Dr. Françoise Noël wins a prize!

Dr. Françoise Noel, longtime member of our department, has recently been awarded
the Ontario Historical Society's Fred Landon Award, for the best book on regional history in the past three years. the book is Family and Community Life in Northeastern Ontario, The Interwar Years, a study which is both solid in the scholarly sense and entertaining, especially for those interested in the grassroots history of our area. Family and Community Life is Dr. Noel's fourth book, which makes her a very productive scholar indeed.

This announcement gives me an excuse to reproduce the cover of the book, a wonderful work by a local artist.

Natalie Zemon Davis will be at Nipissing University in September

Mark your calendars: the exact date is September 24.

Davis is one of the most eminent historians in Canada, or even North America as a whole today. She is famous for taking difficult sources and putting flesh on them dry bones. Perhaps her most well-known project was interpreting the story of a 16th-century French imposter, Martin Guerre -- a project that produced a book on the case itself, an article on her methodology, and
a movie recreating the story. This one example of her work is typical of her interest and skill in communicating with people who aren't scholars as well as those who are.

It's quite an honor to have Davis accept the History Department's invitation to speak. Take advantage of this opportunity to hear her if you can. More details as available.

Oh, yes, when we are talking about eminence and reaching a broader public, there is this recent honor to make the point.

History Club Update

From the History Club:

You are invited to our Year-End Lunch Meeting will be on Tuesday, April 6th at 11:30am in F304. We will enjoy some lunch and introduce next year's executive! Take a study break and plan to attend!

Third Annual Undergraduate Research Conference -- today and tomorrow

From David Tabachnick:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Come out and support our students!

You are invited to the Third Annual Undergraduate Research Conference at Nipissing University this Friday, March 26th and Saturday, March 27th. If you are planning to attend, please RSVP Hilary Earl (hearl@nipissingu.ca).

Despite our late start organizing, this year's conference will be the biggest one yet!

Thank you to everyone that has volunteered their time and ideas. Because of your hard work and, of course, the research of our students, this will be an excellent event.

Program at a Glance

Friday March 26, 2010

Time Program Location

6:30 - 9:30 pm Registration Nipissing Front Lobby

7:00 - 7:15 pm Welcome Fideli Room (F210)

7:15 - 8:00 pm Keynote Address Dr. Jeff Dech Fideli Room (F210)

8:00 - 9:30 pm Poster Presentations Nipissing Front Lobby

Reception

Saturday March 27, 2010

Time Program Location

8:15 - 8:45 am Registration A246 - Small Cafeteria

8:45 - 9:00 am Opening Remarks - David Tabachnick A246 - Small Cafeteria

9:00 - 10:30 am Concurrent Sessions

#1 - Reproductive & Family Health & NATO A228

#2 - The Dionne Quintuplets A224

#3 - Atrocities in History A226

10:30 - 10:45 am BREAK A246 - Small Cafeteria

10:45 - 12:00 pm Concurrent Session

#4 - New Technologies in Research A226

#5 - Research in Education A228

#6 - Shaping Political Identities A224

12:00 - 1:00 pm LUNCH A246 - Small Cafeteria

1:00 - 2:20 pm Concurrent Sessions

#7 - Experiments in Chemistry and Biology A226

#8 - East Meets West A224

#9 - How to do Things with Numbers A228

2:20 - 2:35 pm BREAK A246 - Small Cafeteria

2:35 - 3:55 pm Concurrent Sessions

#10 - Land, People, & Politics A228

#11 - Jung, the Young, and the (Un)dead A226

#12 - Twentieth century World Issues A224

3:55 - 5:15 pm Concurrent Sessions

#13 - Re-visioning Identity A224

#14 - Plant Populations: Crops and Forests A226

#15 - Three Pillars of Nazi Germany A228

5:15 - 5:45 pm Closing Remarks - Dean Bavington A246 - Small Cafeteria

Prizes

Seminar Series: Glenn Tunnock, "The Algonquin Land Claim"

From Dr. James Murton:

For its final meeting of this year, the History Department Seminar Series is pleased to present historian and land use planner Glenn Tunnock, speaking on "The Algonquin Land Claim: A Return to Self-Determination."

The presentation will tell the story of the Algonquin’s relationship to the settlement of eastern Upper Canada since the early seventeenth century and their quest to reconnect with the land and rekindle their cultural heritage. Tunnock holds an MA degree in history at Queen's University, where he studied the Algonquin Land Claim, and is working with the Algonquin First Nation through the establishment of a scholarship fund designed to assist young Algonquin to pursue educational initiatives which will enable them to acquire the skills to assist their nation in implementing the land claim settlement (see full abstract and presenter bio below).

Friday, Mar 26, 2:30 pm in Rm A226

Refreshments will be served. Everyone welcome!

From the History Club

History Club Updates:

You are invited to our Year-End Lunch Meeting will be on Tuesday, April 6th at 11:30am in F304. We will enjoy some lunch and introduce next year's executive! Take a study break and plan to attend!

Don't forget about our annual Platonic Symposium, in conjunction with the Nipissing University History Club, on Monday, March 29th (less than a week away!) at 7:00pm in the Owl's Nest Lounge. Come out to discuss some of the greatest political and historical questions. There will be a cash bar and light hors d'oeuvres will be served. Tickets are $5 and are available through Holly Garnett, Sam Mackie, Matt Morris and Ryan Michaelis. You can also email back if you would like to arrange for a ticket!

Other Updates (Cinema Politica):

Looking for something to do before the Symposium? Cinema Politica is showing the film "Examined Life" at 5:00pm in R308 on Monday, March 29th. Everyone is welcome. A Pizza dinner will be served!

Derek Neal at tomorrow's research talk, 12:30 pm, Room A222G

From the Research Office:

You are invited to attend the
Nipissing University Research Talk Series

Tomorrow, Wednesday, March 17th
Time: 12:30 – 1:30pm
Room: A222G
(same room as last year)

Speaker: Derek Neal – History
Men of the Parish: Conflict and cooperation among clerics and laymen in 16th-century England

Refreshments will be available – please bring your own lunch

Nathan Kozuskanich leads off in "Pennsylvania's Revolution"

Dr. Nathan Kozuskanich has long studied and contributed to the early history of the United States, including a brief on the US Second Amendment that was submitted to the US Supreme Court. Now he has contributed his expertise to an important new book on the revolution in Pennsylvania, where a great deal of the political and ideological action took place. His is the leadoff essay in Penn State University's Pennsylvania's Revolution, “'Falling Under the Domination Totally of Presbyterians': The Paxton Riots and the Coming of the Revolution in Pennsylvania." The publisher says:

Pennsylvania’s Revolution embodies a new era of scholarship about the state’s Revolutionary past. It breaks from a narrowly focused study of Philadelphia and the 1776 Constitution to evaluate Pennsylvania’s internal conflicts during the Revolutionary period.

It is exciting stuff and if you want to know more, follow this link.

History Seminar Series, Immigrant Women and their Food, Friday, March 12

From James Murton:

Jennifer Evans, University of Toronto, will present some research that she originated here in the History MA program.

'It was part of everything': Immigrant women’s stories of food and cooking in postwar North Bay, Ontario
Date & Time: Friday, Mar 12, 2:30 pm in Rm A226.

A study of immigrant women’s experiences with food and cooking raises questions about how women’s everyday experiences in their kitchens related to their larger transnational contexts: How did women’s experiences in their homelands shape their perceptions of the food and cooking practices in North Bay, and what did it mean for their own cooking?

Come find out!

Hilary Earl speaks on her book

Dean Bavington alerts us to the fact that Dr. Hilary Earl has been interviewed in the podcast series New Books in History. Here's a brief summary from the NBIH webpage:

Hitler caused the Holocaust, that much we know (No Hitler, no Holocaust). But did he directly order it and, if so, how and when? This is one of the many interesting questions posed by Hilary Earl in her outstanding new book The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial, 1945-1958: Atrocity, Law, and History (Cambridge UP, 2009). The book is about the trial of the leaders of the Einsatzgruppen, the mobile killing units that, in 1941 and 1942, spearheaded the Nazi effort to eradicate the Jewish people. The Einsatzgruppen murdered something on the order of a million people using almost nothing but firearms. In 1947, their commanders were brought to justice in what might be called the “other” (forgotten) Nuremberg Trials. The trial left an enormous body of reasonably fresh-after-the-fact testimony for historians to work with in trying to understand this episode in the Holocaust. Hilary does a masterful job of mining this material. She also points out that the roots of our own understandings of the Holocaust can in large measure be traced to these disturbing trails. The defendants were the first Nazi genocidaires to publicly describe what they had done and why they had done it.

And here is a link to the podcast. (Near bottom of that page.)