Gutenberg-e Prize Winners, 2004
The 2004 Gutenberg-e Prizes competition was open to all fields of history
The names of the prizewinners are followed by dissertation title, the institution where the PhD was awarded, and a precis of the prize committee's recommendations.
Sherry Fields
Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico
University of California, Davis, 2003.
Fields has an interesting take on cultures of health and illness in colonial Mexico as illuminated by popular beliefs and practices following the encounter of indigenous and European medical traditions. Her use of ex-votos as sources is especially interesting…. The dissertation offers thoughtful and reflective work.
Ronda M. Gonzales
Continuity and Change: Thought, Belief, and Practice in the History of the Ruvu Peoples of Central East Tanzania, c. 200 B.C. to A.D. 1800
University of California, Los Angeles, 2002.
Gonzales relies principally on historical linguistics as supplemented by field research and occasional archaeological data in developing a complex understanding of linguistic-cultural-historical development in east Africa. The scope of her work is breathtaking…
Sarah Gordon
‘Make It Yourself’: Home Sewing, Gender and Culture, 1890-1930
Rutgers University, 2004
This manuscript rests on a fascinating body of material: the documents pertaining to home sewing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The author shows that sewing activities both supported and undermined traditional domestic ideals. Gordon argues that the portrayal of home sewing shifted from a useful form of household labor to a way to nurture a family and cultivate attractiveness. She also attempts to demonstrate through an examination of sports clothing the role of sewing in altering conceptions of respectability.
Shah Mahmoud Hanifi
Inter-Regional Trade and Colonial State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan
University of Michigan, 2001
Hanifi focuses on trade, literacy, and state building in locating para-colonial Afghanistan in the contexts of imperial and capitalist history. He juggles political, cultural, and economic considerations. He adroitly and largely persuasively balances theoretical perspectives with empirical data. He draws on an impressive blend of archival, narrative, and oral historical sources.
Robert Kirkbride
Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro
McGill University, 2002
The overriding theme of the dissertation is that these rooms embodied theories of the art of memory, which Renaissance thinkers regarded as the foundation of all intellectual endeavors. Memory supplied the materials of oration, of reflection, and of theorizing. The two studioli of Federico are organized and filled with aides memoires and are ideal places for remembering what a statesman of Federico’s stature needed to remember. Overall, the dissertation is a tour de force of scholarship and writing.
Jennifer Langdon-Teclaw
Caught in the Crossfire: Anti-Fascism, Anti-Communism and the Politics of Americanism in the Hollywood Career of Adrian Scott
State University of New York-Binghamton, 2001
This manuscript explores the politics of the Cold War by investigating the career of the Hollywood producer Adrian Scott and the fortunes of his controversial film “Crossfire.” From the start, it exhibits a refreshing energy…. The author connects her story to matters of gender and ethnicity as well as anti-communism.
Laura J. Mitchell
Contested Terrains: Property and Labor on the Cedarberg Frontier, 1725-c. 1830
University of California, Los Angeles, 2001
Mitchell combines archaeological and historical findings to argue convincingly for the overlap of “prehistorical” (i.e., hunting and gathering Khoisan populations) and historical (e.g., slaves of various backgrounds and settlers of European descent) periods. She takes on those who focus on slavery on the Cape and who lump together various forms of servitude. She looks at the role of kin and family networks in securing Dutch settlers, thereby identifying Dutch women’s contributions and roles.
Bin Yang
Between Winds and Clouds: The Making of Yunnan (Second Century BCE-Twentieth Century CE)
Northeastern University, 2004
Yang takes “a global and long-term perspective on a local past.” Criticizing China-centric studies of southwestern China, he looks from Yunnan outward, locating the region’s central role in the Southwest Silk Road, and its transformations in terms of economy, administration, populations, sense of ethnic identity. He seeks to show that a world history approach is stronger at explaining local dynamics than a national approach.
Last Updated: May 7, 2007
