Linda Kerber's classic primer on conference presentations — "Conference Rules"—is among the most e-mailed items from The Chronicle of Higher Education: Conference Rules Part I (March 14) Conference Rules Part II (March 21).

The Department was well-represented at the annual CLAS Faculty Honors Reception, which recognized Jeff Cox (Global Scholar and Collegiate Fellow), Michel Gobat (Faculty Scholar and NEH), Paul Greenough (Hancher-Finkbine Medallion), Paula Michaels (Burkhardt-ACLS), Paul Kramer (ACLS, Bernath Prize, Rawley Prize), Jennifer Sessions (Kluge Fellowship), Laura Gotkowitz (Fulbright-Hays), Linda Kerber (Elected to American Philosophical Society), and Stephen Vlastos (Kyoto Program).

William C. Lubenow (PhD 1968) recently completed his term as President of the North American Conference on British Studies, and delivered the Presidential Address at the Annual Meeting held in San Francisco in November 2007.  A Professor of History at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Lubenow writes fondly of his days at Iowa on his web site.

Marjorie Levine-Clark (PhD 1997) is currently serving as President of the Western Conference on British Studies, a regional affiliate of the North American Conference on British Studies.  She will deliver her Presidential Address at the annual meeting in San Antonio this September.

Our illustrious alum Trudy Peterson was featured prominently in a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education on disputes over the disposition of Iraqi Archives.

Seven members of the Department have new (first offered in Fall 2007 or Spring 2008 catalogues) books, including five new monographs, one edited collection, and one revision: Jeffrey Cox, The British Missionary Enterprise since 1700 (Routledge, 2007); Colin Gordon, Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City (Pennsylvania, 2008); Laura Gotkowitz, A Revolution for Our Rights: Indigenous Struggles for Land and Justice in Bolivia, 1880-1952 (Duke, 2007); Kevin Mumford, Newark: A History of Race, Rights, and Riots in America (NYU, 2007); Jacki Thompson Rand, Kiowa Humanity and the Invasion of the State (Nebraska, 2008); Malcolm J. Rohrbough, Trans-Appalachian Frontier: People, Societies, and Institutions, 1775-1850 Revised and Expanded Edition (Indiana, 2007); Shelton Stromquist (editor), Labor's Cold War: Local Politics in a Global Context (Illinois, 2007).

Our colleague Paul Kramer has been designated a “top young historian” by the History News Network (see full story).

David Schoenbaum has published a short article on the Iowa caucuses in Prospect Magazine( UK).

History Honors Student News: Jessica Werneke, Shannon Wenck, and Andrew Mathern all honored. For more information >>

Our illustrious alum Trudy Peterson is featured prominently in a story in December ’s Harpers: Kate Doyle, “ The Atrocity Files: Deciphering the Archives of Guatemala's Dirty War.” The focus is on the discovery of decaying files from police and state agencies in what amounted to a storage container in Guatemala, and the ways in which those materials are being reconstructed as an archive.  Support for the effort has been international; Trudy has played a major role in this effort, and the discussion of the process of transforming these materials into an archive is worthy reading for any historian. A copy has been loaded onto the Department’s ICON site for your perusal. Trudy will be here this spring to continue her Archives Master Class.

We note with sadness the passing of Richard “Dick” Goodwin, the father of Pat Goodwin. He died peacefully in his home in Iowa City on January 10, 2008, after a courageous two-year battle against multiple myeloma. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be directed to: Iowa City Hospice, St. Andrew Presbyterian Church of Iowa City, or the Veterans Affairs Medical Center of Iowa City. Online condolences and memories may be shared at www.gayandciha.com. His full obituary is HERE.

The Sutherland Prize, named in honor of the late Donald W. Sutherland of the University of Iowa, a distinguished historian of the law of medieval England and a mentor of many students, is awarded annually, on the recommendation of the Sutherland Prize Committee, to the person(s) who wrote the best article on English legal history published the previous year. The 2007 ASLH Donald Sutherland article prize went to Professor Sara M. Butler of Loyola University, New Orleans for her article, “Degrees of Culpability: Suicide Verdicts, Mercy, and the Jury in Medieval England,” published in the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 36:2, Spring 2006.