New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

2009 Practicum for 21st Century Museum Professionals

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The Greater Hudson Heritage Network has just announced the schedule for its 2009 Practicum for 21st Century House Museums, The Container. In its third and final year, the Practicum for 21st Century Museum Professionals in Historic House Museums looks to re-invigorate mission, initiate change, invited new audiences, encourage professional collaborations, and improve presentation and planning in historic house museums and sites so as to provide benefit to the public and sustain their value to local communities. This year, the Practicum will touch upon issues regarding the historic house as envelope, the site and its surrounding landscape.

For an outline of the Spring Schedule and to register check out their website, www.greaterhudson.org.

April 6, 2009 Symposium: The Historic House Container, Envelope, Site and Landscape
Host Site: Locust Grove Estate (The Samuel F.B. Morse Historic Site)
Location: Poughkeepsie, NY (Dutchess County)

April 20, 2009 Workshop: Retooling the Historic House Envelope for Sustainability; Green Facilities Management
Host Site: Lyndhurst (NTHP)
Location: Tarrytown, NY (Westchester County)

May 4, 2009 Workshop: Master Planning for Site, Buildings and Public Audiences
Host Site: Pocantico Center (The Kykuit Carriage House)
Location: Sleepy Hollow, NY (Westchester County)

May 11, 2009 Workshop: History Preserved for the Urban Community
Host Site: Weeksville Heritage Center
Location: Brooklyn, NY (Kings County)

June 1, 2009 Workshop: Impact of the Landscape on the Historic House: Embracing Trails and Gardens in Interpretation of the Cultural Landscape
Host Site: Olana State Historic Site and The Olana Partnership
Location: Hudson, NY (Columbia County)

The Global 1989: A New Generation Conference

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2009 brings the 20th anniversaries of a wide variety of major events across the globe: the Cuban withdrawal from Angola; the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan; the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie; the Polish and Hungarian Round Tables; the protests at Tiananmen Square; the fall of the Berlin Wall; the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia; and the breakdown of old regimes in Mexico, Chile, and Brazil.

In an attempt to take a global approach to 1989, its antecedents, and its consequences, Princeton University will convene and host on 22-24 October 2009 a conference devoted to 1989. The ultimate panel themes will depend on the topics of the paper proposals submitted. They are particularly interested in moving toward new conceptual models, for example in the following areas: ethics and norms, intellectual history/history of ideas, law, microeconomics, migration, popular culture, and religion. The organizers see it as essential to underscore also the conference’s global scope, i.e. that it should encompass (but not necessarily limit itself to) variously defined Asian, Cold War, European, inter-American, Sino-Soviet, and transatlantic studies. We welcome also submissions concerning, for example, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, or South Africa.

Organizers aim to provide a forum for recent work related to a doctoral dissertation, whether published or unpublished, complete or incomplete. Submissions are welcome from junior faculty and postdoctoral fellows as well as current graduate students. Submissions from around the globe are welcome, as the budget will cover the travel expenses of all of the scholars whose proposals have been accepted.

The organizers caution that the intended small scale of the conference will likely necessitate a highly selective review process. The program committee looks forward to the broadest possible range of submissions that fall within the intended scope of the conference, and it will arrange panels based on those submissions that it receives, yet we will likely be able to accommodate only a fraction of these submissions.

Submissions of a brief (300 words) abstract, as well as a more detailed prospectus (5 pages, double-spaced) that fleshes out the intended argument of the presentation in greater depth, will be accepted on a rolling basis until 1 February 2009.
Early submissions are particularly welcome.

Proposals should be submitted to Barbara Leavey (blleavey-AT-princeton-DOT-edu); questions can be directed also to conference chair Piotr H. Kosicki (pkosicki – AT- princeton -DOT -edu).

This conference is a joint initiative of Princeton University’s Department of History, Davis Center for Historical Studies, Institute
for International and Regional Studies, Program in Law and Public Affairs, University Center for Human Values, and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Center for International History Grad Student Conference

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The Columbia University Department of History invites paper proposals (deadline for abstracts is 1/1/2009) for a Graduate Student Conference titled “Claiming the World: Universalisms as Doctrine and in Action” to be held on March 27, 2009.

From the Roman notion of civitas to the Islamic duty of da’wah and the French colonial mission civilisatrice, universal claims have been deployed in the service of causes, movements, and ideologies of all kinds. They attempt to create order, unity, and meaning, yet thereby give rise to contestation.

This conference seeks to address the following questions: What kinds of universal claims have been advanced and how have they been transformed over time in different regions and historical periods? How do such claims take concrete form in the actions of polities and the practices of communities from the local to the global? How do they accommodate or resist particularities or rival universalisms? We wish to consider a range of entities that promulgate universal claims (such as states, nations, empires, religions, and social and political movements) in a multitude of realms (such as law, morality, norms, and identities). As this conference is presented in conjunction with the Center for International History’s annual theme, “In the Name of Humanity,” we are especially, but not only, interested in the ways in which universal claims have been embodied in the discourses and politics of human rights and humanitarian intervention.

We invite submissions from all time periods – ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern – and various geographic regions. Papers on topics that are broadly transnational or global in scope are preferred. Additionally, we encourage interdisciplinary research, and although proposals with a historical perspective are particularly welcome, we will also consider contributions from the fields of anthropology, sociology, literary studies, political science, and economics. Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words and a recent CV as email attachments (Word preferred) by January 1, 2009 and any inquiries to Simon Stevens at the following address: sms2236@columbia.edu

For more information regarding the conference can be found at the Center for International History’s website (beginning December 15th):

The New Jersey Forum: New Research in NJ Studies

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Although this is a blog of New York History, occasionally we’ll make announcements about regional events that New York historians might have interest in.

The New Jersey Forum: New Research in New Jersey Studies will be held Saturday, November 22, 2008 at the Trenton Marriott Hotel. The event is sponsored by the New Jersey Historical Commission, the NJ State Archives, and the New Jersey State Museum

Registration information and a preliminary program of events is available via word document here.

Expected sessions include:

Hope, Fear and Pestilence: Public Health in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century New Jersey

Newsprint, Fear, and the Cholera: A History of the 1832 Cholera Outbreaks in New Jersey (Margaret Charleroy, University of Minnesota )

The 1918 Influenza Outbreak in New Jersey (Jennifer Harmsen, Hillsborough Middle School + Rutgers-NJIT History Department)

Pestilence Across the Delaware: New Jersey and the Yellow Fever Epidemics of the 1790s (Sandra Moss, New Jersey Medical History Society)

Interpreting a Preserved Landscape: New Jersey Museums and Architecture

New Solutions for House Museums (Donna Ann Harris, Heritage Consulting, Inc.)

Take Any Exit: The Colonial Revival in New Jersey (Harriette Hawkins, independent scholar)

Telling the Straight Story: Truth & Fiction in Building Interpretation (Margaret Westfield, Westfield Architects)

Suburban Stories: Place and Race in Twentieth-Century New Jersey

Extremely Suburban: Narratives from 20th-Century Princeton (Michael H. Ebner, James D. Vail III Professor of History, Emeritus, Lake Forest College)

African American Suburbanization and Racial Politics in Pre-World War II Montclair
(Patricia Hampson, Rutgers University)

A National “Black Brain Center” in Post-WWII Fort Monmouth, NJ (Melissa Ziobro, staff historian, U.S. Army CECOM Life Cycle Management Command, Fort Monmouth, NJ)

Parks and Bonapartes: Landscapes of 19th and 20th century New Jersey

“He Will be a Bourgeois American and Spend his Fortune in Making Gardens”: A Preliminary Examination of Joseph Bonaparte’s Point Breeze Estate, Bordentown, New Jersey (Richard Veit, Department of History and Anthropology, Monmouth University)

The Development of Branch Brook Park – America’s First County Park (Kathleen Galop, Preservation Possibilities)

Morristown: A Cultural Landscape Study (Gillian Acheson, Department of Geography, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville)

Revolutionary Women: Female Education and Political Activism in Early New Jersey

“A More Accurate and Extensive Education than is Customary”: Educational Opportunities for Women in Early Nineteenth-Century New Jersey (Lucia McMahon, William Paterson University)

The Ladies of Trenton: Women’s Political and Public Activism in Revolutionary New Jersey (Catherine Hudak, Morris Hills High School, Rockaway, NJ)

“Working for the Slave as a Mother would Work for her Children”: Abigail Goodwin and the Anti-slavery Movement in New Jersey (Bruce Scherer, Project Archivist/Librarian, Salem County Historical Society, Salem, NJ)

Eighteenth-Century New Jersey Families

From London Publisher to American Farmer: Benjamin Clarke and his Diary of East New Jersey (Robert Craig, Historic Preservation Office, NJ Department of Environmental Protection)

Black and White Together? Slavery and Freedom in Upper Freehold Township from the Colonial Period to the Early Republic (Sue Kozel, Independent scholar)

Vital History: What Two Generations of a Loyalist Family Reveals About the American Revolution (Donald Sherblom, President, 1759 Vought House, Inc.)

2009 THATCamp Announced

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An announcement yesterday from Dan Cohen, posted on his digital humanities blog:

THATCamp (The Humanities and Technology Camp), which brings together scholars, librarians, curators, technologists, and developers for a two-day “unconference” that interactively explores the cutting edge of the digital humanities, was such a success this year that we’re bringing it back in 2009. Better yet, we are pairing it with the Digital Humanities 2009 conference being run by our friends on the other side of the Washington beltway, the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. THATCamp 2009 will immediately follow DH2009 on June 27-28, 2008. Stay tuned to the THATCamp site for a more formal announcement and application guidelines.

UHA / MANY Annual Conference Announcement

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Upstate History Alliance and Museum Association of New York are calling for participation in their recently reorganized annual conference. According to their web site, “The UHA/MANY annual conference has a new name and a new format and we need your ideas and leadership to bring it to life! We’ve decided to leave the “talking head” sessions of past conferences behind and focus on generating a new energy through conversations and networking.”

Museums in Conversation: Fresh Perspectives for New York State Museums is being organized in collaboration with the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Council for the Humanities, and the Archives Partnership Trust. It will be held March 29-30, 2009 at the Doubletree Hotel, Tarrytown, New York.

The calls for session proposals and pre- and post-conference workshops proposals are now available here. The submission deadline is November 1, 2008.

Proposals are being welcomed “from a wide range of disciplines and professions, within and outside the museum community, that focus on how institutions are using interdisciplinary approaches to reach new audiences and build innovative collaborations that strengthen program organizational development.”

The conference organizers are seeking undergraduate and graduate student volunteers.

Call for Papers: Consortium on Revolutionary Era, 1750-1850

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Although it’s going to be held in Savannah, GA (February 19-21, 2009), New York History readers may find this call for papers interesting:

The Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 1750-1805 is an organization which provides a venue for the presentation of original research on not only the revolutionary history of Europe in this era, but also the Atlantic World and beyond. They are welcoming proposals from the allied disciplines and comparative studies; in short, they offer a platform for research into the revolutionary era broadly defined.

The 2009 conference will be held February 19-21 at the Savannah DeSoto Hilton.

The program committee prefers proposals for complete sessions (three
papers, plus chair and a commentator). However, they will accept proposals for incomplete sessions, and individual paper proposals. Session proposals should include name of presenter, title of paper, and brief abstract (no more than one page) for each paper; and brief CVs (no more than 2 pages) for each participant. The deadline for proposals is October 15, 2008. They are looking for traditional presentations of new research, as well as roundtable discussions. Proposals from doctoral students are welcome.

Keynote Address: Alan Forrest
York University
Alan Forrest is Professor of Modern History and Director of the Centre
for Eighteenth Century Studies, York University.

Banquet Speaker: David Armitage, Harvard University David Armitage is
Professor of History at Harvard University.

Send proposals to:
Professor Charles P. Crouch
Department of History
P.O. Box 8054
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro, GA 30460-8054
chascro@georgiasouthern.edu

Call for Proposals: Underground Railroad History Conference

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The Planning Committee of the Eighth Underground Railroad (UGR) History Conference is soliciting brief proposals for presentations, panels, and workshops that address the theme “The Underground Railroad, Its Legacies, and Our Communities.” Proposals should be made for a 60-minute workshop session, for a poster session or exhibition, or for a cultural/artistic activity.

According to the announcement, conference organizers “ask that all proposals allow for significant audience interaction. And, while we urge that proposals focus on the conference theme, we also invite proposals on other important topics concerning Underground Railroad history. See the full call for proposals pdf here.

The Eighth Annual UGR History Conference will be held at College Park, Union College, Schenectady, NY, on February 27-28, 2009. It is sponsored by the Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region, Inc.

For more information, consult the web site at http://www.ugrworkshop.com/

Proposals should be submitted to the planning committee by September 30, 2008 by mail at URHPCR, PO Box 10851, Albany NY 12201 or via e-mail at urhpcr [AT] localnet [DOT] com

AASLH Annual Meeting in Rochester September 9-12, 2008

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The American Association for State and Local History Annual Meeting in Rochester beginning September 9th is geared toward “history professionals, historical sites, historical societies, history museums, military museums, libraries, presidential sites, students, suppliers, and more.”

According to their website:

This is your chance to share your passion, ideas, and knowledge with over 800 of your peers in the field of state and local history. You’ll have an opportunity to learn from over 80 sessions and 17 pre-meeting workshops that directly relate to the latest issues and trends that you face. And, you’ll also have an opportunity to have fun while you explore Rochester’s amazing history through the evening events and tours.

Although apparently they’re keeping the costs of the conference pretty quiet (good luck finding it on the website), you can apparently register here.