2012-2013 Werner E. Von Rosenstiel Lecture

On Friday February 15^th, the UC History Department will host this year’s Werner E. von Rosenstiel Lecturer, Dr. Tara Zahra, of the University of Chicago. Dr. Zahra will present a lecture titled “Exodus from the East: Emigration from East Central Europe and the Making of the ‘Free World’.” Zahra’s transnational and comparative work in modern European history has won international acclaim, including six book prizes. She focuses on Eastern and Central Europe, but also looks westward to Germany and France, in an effort to integrate Eastern Europe into broader histories of Europe and the world. She is particularly interested in the history of migration and displacement, nationalism (and indifference to nationalism), and gender, childhood, and the family. She has published numerous articles and two books: Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900-1948, Cornell, 2008) and The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II (Harvard, 2011).

The event will take place on Friday, February 15^th, at 3pm in the Annie Laws Room (407 CECH). In conjunction with the lecture, the History Department is also organizing a workshop for graduate students on Applying for Funding, PhD programs, and Careers beyond Academia. The workshop takes place on Friday, February 15 from 11:00-1:00 in the Von Rosenstiel Room. Dr. Zahra will participate in the discussion which will focus on ways to secure support for graduate school and how to find employment afterward.

Queries about the event should be directed to Professor Katherine Sorrels (katherine.sorrels@uc.edu).

UC History Department Takes on the 16th Century!

The UC History Department was well represented at this year’s Sixteenth Century Society and Conference held here in Cincinnati. Professor Sigrun Haude and numerous graduate students, including Kelly Smith, Debra Burgess, Ben Hunt, Mackenzie Keyes, Nate McGee, and Allysa McClanahan, all took part in the conference, which took place from October 25^th-28^th at the Omni Netherland Hotel.

The Sixteenth Century Society and Conference promotes scholarship on the early modern era, welcoming scholars from all disciplines, with presentations in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. This year’s conference was attended by over 700 scholars from around the world.

For the third consecutive year, Professor Haude served as the Program Committee Director for History. She organized numerous panels, in the process deciding on the theme of the panel, which papers would be presented, and who would act as their respective chairs.

UC graduate student Kelly Smith presented her paper “Interpreting the Heavens: Astronomy and Astrology in Early-Modern German Schreibkalender” for the panel “Scientific Discourse, Educational Practices, and Visual Culture in the Early Modern German Lands.”  She also served as chair for the panel “Early Modern Approaches to Religious Minorities.”

UC graduate students Debra Burgess, Ben Hunt, Mackenzie Keyes, Nate McGee, and Alyssa McClanahan also participated in the conference as volunteers at the reception desk.

Click here for more information on the 2012 conference.

UC History Department Well Represented at Annual AHA Meeting

The UC History Department was well-represented at this year’s annual American Historical Association Conference. Professors Brianna Leavitt-Alcantara, Robert Haug, and Shailaja Paik all presented papers.

Professor Briana Leavitt- Alcantara presented her paper entitled “Devotional Networks and Spiritual Geographies: Single Women in a Spanish American City.” Brianna was joined by historians from Boston College, Princeton University, and the University of California, Santa Cruz for a panel on Latin American History called “Escape and the City: Violence, Movement, and Women’s Lives in Urban Spanish America.”

Professor Rob Haug presented his paper “Between the Limits and the Gaps: Conceptualizing Frontiers in Medieval Arabic and Persian Geographies,” which discusses how social, cultural and political changes were manifested in the border areas of Medieval Afghanistan, Iran and the one-time Soviet Central Asian states which served almost as a “perpetual frontier.” Professor Haug was joined by historians from the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Gettysburg College, and Brown University in a panel titled “Medieval Muslim Imaginings of Place.” For more on Rob’s presentation, click here.

Professor Shailaja Paik presented her paper “Deviant Sexuality and the Struggle for Survival: Investigating Caste-Based Sexual Labor and Everyday Living of Tamasgirs (Folk Performers) in Maharashtra.” She spoke on the panel “Boundary Crossings: Circulating Ideas and Lives in South Asia, 1800–2000,” which focused on labor and migration, revealing the prevalence and variety of flows of people, goods and ideas within and beyond South Asia.

For more details on this year’s conference, click here.