CCWH Invites Applications for Prelinger Award
The Coordinating Council for Women in History invites applications for the 2003 CCWH-Prelinger Award, a $10,000 prize given to a scholar who has not followed a traditional uninterrupted academic path leading to a tenured faculty position, but who has nevertheless contributed significantly to women in history. Applications must be received by April 4, 2003. Applicants must be members of the CCWH, have a PhD (or ABD status), and must show evidence of a nontraditional professional career. Guidelines and application forms may be obtained from Marguerite Renner, Department of History, Glendale College, 1500 Verdugo Road, Glendale. CA 91208. Membership information is available on the CCWH web site at https://theccwh.org.
The CCWH awarded the 2002 Prelinger scholarship to Lisa Di Caprio, who is currently teaching at the City College (of the City University of New York) Center for Worker Education. Di Caprio, who received her PhD from Rutgers University in 1996 for her work that explored women’s relationship to the origins of modern welfare in France, is at present investigating the role of women in the transformation of international justice through their participation in international tribunals.
American Catholic Historical Association Announces Awards
At its 83rd annual meeting, held in conjunction with the AHA’s annual meeting in Chicago, the American Catholic Historical Association announced the award of the John Gilmary Shea Prize and the Howard R. Marraro Prize to David Burr, professor emeritus of history at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University for his book, The Spiritual Franciscans: From Protest to Persecution in the Century after Saint Francis (Penn State Press, 2001), which explores the world of the Church in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The John Gilmary Shea Prize committee termed Burr’s work “a tour de force,” commending the comprehensiveness and deftness of his study. The Howard R. Marraro Prize Committee declared that the work was a “fundamental contribution to our knowledge of late medieval religious thought and experience.” Burr, who received his PhD from Duke University in 1966, joined the faculty of Virginia Tech in that year and taught there until his retirement in 2001. He is the author of several other books that examine the history of the medieval Church.
The Shea Prize is awarded annually to the American or Canadian author who has made the most original and significant contribution to the historiography of the Catholic Church in the form of a book published during the 12-month period preceding June 30 of the award year. The Marraro Prize is awarded annually to the author of a scholarly work dealing with Italian history or Italo-American history or relations.
AASLH Annual Meeting
The American Association for State and Local History, which will hold its 2003 annual meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, September 17–20, 2003, held its 2002 annual meeting in Portland, Oregon. September 2002. The highlights of the meeting–which had as its theme, “The Many Faces of History”–included keynote and plenary speeches by Steve Gillon, A’Lelia Bundles, and Roberta Conner; an exhibit hall that showcased new products and services; the unveiling of the new Legacy Society and the introduction of its charter members; and the awards banquet, at which the association’s awards were presented and Gary Moulton made a presentation on Lewis and Clark.
SHA Invites Submissions for Competition
The Southern Historical Association announces the second annual competition for the C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Award for the best dissertation in southern history. The award, which carries a stipend of $4,000, will go to a dissertation completed and defended in 2002. Competitors should send by May 1, 2003, three copies of the following: a title page, abstract, and table of contents of the dissertation; a sample chapter; and a letter of support from the dissertation adviser. Full dissertations should not be submitted; based on the materials listed above, the prize committee will decide which candidates will be invited to submit the full dissertation for further consideration. The award will be presented at the SHA’s annual meeting in Houston on November 7, 2003. Inquiries regarding the prize and its guidelines should be directed to John C. Inscoe, SHA Secretary-Treasurer. Send submissions to Inscoe at the Southern Historical Association, Department of History, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-1602.
WHA Book Prize Announced
The World History Association awarded its 2003 book prize to Lauren Benton (Rutgers Univ at Newark/New Jersey Institute for Technology) for her book Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900 (Cambridge University Press, 2002). The award will be presented at the WHA conference in Atlanta this year, June 26–29, 2003.
The award jurors were unanimous in their praise for Benton’s well-researched and argued thesis that evolving legal regimes shaped modern imperialism and the international order as much as the global economy did. They praised Benton’s opening methodological chapters, her detailed case studies that span 500 years and five continents, and the connection she makes between past colonial legal politics and contemporary postcolonial conflicts. One juror wrote, “By combining and adapting the approaches of legal pluralism and cultural pluralism, the author uncovers a complex world of overlapping and interacting legal regimes that are not closed structures of domination, but, rather, are partly responsive to and shaped by . . . cultures and negotiations. This is, I would suggest, one of the best and most original works in the field of legal pluralism.” Another stated, “this book is a landmark in the creation of a more complex modern global cultural history built on more than just expansion and resistance, but on a shifting negotiation of power . . . identity and rights.” Another praised the book’s sophisticated focus on “institutional world history, analyzing global structures, processes and routines. Clearly written and carefully researched and argued, it brings to the fore a topic seldom prominent in world history…legal regimes.” In her conclusion, Benton argues that the important role played by indigenous cultures and institutions in colonial state making should inspire more pluralistic approaches to resolving identity issues today, not assimilation or separation.
Two other praiseworthy finalists in the competition were R. J. Barendse’s The Arabian Seas: The Indian Ocean World of the Seventeenth Century (M.E. Sharpe, 2002), and Christopher Ehret’s The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800 (University Press of Virginia, 2002). For past winners, see the WHA website (www.thewha.org) under prizes.
