Historiann

Public History Tour 2010!

Where in the world is Historiann on this summer’s random public history tour?  Well, here’s a clue on the left–some of us dwell in possibility, wherever we go.  I had never visited before, and neither had my subset of the attendees of the Little Berks conference this year, at Mt. Holyoke College.  The Big Berks–otherwise known as the Fifteenth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, will be at the University of Massachusetts next June.  (Check out that new website!)  The program committee meets tomorrow–so keep your fingers crossed if you submitted a proposal last winter.

So many interesting people are here–the elusive Clio Bluestockingshowed up, and seated herself near me at dinner last night.  (I’ve had a lot of people tell me they’re reading this blog–only compliments so far, but the conference is only half over!)  After dinner last night, Mary Beth Norton and Judith Zinsser spoke about the history of the Berkshire Conference, and the “ladies” who founded it (including the tradition of trillium-spotting and bourbon-drinking.  Unfortunately, threatening thunderstorms and hail had us looking for more indoor-oriented activities today.)  Norton noted that the official name of the organization is the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, not the Berkshire Conference of Women’s Historians, and she lamented that there are very few non-women’s historians who attend any more since the Big Berks conference on women’s history effectively “took over” the identity of the organization. Continue Reading »

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Fired up and ready to go?

Here’s a random observation inspired by the past few days of indolent leisure:  blogging is hard when you’re consuming neither print nor digital media 90% of your waking day!  Anyhoo–I’m still on the road, and still feel like a big emptybrain after all of that reunion partying last weekend (curse you, second bottle of wine!  I curse the day you were bottled!), but fortunately there are still folks out there thinking and writing and making stuff happen.  To wit:

• CatieCat writes:  “I’ve been thinking a lot about defensiveness: why I feel defensive, when do I feel defensive, what am I defending, all of that. . . . And the single thread that’s coming to me through all the times I can recall where I’ve felt defensive is this one: it was about defending my privilege.”  Discuss!
• Marc Nouri meditates on the rank of (Full) Professor, and concludes that there are too many “early birds” who haven’t really earned it, even if their title changes.  He writes, “So early birds, who do you think you are coming up for full professor within a few years of getting tenure at your institution? By sheer dint of will and ego, and determination, and the weak will of promotion committees composed of equally confused faculty, you may very well succeed, but will you really be a full professor? Continue Reading »

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