History News

Our own Dr. Catherine Carstairs, Associate Professor and new Department Chair (since July) has just published a new collection of essays with co-editor Nancy Janovicek of the University of Calgary:
Feminist History in Canada: New Essays on Women, Gender, Work, and Nation

From the dust jacket: This exciting new volume of original essays opens with a discussion of the debates, themes, and methodological approaches that have preoccupied women's and gender historians across Canada over the past twenty years. The chapters that follow showcase the work of new and established scholars who draw on the insights of critical race theory, postcolonial theory, and transnational history to re-examine familiar topics such as biography and oral history, paid and unpaid work, marriage and family, and women's political action.

The volume is published by UBC Press. Congratulations from all of us!

This semester, Dr. Elizabeth Ewan, University Research Chair and Professor of History, led a UNIV 1200, First Year Seminar course called Scotch Myths: Icons of a Small Country.
The course examines the history and uses of Scottish icons and stereotypes and looks at how they have represented the country both in the past and the present. Among the famous icons the class examined were bagpipes, whisky, William Wallace, Mary Queen of Scots, tartan, and the Loch Ness Monster. Students also used the research skills they developed in the course to look at how images and icons of Canada are used. Pictured here: A few of Dr. Ewan's students and the famous University of Guelph canon, decorated in honor of the course.

After completing a PhD in history at the University of Guelph, our own Kris Gies moved into publishing sales and marketing with University of Toronto Press. This week he writes in University Affairs about promising new ways in which PhD graduates are learning about all the great careers they can build with their degrees...

"The prevailing conditions of today’s academic job market bring pause. The number of PhDs awarded each year remains high despite comparatively few tenure-track positions. At the same time, university teaching is increasingly performed by contingent faculty for low pay and with little job security. These trends have led to a situation where scholarship and a stable career have become mutually exclusive...

Ruth Redelmeier and her late husband, Francis, travelled to libraries and archives across North America to find information about the original owners of their family farm near Richmond Hill, Ont.

In the University of Guelph’s McLaughlin Library, they found a wealth of archival material about the pioneering Patterson family and discovered a home for their own extensive farm records. Files accumulated during the 60 years that the Redelmeiers

The Middle East Scholars Society is excited to announce their new Facebook group! MESS will be using the page to advertise upcoming events, highlight ME faculty and students (both past and current), and keep people up to date on the general happenings in the group.
Please join our Facebook Group by searching: 'Middle East Scholars Society at the University of Guelph' on Facebook or going to: www.facebook.com/groups/169498816576914/ 
To have something posted on our Facebook page, contact Halette Wilson (wils8060@mylaurier.ca)

On Thursday, October 17, PhD candidate Jodey Nurse will speak at the Main branch of the Guelph Public Library from 7pm to 9pm on "Exhibiting Great Taste and Skill: Women's Work at Fall Fairs

Happily ever after? Not really, says Adrienne Briggs, a recent Guelph history grad. Fairy tale endings are for Disney. To learn about the original and often graphic stories of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and the like, you might look over some of the hundreds of Scottish chapbooks in the U of G library archives.
That’s what Briggs and other students did earlier this year for a pilot project in their U of G history class that will see old-time chapbooks meet modern communications technology.
Chapbooks were popular booklets containing songs, ballads, poems and short stories written for the increasingly literate Scottish masses of the mid-1700s to mid-1800s, says history post-doc Andrew Ross. Between eight and 24 pages in length, they covered such topics as romance, travel, comedy, politics, fairy tales and social customs.
Read the rest of the story @Guelph.

Our own Dr. Norman Smith has won the College of Arts Teaching Excellence Award for Faculty Members, and Jodey Nurse, a PhD Candidate in the Department, has won the same award for Graduate Students. Congratulations to both of them for these well-deserved awards from all of us!

Get ready for another season of the Rural History Roundtable!
The Fall 2013 Series is excited to present:
Jodey Nurse, “‘Exhibiting Great Taste and Skill’: Women’s Work at Fall Fairs in Ontario, 1846-1980.”
Alice J. Hovorka, “The Lives of Women and Chickens in Botswana: Intersections, Hierarchies, and Everyday Lives”
Sean Graham, “A Thousand Miles from the City: Early National Radio and Rural Canada”
Bruce Muirhead, “Dairy Supply Management: History, Challenges and Opportunities for a Resilient and Sustainable System”
Mark down your calendars now, and visit our website for more information about our speakers’ series or ‘like us’ on Facebook. www.uoguelph.ca/ruralhistory/ Get the flyer .pdf