Dear AHA Member,
AHA news and updates for the history profession.
In this issue:
- The Wrong Way to Lower College Costs
- U.S. History Majors Highest Earners in Humanities
- Historians among 2011 ACLS Fellows and Grant Winners
- Equity Awards
- Research Survey: Effects of Doctoral Programs on Personal Relationships
- AHA Today – Recent history news
- News from Washington – Updates from NCH, NHA, and COSSA
Please feel free to forward this e-mail to your friends and colleagues.
Farewell, Dear Friend
David Darlington, 1977—2011
By Pillarisetti Sudhir, Chris Hale, and Robert B. Townsend
The death, on the last day of May, of David Darlington, associate editor of Perspectives on History, coeditor of the AHA’s Directory of History Departments, Historical Organizations, and Historians, co-manager of the annual meeting Job Center, and an invaluable colleague, came as a shock to all of us here at 400 A Street.
It was a shock even to those of us who knew that behind his stoic smile and exemplary dedication to his work, David characteristically hid the pain and the suffering from the colon cancer that finally took his life at the unconscionably young age of 34.
David joined the AHA’s publications department on December 26, 2001 as a young, unassuming assistant editor. He arrived shortly after he earned a master’s degree in history from the University of Maryland at College Park, where he learned the craft of editing as the graduate editorial assistant for the Freedmen and Southern Society documentary history project. David was a modest colleague, although he had nothing to be modest about. Few of his colleagues would have known that he graduated magna cum laude (from Muhlenberg College with a BA in history) or that he completed all the courses at George Washington University’s Continuing Education Division to become a “Master Editor.” Though, those of us with middling typing skills were always comforted by the fact that even the minutest of typos would be caught by David.
Read the rest of this remembrance on the AHA blog.
The Wrong Way to Lower College Costs
In a recent article in The New York Review of Books, AHA President Anthony Grafton and AHA Executive Director Jim Grossman discuss "the problem of ever-increasing college costs," examine a recent report from economist Richard Vedder, and caution against one-size-fits-all approaches to running universities.
New Report Finds U.S. History Majors Highest Earners in Humanities
By Robert B. Townsend
A new report, from the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University, on median salaries for undergraduate majors finds that history majors go on to earn fairly respectable salaries.
Learn more on the AHA blog.
Historians among 2011 ACLS Fellows and Grant Winners
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) announced its 2011 fellows and grantees on Tuesday, May 31st. Almost $15 million is being awarded to the 350 scholars, of which there are numerous historians. ACLS fellowships and grants are awarded to individual scholars for excellence in research in the humanities and related social sciences. This year’s projects span a wide range of topics and time periods.
See this post on the AHA blog, where we note some of the fellows and winners from history departments, and offer congratulations to all.
Equity Awards
In 1996, the American Historical Association adopted a statement on equity that acknowledges its commitment “to diversity in the historical profession” and called on “institutions to recruit aggressively and hire members from groups that have been historically discriminated against.”
To further this goal, the AHA has established two Equity Awards to be given annually: one for individuals and another for academic units.
The award can be conferred for new initiatives or for sustained efforts. These equity awards are meant to recognize and publicize individuals and institutions that have achieved excellence in recruiting and retaining underrepresented racial and ethnic groups into the historical profession. While the awards are honorary and have no monetary component, winners will receive a certificate of recognition that specially honors their efforts to secure and sustain diversity in the profession.
Individuals or institutions can nominate themselves or be nominated. Please submit nominations by August 1, 2011. For instructions on how to apply, and more information about these awards, see the Equity Awards page on the AHA’s web site.
Research Survey: Effects of Doctoral Programs on Personal Relationships
Helen Brethauer-Gay, professor of Sociology at Florida A & M University, is conducting a research survey exploring the effects of participation in a doctoral program on a student's personal relationships.
Participation in this study will entail about 45 minutes to complete an online survey questionnaire. This is a confidential survey and participation is completely voluntary. Participants may withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. The questionnaire may be completed at your convenience.
This research program has been approved by the IRB at Florida A & M University: IRB#010-106. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call Dr. Brethauer-Gay at 850-566-0407 or 850-561-2255.
If you are interested, please use either link below to take you to the consent form and the survey:
http://www.brethauerresearch.webs.com/
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/X62WVFS
For more information, see the Call for Participants.
American Historical Review – June 2011
By Konstantin Dierks and Sarah Knott, Acting Editors, American Historical Review
(This is the final issue under acting editors Konstantin Dierks and Sarah Knott. Editor Robert Schneider will return from sabbatical this summer.)
Note: AHA members should be receiving their print versions soon. The online version is now available, and members should login to member services and click the link to the American Historical Review to access the full text from these articles.
In This Issue
The June issue includes two stand-alone articles—one on Argentine popular music and national identity at the turn of the twentieth century, the other on the responses to and effects of the earliest images of Earth from space—as well as an AHR Roundtable containing ten essays on "Historians and the Question of 'Modernity.'" There are also three featured reviews, followed by our usual extensive book review section. "In Back Issues" draws attention to articles and features in the AHR from one hundred, seventy-five, and fifty years ago.
Articles
In "Between the Gaucho and the Tango: Popular Songs and the Shifting Landscape of Modern Argentine Identity, 1895–1915," Brian Bockelman draws on a rich collection of popular Argentine songbooks to explore a case of the "reformation" of national identities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Hear the word "Earth," and the images likely to flash through the mind are descendants of two views afforded by the Apollo missions. One, a photograph called "Earthrise," shows Earth half-cloaked in shadow above a lifeless moonscape. A second, known as "Blue Marble," reveals our planet suspended alone in the void. It is reputed to be the most widely disseminated photograph in history. Such views of Earth, it has been argued, prompted a revolution in the global imagination. In "Earthrise; or, The Globalization of the World Picture," Benjamin Lazier questions whether the Apollo images did indeed prompt such a revolution, and if so, he asks, to what ends?
AHR Roundtable
It is difficult to imagine the grammar of history without the vocabulary of modernity. The ascription "modern" is virtually ubiquitous in historical discourse. It appears everywhere, from textbooks, monographs, and scholarly articles, to course syllabi, journal titles, and the names of institutes of historical research, to descriptions of job offerings. It drives a whole range of historical "advents": think of the rise of the modern family, or the making of the modern self, or the emergence of the modern nation-state. Yet "modernity" and its associated narratives, as well as the kindred concepts of modernism and modernization, have been seriously called into question. There is a sense of disconnect between how historians think about modernity and how they teach, discuss, and even write history.
For this AHR Roundtable on "Historians and the Question of 'Modernity,'" we invited nine scholars to share their reflections on modernity as a problem.
Read more about the June 2011 issue of the American Historical Review here on the blog.
Survey: 2017 Annual Meeting Location
The selection of a site for the AHA Annual Meeting relies on a number of factors--ease of access to the city, availability of hotel and meeting rooms, and general hotel rates for meeting registrants. Before we make a final decision about the location for the 2017 meeting, we would like your input about the options under consideration. Take our survey and select your preference for the 2017 AHA Annual Meeting location.
Summer Reception for Visiting Researchers
The AHA invites historians doing research in D.C. this summer to a reception at AHA headquarters (400 A St. SE) tomorrow, Tuesday, June 7, 2011 from 4:30-6:30 p.m. This gathering is an opportunity to mingle with colleagues who are doing research through local institutions and facilities in the Washington, D.C. area.
Update Your Directory Entry
Members
The American Historical Association is preparing to publish the annual membership directory as part of the Directory of History Departments, Historical Organizations, and Historians. We are asking every member to review their current information for their annual listing, as well as their preferences about whether they want their name to appear in the annual membership directory, by June 15, 2011. You may login anytime to Member Services to make changes.
Departments and Organizations
Time's running out to ensure your place in the 2011-12 Directory! Don't miss your chance to be part of the most comprehensive directory of the history profession.
Please log in and review your Directory listing by June 15, 2011 and let us know if your institution will or will not be listing this year. Updates to Directory entries before August 1, 2011, will be included in the print edition, and changes made throughout the year will appear immediately in the AHA Directory Online.
AHA Today
Keep up with the latest information on history and the profession on the AHA’s blog, AHA Today. Recent posts include:
National Jukebox
The Library of Congress’s National Jukebox site is like the Pandora of the early 1900s. Visit and you can instantly stream, make playlists of, and browse through over 10,000 historical recordings from 1900 through 1925.Vote on the 2017 AHA Annual Meeting Location
The selection of a site for the AHA Annual Meeting relies on a number of factors—ease of access to the city, availability of hotel and meeting rooms, and general hotel rates for meeting registrants. Before making a final decision about the location for the 2017 meeting, we would like your input about the options under consideration.Also, see the most recent What We’re Reading (May 26 and June 2) and Grant of the Week (Religion and Innovation in Human Affairs Grants and Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome) posts.
News from Washington
In addition to AHA Today, the Association also draws on the efforts of a number of coalitions that support the Association's agenda to keep track of issues in the nation’s capital that will be of concern to historians. Here are news updates from some of them.
National Coalition for History
National Humanities Alliance
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NHA and AAU Hold Hill Briefing on the Humanities in the 21st Century 60 attendees gather at US Capitol Visitors Center
NEH Dear Colleague Letters Submitted in the House & Senate More than 80 Members of Congress register support for the humanities
Consortium of Social Science Associations
- May 31, 2011Washington Update
Please feel free to forward this email on to a colleague or friend.
Contributions to this issue of Fortnightly News came from: David Darlington, Kelly Elmore, Noralee Frankel, Elisabeth Grant, James Grossman, Vernon Horn, Pillarisetti Sudhir, Liz Townsend, and Robert B. Townsend
Last Updated: June 6, 2011
