Fall 2006 News

The latest edition of the AHA’s Perspectives features a forum on “Disability in History,” featuring a thoughtful lead essay by Doug Baynton, and also the subject of  Linda Kerber’s Presidential column.

Sarah Hanley has been honored by the Fraternity and Sorority Community for “excelling as a faculty member and making a positive impact on the students at The University of Iowa.”  She was honored at the 5th Annual Faculty and Staff Appreciation Brunch on Nov.14.

At the recent meeting of the Western History Association, Malcolm Rohrbough received an Honorary Life Membership to the Association "for outstanding contributions to Western History." Professor Rohrbough was also one of the featured experts in a PBS broadcast of An American Experience on the Gold Rush on Nov. 6.

In her Presidential essay in the latest edition of the AHA’s Perspectives, We Are All Historians of Human Rights, Linda K. Kerber argues that historians should more passionately engage with questions of human rights and integrate the discussions more closely into historical discourse.

Barbara Handy-Marchello (PhD, 1996) won the Caroline Bancroft Award from the Denver Public Library for the best book in Western History in 2005 for Women of the Northern Plains: Gender & Settlement on the Homestead Frontier, 1870-1930 (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005).

David Schoenbaum has led a local team (in league with Paul Ingram of Prairie Lights) in exposing a literary hoax – “An Incomplete History of the Art of the Funerary Violin.” Full story >>

Linda Kerber ’s September Perspectives column reflects on graduate education, and is informed by the AHA task force on which Connie Berman served.

Bridgett Williams-Searle (PhD, 2005) has won the Phi Alpha Theta/Westerners International Dissertation Prize, awarded by the Western History Association for the best dissertation in the field, 2005-2006.  Bridgett will receive her award at the WHA’s annual meeting in St. Louis in October.

The winner of the 2006 Stow Persons Prize for the best undergraduate honors thesis in the History Department is Megan Roy. Additional details >>

Shel Stromquist will deliver the plenary address, drawing on his transnational work on labor history and municipal socialism; and Jacob Hall will give a paper, “Senor Rivera’s Detroit: The Limits of Working Class Mobilization in the Motor City, 1929-1934” at the 28th annual North American Labor History Conference to be held at Wayne State ( Detroit), October 19-21.  For registration materials and other information >>.

Congratulations to our colleague, Wendie Schneider ( Law School), who has been awarded the Hans Gatze Prize from Yale for producing the most outstanding dissertation in the field of European History.  Her dissertation is entitled: "The Liar's Cloth: Producing Veracity in the Victorian Courtroom."

The Iowa City Human Rights Commission has announced the establishment of a new Human Rights Award that honors the memory of Kenneth Cmiel. The Kenneth Cmiel Award is designed to recognize a college student or a graduate student who has followed up on their interest in and knowledge of human rights by actively working in the field in the dedicated and determined way that Kenneth Cmiel advocated during his lifetime.

The Department welcomes our new colleagues, Professors Catherine Komisaruk and Omar Valerio-Jimenez, and as fall Visiting Professors, Edward Erickson and Scott Grau.

Congratulations to Paul Greenough, who has won two substantial internal awards: Seed funding for "Equity in Relief: Urban Water-Supply and Recovery from Tsunami During Suspended Civil War in Sri Lanka" from the UI Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research; and a Major Projects grant from International Programs for "Health Services and Disaster Relief in International Politics and Diplomacy."

Kevin Mumford has accepted an appointment as Program Coordinator for the Interdisciplinary Sexuality Studies Program.  Leslie Schwalm has accepted an invitation to take-up a cross-appointment in African-American Studies.

The library is offering a 1- credit undergraduate course, Library Research in Context: History. Please spread the word to your students. The class is targeted at students in the colloquia but will be an attractive elective for most majors. This 1 credit, semester-long course will introduce students to academic research and the effective use of the library for research in history. The course is structured so that students will be able to directly apply learned concepts to their research projects. 

The library now has a subscription to The Gerritsen Collection - Women's History Online.  This collection, which originated in the late 19th century and evolved into the greatest single source on women's history by the mid-20th-century, includes books and periodicals in fifteen languages from 1543 to 1945. You can access it by searching "Gerritsen" on InfoHawk.