Department of History |
|
Grinnell College Grinnell, IA 50112 |
Volume XII No.3 |
Contents
The State of the SEPC
Thanks to the SEPC
GRE History Test to be Discontinued
Senior Aids Herrick Chapel Restoration Effort
Department Seeks Student Secretary
Majors Share Their Plans for Summer and Beyond
Faculty News
Alumni News
The Department of History owes a debt of gratitude to Jen
Whartenby, who has edited the Newsletter this past year and written
many of its entries.
This year's SEPC would like to thank everyone who came to
our study breaks, answered our review questions, helped out with
t-shirts, came to the picnic, bowled, and just had that History
Department spirit. We would also like to thank our professors
for being supportive, caring faculty and for being at the core
of what we like to think of as the best department on campus.
Now for a little finals levity, below is our year in review couched
in famous quotes, some historic, some literary, and some from
pop culture. Take a wee study break and play name that quote!
Friends, Grinnellians, History Department Members, lend me your
eyes. Four-score and seven weeks ago our professors brought forth
on this campus, a new SEPC, conceived in Carnegie, and dedicated
to the proposition that all history majors are created equal.
To SEPC or not to SEPC that was the question. To which we answered:
ask not what your department can do for you but what you can
do for your department. And now O' Department! Dear Department!
Our eventful year is done. The SEPC has reviewed the professors;
our study breaks were rather fun. How else did we serve thee?
Let us count the ways. For we had a dream, a dream where every
history major; medievalist or women's, American or European,
Latin or Asian, would one day sing in the words of that old history
spirit, "T-shirts at last, t-shirts at last, thank the department
almighty we have t-shirts at last." And we regret that we
have but one last picnic to give to our majors. For the department
is well worth a picnic. But, since in the end there can be only
one let us eat drink and be merry. May the force be with us all,
and remember that we are history majors hear us roar, in numbers
too big to ignore.
As chair of the Department of History, I would like to express my deep gratitude to this year's SEPC. The SEPC serves as an important connection between the Department and majors as a whole. I have relied on them to give me candid and thoughtful responses to issues arising in the Department. As a branch of student self-government, they have had a voice in some important Department decisions. They were a highly effective group.
This past year's SEPC has worked hard to generate a sense of community among majors. SEPC members regularly attended Department lectures and colloquia. They organized study breaks and a majors bowling team. I can testify that at the last study break the history majors emerged victorious over the English majors in a hard-fought Trivial Pursuit battle, with no help from a certain History prof who sat back to watch and eat pizza. They planned last fall's Department picnic (they invited the trustees, several of whom came and seemed to have a good time chatting with majors). They are in the process of working on the May picnic.
So, Jessica Dvorak, Courtney Fligeltaub, Mackenzie Massman, Jennifer Whartenby, Tia Zlotnikoff, Regan Golden-McNerny, and Gabe Rodriguez: thank you very much. I wish Jess, Courtney, Mackenzie, Jen and Tia all the best as they leave Grinnell College and start the next phase of their lives. And I look forward to working with Regan and Gabe again next year.
Mackenzie Massman '99 has seen Herrick Chapel in a way that no other student at Grinnell has: suspended from its scaffolding. This unusual opportunity was just one part of Mackenzie's independent project studying Herrick Chapel's stained glass windows under the guidance of Susan Strauber of the Art Department.
Mackenzie's involvement with the project began during her semester at Grinnell-in-London, where she took a class taught by Professor Strauber on the Pre-Raphaelites. Mackenzie notes that a work from one of the artists she studied, William Holman Hunt, was the model for the window in Herrick in front of the altar.
Continuing and expanding upon work begun by Grinnell alums
Molly Brooks '98 and Peter Lesser '98, Mackenzie has spent the
semester examining why Grinnell chose a copy of Holman Hunt's
painting "The Light of the World" to be the centerpiece
of the Chapel. Her research has turned up two distinct possibilities.
First, she notes, the painting was touring the United States
around the time the Chapel was being built, so the copy could
be a reflection of exposure to the popular work. Another theory,
based on material in the College's archives, suggests that the
Trustees of the College interpreted the painting as an expression
of Grinnell's missionary ideal.
In addition to doing to research on the design of Herrick's window,
Mackenzie also studied the production and care of stained glass
in general. In this endeavor she was greatly helped by stained
glass artist and conservator Marie Foucault, who came to Grinnell
to write a condition report on the windows in Herrick and in
Quad. Mackenzie spent around ten hours with Ms. Foucault during
her short visit, which included her experience viewing the windows
from the scaffolding. Ms. Foucault showed Mackenzie how to identify
which windows need to be cleaned or repaired and how to tell
which windows were actually damaged by previous restorations.
Mackenzie's research and the final paper she will write about her experiences will aid Professor Strauber when she writes a proposal to the college requesting them to fund a complete restoration of the Herrick Chapel windows.
Denise Hirsch '99 has a paid internship after graduation at the Shelburne Museum outside of Burlington, VT. The museum primarily collects Americana and American folk art, and also owns several historic houses. She will be working on designing a replica 1950s house, which will involve doing local research on life in the 1950s in Vermont. Additionally, she will also get to help select the furniture, wallpaper, carpet, and other items for the house. Denise learned of this internship by doing research on the internet and also by joining an e-mail discussion group on museum issues.
Moses Mason '99 will be working as a resident counselor at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, IL. In about two years, he might try to obtain a M.Div or a M.A. in Counseling.
Mackenzie Massman '99 intends to move to Washington D.C. in August and begin working on her masters in Museum Studies at George Washington University.
Ben Buell '00 will be in Grinnell working with the CDO in developing an easily accessible consortium of Non-For-Profit organizations for graduating Grinnellians and those seeking internships. Then, in August, he will be attending a conference in Cuba on the dangers of neo-liberalism heading into the 21st century.
Julian Zebot '00 is interning with Grinnell 2000 over
the summer. He will be acting as
an administrative assistant to the organization's Executive Director.
As the job description says, He will work on and with various
committees and task forces in goal setting and implementation
for various community development efforts in the town of Grinnell.
Josh Blue '01 will be spending his summer teaching seventh and eighth grade social studies and an academic elective entitled "What's on your mind?" at the Wake Summerbridge in Raleigh, North Carolina. Seeing as though the theme for the summer is "Dreams and Inventions", Josh is currently developing a curriculum which teaches history through major innovations throughout history. Josh is eagerly anticipating his eight week stay in Raleigh.
Gabe Rodriguez '01 will be interning with the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC. He will working with a division that allocates federal funds for women's health, AIDS, substance abuse, and mental health programs. His duties will include public policy research, assisting in the review of grant applications, attending congressional hearings, and assisting the HHS's public relations staff.
Dan Rothschild '02 will be doing legal research for the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer, and Feld.
Don Smith will be attending in Charleston, South Carolina, a conference on Montesquieu's Legacy in France and America: On Liberty, Moderation, and Aristocracy. on the first weekend of October.
Dan Kaiser plans to use this coming summer to write two papers that he is scheduled to deliver at professional conferences next year. In November he will attend the national convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in St. Louis. The subject of his paper at that convention is "Marking a Life: The History and Meaning of Muscovite Russian Gravestones"; he will concentrate upon grave markers from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, comparing Russian gravestones with a sizable literature on grave markers elsewhere. In addition, Mr. Kaiser hopes to use the summer to finish work on another paper, this one to be given in Finland at the VI World Congress of the International Council for Central and East European Studies, July 2000. For this conference he will be reviewing early modern Russian testaments to chart the history of "Charity and Philanthropy in Muscovite Russia." If there is time left over, he would like to keep working on his book on "Family Life in Early Modern Russia."
Bill Patch will be leaving at the beginning of August for a sabbatical year of research in Northrhine-Westphalia for a new book exploring the rise and fall of militant strike tactics in the German labor movement since the 1890s. His hope is to trace the long-term evolution of the debate between militant and conciliatory, or perhaps one should say between activist and fatalistic workers in Germany's largest centers of heavy industry, and to understand why there was a steady upward trend in the number and magnitude of industrial strikes until 1922/23 and a downward trend thereafter.
Tom Hietala: has an Africana Studies Workshop and a History Department Workshop to attend this summer. He hopes to complete his book, "Black Hopes," a review and reinterpretation of race relations during the first half of the twentieth century that approaches the topic through the lives and legends of two African Americans who became heavyweight boxing champions, Jack Johnson and Joe Louis. He will also send some chapters to potential publishers. If time permits, he intends to work on Muhammad Ali and the 1960s. Mr. Hietala notes that he also needs to make some changes in the American West course, and will shoot several new slides for the class lectures.
George Drake will focus on an effort to do much of the research and writing of a history of the Midwest Athletic Conference, which he has been asked to write. His second major project is preparing to teach one of the fall sections of the department's new course, History 195: Cultural Encounters.
J. Pablo Silva will be in Grinnell this summer rewriting his dissertation and organizing his courses for the fall.
Victoria Brown is pleased to report that her new edition of Jane Addams's Twenty Years at Hull-House is now out. Additionally, her article "Advocate for Democracy: Jane Addams and the Pullman Strike" can be found in the volume The Pullman Strike and the Crisis of the 1890's. This summer, Ms. Brown will be working with Catherine Nisbett on father-daughter relationships among Jane Addams's "fifty closest friends" to see if Addams's relationship with her father was all that unusual. She also will be giving the plenary speech at a conference in September called "Legacies of Hull-House: Reuniting the Local and the Global in the Urban World." This conference is sponsored by the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Ms. Brown has been granted a leave from the college for the year 2000-2001 so that she can accept an invitation to teach for a semester at Occidental College in Pasadena, California and to do research for a semester at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.
Some majors still remember Professor T. Mills Kelly, who taught courses on Eastern Europe here last year. Mr. Kelly is an Assistant Professor of History at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He has been named a Pew Scholar for 1999-2000. Mr. Kelly and his wife, Susan, also recently welcomed a new child, Spencer Sutherland Kelly, into their family.
Lizz Welch Ellis '98 was recently accepted to the MPA program at Rutgers in conjunction with the Peace Corps.
Bach Ly '98 traveled extensively in China, Thailand, and Laos after graduation. She is now settled in Garden City, Kansas serving steaks and brew and preparing her applications to law school.
Sonia Cooley '97, is working in financial services with the Principal Group in Ames Iowa. With the company's support, she intends to pursue an MBA.
Jodine Perkins '96 continues to work at the Minnesota Historical Society. This past winter she has been working in the History museum, but now that spring is getting close she hopes to work outdoors either on their 1860s-style farm or at the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District as a walking tour leader.
Charles Maynes '95 worked after graduation for Minnesota Public Radio. He is now putting that experience to work in Moscow, where he is producing free-lance radio news. He expects to stay in Moscow at least through next fall, by which time he hopes to land a permanent, regular news assignment in Russia.
Jenny Wang '92 works as a grain trader for Cargill and is based out of Minneapolis.
Susan Arthur '91 just completed her MFA at the University of Nebraska, and will soon move to New York to continue her career as an artist. Susan was on campus earlier this semester and delivered an illustrated talk about her portfolio.
Marshall Poe '84, the author of "Is 'Reel History' Too Much Fun" in the current number of Perspectives is now at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Michael Hofstetter '82 is now Associate Professor of History at Southwest State University in Marshall, Minnesota. Southwest State is an undergraduate college of the liberal arts, an essay by the state of Minnesota in providing the kind of education normally available only in private colleges such as Grinnell, He has been at Southwest State since l998. After graduating with honors in history and the Charles E. Payne Prize, he received his Ph.D. from Northwestern,. He works in modern European intellectual history and in Islamic Studies.
Warren Schultz '82 is currently Assistant Professor of History at DePaul. He expects to devote a free quarter in the future to a translation project he is pursuing.
Send questions and comments to the Department
Chair, Marci Sortor, at sortor@grinnell.edu.
Web pages maintained by pricel@grinnell.edu
Last modified: August 23, 1999