The NACBS Blog

The NACBS is looking for a volunteer Assistant Webmaster to help maintain our
website and to develop the web presence of our organization. The
preferred candidate will have experience designing and maintaining
websites. Knowledge of basic HTML and CSS and familiarity with FTP and a
CMS such as Wordpress is necessary. Familiarity with Adobe CS5 is a plus.

If you are interested, please send a cover letter outlining your
experience and a copy of your CV to Jason M. Kelly at [email protected]

We will begin reviewing applications on 1 May 2012.

Winner of the 2012 PCCBS Book Prize
Reba Soffer, History, Historians, and Conservatism in Britain and America (Oxford, 2010)

The winner of the 2012 PCCBS Book Prize is a longstanding member of our regional organization. Prof. Reba Soffer’s History, Historians, and Conservatism in Britain and America (Oxford University Press, 2010) is a topical and richly textured study of conservative historiography in Britain and America during the 20th century. Soffer carefully situates her conservative historians within their diverse contexts. They emerge as multifaceted characters whose stories illuminate broader themes in modern history, most notably the shift from “compassionate conservatism,” with its emphasis on the reciprocal obligations of individuals and the community, to what Soffer calls the “debacle” of contemporary neoconservatism. She persuasively revises the common assumption that conservatives had no ideology--that they were the “stupid party” to whom ideas were anathema. Instead, she locates conservative thinkers within a larger, coherent, worldview whose confident Chauvinism and emphases on racial histories and identities offer a cautionary tale to modern readers. History, Historians, and Conservatism in Britain and America is a model of careful research and lucid thinking by a leading intellectual historian. And in its generous dedication to Barbara Shapiro, this book links the careers of two of the Pacific Coast Conference’s most steadfast supporters.
2012 Book prize description

Robert K. Webb, 89, a longtime history professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County who was one of the country’s foremost scholars of British history, died Feb. 15 at his home in Washington . . . (continued)

Ancients and Moderns
81st Anglo-American Conference of Historians
5-6 July 2012
Senate House, London

Registrations are now open for this year’s Anglo-American Conference of Historians, this year on the theme of 
Ancients and Moderns.

With the Olympics upon us in the UK it seems an appropriate moment to think more broadly about the ways in which the classical world resonates in our own times, and how successive epochs of modernity since the Renaissance have situated themselves in relation to the various ancient civilisations. From political theory to aesthetics, across the arts of war and of peace, to concepts of education, family, gender, race and slavery, it is hard to think of a facet of the last millennium which has not been informed by the ancient past and through a range of media, including museums, painting, poetry, film and the built environment. The Institute’s 81st Anglo-American conference seeks to represent the full extent of work on classical receptions, welcoming not only those scholars who work on Roman, Greek and Judaeo-Christian legacies and influences, but also historians of the ancient kingdoms and empires of Asia and pre-Colombian America.

Our plenary lecturers include: Paul Cartledge (Cambridge), Constanze Güthenke (Princeton), Mark Lewis (Stanford), Sanjay Subrahmanyam (UCLA) and David Womersley (Oxford).

For programme and registrations details, please visit www.history.ac.uk/aach12 or contact the IHR Events Office at [email protected] or on 0207 862 8756.

The University of London is an exempt charity in England and Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (reg. no. SC041194)

Time: Tuesday, 21 February, 5.15 pm GMT

Venue: ST276 (Stewart House, second floor) and streamed live on the web at historyspot.org.uk

Magnus Huber (Giessen), 'The Old Bailey Corpus: Spoken English in the 18th and 19th centuries'

On Tuesday Magnus Huber will be talking about the use of historical court records in the investigation of language change.The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London's central criminal court, were published between 1674 and 1913 and constitute a large body of texts from the beginning of Present Day English (almost 200,000 trials, ca. 134 million words). The Proceedings were digitalized by the social historians Robert Shoemaker (University of Sheffield) and Tim Hitchcock (University of Hertfordshire) and are searchable at the excellent Old Bailey Proceedings Online (http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/), which also provides detailed background information on the Old Bailey and the publication history of the Proceedings.

This talk reports on a project that turned the Proceedings into the linguistic Old Bailey Corpus (OBC). Corpus linguistics relies on the statistical analysis of large collections of electronic texts to investigate language variation and/or language change. In the absence of recorded speech samples before the invention of the phonograph, language historians have turned to written text types that are close to spoken language. The Proceedings of the Old Bailey are particularly suitable for the study of spoken English as they were taken down by shorthand scribes, and their verbatim passages are arguably as near as we can get to the spoken word of the 18th and 19th centuries. The OBC identifies about 114 million words as direct speech from the 1720s onwards, of which 22 million words have received detailed mark-up for sociolinguistic (sex, profession, age, residence of speaker, role in the court-room) and textual variables (the shorthand scribe and publisher of individual Proceedings).

------

The IHR Seminar in digital history is actively engaged in presenting and discussing new methodologies which have been made possible through the development of computational methods for the study of history. Further information can be found on the IHR Seminar page at http://www.history.ac.uk/events/seminars/321.  Follow us on twitter @IHRDigHist or join the mailing list for seminar announcements: http://groups.google.com/group/ihr-digital-history-seminar-announce

The server on which the University of Chicago Press hosts the NACBS site has been down, which means that our site has not been updated.  In the meantime, we wanted to send the announcement below.  Please circulate widely.

The proposal submission website for the 2012 NACBS in Montreal is now available at http://nacbs.ucmerced.edu/call-for-submissions

If you have any difficulties with the site, please email [email protected].  Due to the late opening of the site, the deadline for submissions will be March 10.

North American Conference on British Studies Undergraduate Essay Contest 2012

Each year the NACBS awards twelve prizes of $100.00 each to the best essays on British topics submitted by undergraduates studying in American and Canadian universities.

Essays may be from any department –History, English, Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, etc–as long as they relate to British Studies and date from 2011/2012.
Essays must have been written while the author was a degree-seeking undergraduate at a U.S. or Canadian college or university.

Essays should be no longer than 25 pages (please, no theses).

Submissions must be accompanied by a nominating letter from the professor who taught the course for which the essay was written. Nominating faculty must be current members of the NACBS. Please include the permanent mailing address and email contact information for the student.

Send a paper copy of the essay and the letter of nomination to EACH of the following 3 members of the adjudication committee by June 15th, 2012 (3 copies in total).

Dr Rich Connors
Department of History
University of Ottawa
155 Séraphin Marion Street
Ottawa, ON
Canada, K1N 6N5

Dr Guy Ortolano
101 Halcyon Hill Road
Ithaca, NY 14850
USA

Dr Lisa Surridge
Department of English
University of Victoria
Victoria, BC
Canada, V8W 3W1

NACBS DISSERTATION YEAR FELLOWSHIP 2012 COMPETITION

The NACBS DISSERTATION YEAR FELLOWSHIP is awarded to support dissertation research in the British Isles on any topic of British (including Scottish, Irish and Imperial) history or British Studies. The Fellowship consists of a $8,000 stipend. The runner-up will receive a $3,000 travel grant. Each advisor may nominate one candidate, who should be a citizen or permanent resident of the U.S. or Canada, enrolled in a Ph.D. program in a U.S. or Canadian institution, and who has, at the time of application, completed all degree requirements save the dissertation.

•    The nomination must be made by the student's dissertation advisor, supported by one additional letter of recommendation.   The nominating advisor must be a member of the NACBS.

•    The candidate must need to travel to the British Isles for the purpose of dissertation research. The awardee must conduct full-time research in the British Isles for an extended stay.

Procedures for Application:

1.    Application consists of the two letters of nomination and recommendation described above; a one-page curriculum vitae of the candidate; and a 1000 word research proposal written by the candidate, which should explain the importance of the topic to the field of British history and include a description of the relevant primary materials that are to be consulted in the British Isles.  Appended to the CV should be a list of the financial support (source, type and amount) received by the applicant since the beginning of graduate study, and an indication of any current pending applications for financial aid to support dissertation research.

2.    Letters of reference should address themselves not only to the student's past record, but also to the importance of the topic and the need to pursue the research in the British Isles. The major advisor, in endorsing the candidate, is also confirming the ABD status of the candidate and the financial information requested above.

A copy of the application package should be sent to each member of the Dissertation Year Fellowship Committee listed below. Letters of reference should be placed in sealed envelopes, signed across the flap, and given to the applicant for inclusion in the application package. Applications must be postmarked by April 1, 2012. Send materials, including a current email address, to:

Professor David Campion
Department of History
Lewis & Clark College
0615 SW Palatine Hill Road
Portland, Oregon 97219, USA
Email: [email protected]

Professor Nancy Ellenberger
U.S. Naval Academy
History Department
107 Maryland Ave.
Annapolis, MD 21402
Email: [email protected]

Professor Shannon McSheffrey, Chair
Department of History LB-1001
Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
Montreal, QC
Canada    H3G 1M8
Email: [email protected]

REMINDER: Deadline April 1, 2012

WALTER D. LOVE PRIZE 2011 COMPETITION

The WALTER D. LOVE PRIZE in History is a $150 award given annually by the North American Conference on British Studies for the best article or paper of similar length or scope by a North American scholar in the field of British history.  The 2012 prize will be awarded to an article published during the calendar year 2011.  The prize journal article or paper, which may be published anywhere in the world, should exhibit a humane and compassionate understanding of the subject, imagination, literary grace, and scrupulous scholarship.  It should also make a significant contribution to its field of study.  Chapters from longer works are not eligible, but papers appearing in edited collections of essays are eligible.

All scholars who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States or Canada and living in either country at the time of the award are eligible to compete.  A copy of the nominated article or paper should be sent by April 1, 2012 to each member of the Prize Committee.  For prompt attention, mark packages "NACBS Prize Committee."  Send submissions to:

Professor Sandra den Otter, Chair
Department of History
Queen's University
Kingston, ON
Canada
K7L 3N6
Email: [email protected]

Professor Ethan Shagan
Department of History
UC Berkeley
3229 Dwinelle Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-2550
Email: [email protected]

Professor Nicoletta Gullace
Department of History
University of New Hampshire
Horton Social Science Center
20 Academic Way
Durham, New Hampshire 03824
Email: [email protected]