Announcements and Events
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION NOW OPEN
Naval Expertise and the Making of the Modern World
Wolfson College, University of Oxford
10-11 May 2013
This conference examines the generation of expertise in naval contexts and traces how such developments helped shape the modern world. Expertise will be considered not only as knowledge but also as methods and practices central to the evolution of modern nation states and empires.
In the search for useful knowledge and in answering the demands of global infrastructure, navies have not only pursued military aims, but have also encouraged the formation of other areas of expertise, whether medical, technological, or bureaucratic. Recent research has identified navies as forerunners of modern scientific research, social disciplinary practices, and political economy for instance. This conference will explore such developments comparatively and consider their influence in the early modern and modern periods. By exploring how issues such as social welfare, professionalization and industrialization shaped and were shaped by naval institutions and innovations, this inter-disciplinary conference will link scholarship on naval infrastructure with research on the origins of the modern world.
Speakers and discussants include Dr Eric H. Ash (Wayne State), Dr William J. Ashworth (Liverpool), Dr Maria Fusaro (Exeter), Prof. N. A. M. Rodger (Oxford), and Prof. Mark Harrison (Oxford).
Registration is now open. More details can be found at www.navalexpertise.com.
HELP SOLVE A RESEARCH PUZZLE!
The Society has been contacted to see if any of its members can identify where archival holdings might exist. Please see the following from Anders Anker Bjørk at the University of Copenhagen:
I wish to contact someone who holds information on US Army Airforce flights over Greenland during WWII. The US Army Airforce carried out a huge mapping mission, photographing a large part of the ice free area of Greenland. My main objective is to find out when, and with which equipment aerial photos were recorded by the US Army Airforce. We have all the images here and have already used them in a study recently published in Nature Geoscience http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n6/full/ngeo1481.html. In the supplementary information (http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n6/extref/ngeo1481-s1.pdf) the data is described. The images, both a set of negatives and paper copies are stored here in Copenhagen, and to my best of knowledge no copies exist in the US. After the end of WWII they were handed over by the US Army to the Danish Geodetic Institute who were responsible for all Danish and Greenlandic mapmaking, however the metadata on the images were not handed over or have since been lost.
We have been in contact with the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory and helped them with the historical imagery as a piece in the puzzle to locate a missing plane from WWII. Efforts were successful! See NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/us/world-war-ii-plane-that-crashed-in-greenland-in-1942-is-found.html?_r=0 and US Coast Guard:
http://coastguard.dodlive.mil/2013/01/wwii-coast-guard-grumman-duck-crash-site-located-after-70-years/. So far it has not been possible to gain information on these flights. But I am sure that information must exist in some archive somewhere, after all is was a massive mission, equivalent of flying many times around the world – and in a very hostile climate. If we are able to obtain information on the time of recording and the equipment used, it will give us a unique opportunity to study glacier changes in Greenland further back in time that anyone has ever done before by constructing photogrammetric elevation models from the images. I thank you for any help you may be able to provide!
Anders Anker Bjørk
Centre for GeoGenetics
Natural History Museum of Denmark
University of Copenhagen
Øster Voldgade 5-7
Copenhagen
1350-DK
andersb@snm.ku.dk
www.geogenetics.ku.dk
CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT
The Catoctin Center for Regional Studies at Frederick Community College in Frederick, Maryland announces a conference titled “In Search of Freedom: African-Americans and the Civil War.” The conference will take place March 1-2, 2013. Keynote speakers include James McPherson and Barbara Fields. For more information, including registration information, the conference program, and travel/lodging materials, please visit http://insearchoffreedomconference2013.wildapricot.org/.
RESEARCH GRANTS AVAILABLE
State Historical Society of Iowa 2013/2014 Research Grants
The State Historical Society of Iowa (SHSI) announces a grant program for the 2013/2014 academic year. SHSI will award up to ten stipends of $1,000 each to support original research and interpretive writing related to the history of Iowa or Iowa and the Midwest. Preference will be given to applicants proposing to pursue previously neglected topics or new approaches to or interpretations of previously treated topics. SHSI invites applicants from a variety of backgrounds, including academic and public historians, graduate students, and independent researchers and writers. Applications will be judged on the basis of their potential for producing work appropriate for publication in The Annals of Iowa. Grant recipients will be expected to produce an annotated manuscript targeted for The Annals of Iowa, SHSI’s scholarly journal.
Applications for the 2013/2014 awards must be postmarked by April 15, 2013. Download application guidelines from our web site (www.iowahistory.org/publications/the-annals-of-iowa/research-grants-for-authors.html) or request guidelines or further information from:
Research Grants
State Historical Society of Iowa
402 Iowa Avenue
Iowa City IA 52240-1806
Phone: 319-335-3931
e-mail: marvin-bergman@uiowa.edu
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
The National Endowment for the Humanities offers tuition-free summer programs in the U.S. and abroad for teachers at American schools, community colleges, colleges, and universities. Participants receive stipends of $1,200-$3,900 to help defray travel and other expenses for these one- to five-week residential programs.
The NEH invites applications to direct a summer program for college and university faculty or for schoolteachers on a topic of the director’s expertise. For examples, see the list of 2013 programs at http://www.neh.gov/divisions/education/summer-programs.
Why direct an NEH summer program?
• Directors strengthen teaching and research at the undergraduate or K-12 levels.
• Directors influence their fields of expertise through intense collegial study, often resulting in participants’ publications.
• Directors join a distinguished roster of NEH summer program leaders.
• Directors engage with motivated participants from across the country.
• Directors receive compensation based on the duration of the program.
• Directors bring distinction to their home institutions.
Interested in applying? Consult the application guidelines:
• NEH Summer Seminars and Institutes:
http://www.neh.gov/grants/education/summer-seminars-and-institutes
• NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops:
http://www.neh.gov/grants/education/landmarks-american-history-and-culture-workshops-school-teachers
The deadline to propose a program for Summer 2014 is March 5, 2013.
We strongly encourage you to discuss your proposal with NEH staff, who are happy to answer questions and critique drafts. Call (202) 606-8500 or send e-mail to sem-inst@neh.gov or landmarks@neh.gov.
EDITOR WANTED
THE SEARCH IS ON -- for a new editor for the Journal of America's Military Past. JAMP is an academic journal, published three times a year, featuring articles on America’s physical military heritage such as historic installations and battlefields -- as well as articles on or by American military figures. We strive for a mix of scholarly and general interest articles. We have a robust book review section, with its own editor. We are small and informal but dedicated.
CAMP is a non-profit organization dedicated to military history and historic preservation whose members are a mix of military veterans and amateur and professional historians. The preferred candidate will have an advanced degree in history or a related field, as well as some editorial experience. This is a volunteer position, ideally suited for an up-and-coming academic or official historian.
Electronic copies of recent issues are available as samples so you can see the Journal as it now appears. Information about CAMP can be found at campjamp.org.
Please reply by 1 June 2013 to Nick Reynolds, the current editor, at: reynolds.history@icloud.com.
CHINESE MILITARY HISTORY SOCIETY
The Chinese Military History Society will be holding its annual meeting in conjunction with the SMH on March 14, 2013 at the conference venue. Our theme is "Demythologizing Chinese Warfare." For more information:
Dr. Kenneth M. Swope
Department of History
University of Southern Mississippi
118 College Drive #5047
Hattiesburg, MS 39406
Phone: 601-266-4333
E-mail: Kenneth.Swope@usm.edu
BOOK SERIES EXPANDED
“WAR AND SOCIETY IN NORTH AMERICA”
Two years ago, Dr. Ingo Trauschweizer and Dr. David Ulbrich established the book series “War and Society in the Midwest” at Ohio University Press. Now, this series has a new title with a broader focus. The co-editors invite proposals on war and society in areas now comprising the United States and Canada from the pre-colonial period to the present. Outstanding monographs, surveys, anthologies, or edited primary source collections will be considered on the following:
- military histories of conventional and unconventional conflicts on the North American continent
- studies of peace movements and pacifist attitudes in North America
- biographies of individuals and groups from North America who fought around the world and returned from those wars
- examinations of institutional, political, diplomatic, religious, cultural, economic, or environmental factors that affected warfare on the North American continent
- comparative analyses of military conflicts in North America
CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
The Bibliographical Committee of the International Commission of Military History (ICMH) encourages to submit contributions to the International Bibliography of Military History (IBMH), anytime. The deadlines for the two issues (due to be published in summer and in winter) are 1 April and 1 September, respectively.
All contributions should be sent to the editor-in-chief of the IBMH, Dr. Mauro Mantovani (mauro.mantovani@vtg.admin.ch), and its scientific editor, Dr. Marco Wyss (marco.wyss@sipo.gess.ethz.ch).
Specific editorial standards apply for the traditional short reviews (notices) of recently published scholarly books of major national and international significance. Please contact the editors for more details.
As to the peer reviewed historiographical articles (dealing with the state of military history in a specific ICMH member country or with a significant military historiographical issue) and review articles (discussing an issue of major controversy and significance covered by a number of recent publications), there are also some editorial standards applicable, see: http://www.brill.nl/files/brill.nl/specific/authors_instructions/IBMH.pdf.
PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITY
Dr. Brad Lookingbill is editing A Companion to Custer and the Little Big Horn Campaign, which is scheduled for publication by Wiley-Blackwell during 2015. The book is part of the “Blackwell Companion to American History” series, which for years has focused on broad topics or eras in U.S. history. He is inviting authors to write chapters not already commissioned for the forthcoming volume. The 25 chapters will focus on aspects of American Indian history, military campaigning, and/or historical memory.
Each of the commissioned chapters would be historiographical in scope and, as such, would require no new archival research. They should 1) discuss the state of scholarship on the topic, 2) highlight the most influential literature on the topic, and 3) illuminate pathways for future research. Each chapter should offer around 8,000 words and include a bibliography. In terms of audience, they are designed to appeal to upper-level undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students as well as other scholars in related fields. According to Wiley-Blackwell, the essays ought to be “lively, accessible, and engaging.”
Dr. Lookingbill would not need to receive the essays until late 2013, although he would gladly receive them as soon as possible. In return for the work, Wiley-Blackwell will compensate contributors with $300 worth of their books plus a copy of the hardcover on publication. In addition, contributors will receive a 40% discount on additional copies of the Companion and 25% off any other Wiley-Blackwell book in perpetuity.
If you are interested in writing for A Companion to Custer and the Little Big Horn Campaign, then please contact Dr. Lookingbill at bdlookingbill@ccis.edu.
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
The Oxford Bibliographies Graduate Student Article Award in Military History is now accepting nominations. This is an annual, invitation-only award that offers experienced doctoral candidates an opportunity to contribute to Oxford Bibliographies. The award is a great way for graduate students to draw attention to their work while also adding a peer-reviewed publication to their CVs. A rigorous selection and approval process will ensure that only the best contributions are published. Please visit http://www.oxfordbibliographiesonline.com/obo/page/grad-award for more information.
