue

Come one, come all, to the first end of the year history department barbecue! On Wednesday, May 5th from 3-5 p.m. (the last day of classes) in the Wyatt Courtyard, we will have a grill firing up burgers of all sorts, chips, cake, and likely anything else you'd expect to find at an awesome barbecue.

Come celebrate the end of the semester with some food and good company. Mingle with people in your classes, majors and minors you may have not yet met, and department faculty! Please direct any questions to jeschumacher@pugetsound.edu or come by the department on the first floor of Wyatt.

4/26 Presentations -- Adam Sowards '95

Adam Sowards '95, currently an associate professor of history at the University of Idaho, will be on campus on Monday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m. to deliver a presentation on former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. This presentation will be based on his recently published book, The Environmental Justice: William O. Douglas and American Conservation. This presentation will be delivered in the Rotunda.

Professor Sowards will also give a second presentation, envisioned more as a seminar-style talk, at 3:30 p.m. the same day, titled "Claiming Spaces for Science and Nature: The Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913-1918." This seminar will be delivered in Wyatt 301.

Senior Thesis Presentations - Spring 2010

Coming up over these next few weeks, senior history majors will be presenting their research conducted in the capstone course. These European-focused theses deal with a wide variety of subjects and material, and all of them sound eminently interesting.

All thesis presentations will be held from 3:30 p.m. to 4:50 p.m. in Wyatt 109.

Tuesday April 13, 3:30-4:50 p.m.
Panel I: Cultures of Imperialism in the British Empire
Staci Elliott: The Nineteenth Century Opium Trade and British National Identity
Sarah Meister: Mistaken Snowflakes: Modern Feminism and Nationalism in Ireland, 1898-1937

Thursday April 15 3:30-4:50 p.m.
Panel II: The Early Modern Military Revolution Reconsidered
Michael Harbaugh: Spanish Military Evolution and the War of Granada, 1481-1492
Stephen Blocklin: Zweihander: Swiss Army Knife of Renaissance Warfare

Tuesday, April 20 3:30-4:50 p.m.
Panel III: Political Discourses and Identities in Pre-Modern Europe
Amy Woods: The Multiple Purposes behind the Use of Jews in the Writings of the Reformation
Sarah Hill: Braveheart's War: Robert the Bruce and the Scottish Succession Crisis

Thursday April 22 3:30-4:50 p.m.
Panel IV: Missionaries and Cultural Frontiers
Alex Coverdale: Legitimizing Empire: The Civilizing Mission of the East India Company
Annie Maggio: Understanding the Indian-Christian Convert: A Comparison of the Writings of Franciscans Toribio de Motolinía and Bernardino de Sahagún Concerning the Evangelization of New Spain, 1521-1600

Tuesday April 27 3:30-4:50 p.m.
Panel V: Confronting Nazi Germany in Western Democracies
Foster Hill: The Fight for Berlin: “Examining the Struggle over American Participation in the 1936 Olympic Games
Chris McCarthy: Morale Bombing: How Bombing was used as Propaganda by the British during World War II

Thursday April 29 3:30-4:50 p.m.
Panel VI: Elite Politics in Twentieth-Century Dictatorships
Amelia Kurashige-Elliott: Limitations of Soviet Foreign Policy during the Polish Crisis of 1980-1981: The Eclipse of the Brezhnev Doctrine and the End of the Old Regime
Niko Wacker: Friends with Enemies: Hitler's Rise to Power and How He did It

Tuesday May 4 3:30-4:50 p.m.
Panel VII: Psychology and Literature in Nineteenth-Century Russia
Emily Wiecki: Literary Madness and Psychiatry in 19th Century Russia

Tacoma History on Other Blogs

While it was posted a week ago, our town received a shout out from Edge of the American West, an interesting history-focused blog. The blog takes an interesting approach on content in having many members post about issues affecting their discipline, and also about absolutely random memes and other content. Anyway, check out their post on Chinese eviction from Tacoma in the 1880s here.

Medieval Association of the Pacific (MAP) Conference March 5-6

This coming Friday and Saturday (March 5-6), the University of Puget Sound will be hosting the 2010 Medieval Association of the Pacific conference at various locations around campus, primarily in Wyatt and Collins Library.

MAP itself is an "organization of university faculty, students, and independent scholars from around the Pacific Rim, including North America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand," to quote from the organization's website. This is the first time the conference has been held at Puget Sound, which gives students here an excellent opportunity to participate for free in a professional conference.

More information about the conference schedule can be found on the organizing website at http://www.csun.edu/english/map2010/ocs-2/ss.php, but I've included the titles, dates and times, and locations of the two plenary talks.

First Plenary Address — Friday, March 5th at 2pm in Kilworth Chapel Main Hall
“Aristocratic Power and the Natural World: Reshaping the Landscape at Hesdin, c. 1300”
Sharon Farmer, University of California, Santa Barbara (History)

Second Plenary Address – Saturday, March 6th at 1:50pm in the Rotunda
“The Hand of God and the Hand of the Scribe”
Jeffrey Hamburger, Harvard University (Art History)

The conference as a whole should appeal to anyone interest in history, art history, or language and literature, to name a few. Additionally, the conference has the potential to be a great way to network with some of the top scholars in multiple academic fields.

Many Puget Sound faculty are involved in this conference, and many are giving talks. To name a few: Professors Michael Curley, Katherine Smith, Linda Williams, Krista Kotsis, Greta Austin, David Lupher, and more. Apologies to anyone not explicitly named, but sufficed to say, there are a great number of faculty who should be giving interesting presentations.

For more information, visit http://www.csun.edu/english/map2010/ocs-2/ss.php, where you can find full information about all of the planned events for the conference.

Writing Advisor Positions

A quick message from the Center for Writing, Learning, and Teaching advertising for a great on-campus position for juniors or seniors.

"The Center for Writing, Learning, and Teaching is seeking applicants from all academic areas for the 2010-2011 peer writing advisor positions. Application instructions are available in the Center for Writing and Learning, Howarth 105 and 109.

Completed applications should be returned to the Center by March 10, 2010, though we will consider applications until all positions are filled. For more information, call Julie Neff-Lippman at 879-2696, or e-mail neff@pugetsound.edu."

For more information, visit the Center's website at http://www.pugetsound.edu/academics/academic-resources/cwlt/ or download an application at http://www.pugetsound.edu/academics/academic-resources/cwlt/writing/becoming-a-writing-advisor/.

Summer Research Grants

The University has a wonderful program set up to allow students to conduct ten weeks of full-time research over the summer in lieu of finding gainful employment. The University will issue a stipend of $3000 to summer research scholars to ensure scholars need not obtain additional employment. The research conducted often becomes a component of a student's senior thesis, but could also focus on a subject someone might not be able to easily study in their normal curriculum.

Several current history majors have completed successful summer research projects in the past, and would likely be more than willing to talk with anyone putting together a research proposal.

Full details of the grant, which is due no later than March 9th, are available at the following link.