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What I Did Over My Summer
Vacation:
We Make the Profs Write the Essays
This Time!
Marci Sortor
spent part of the summer in the municipal archives of Saint-Omer,
France, transcribing lists of citizens. She intends to use those
lists in a study of medieval immigrants and their social networks.
Dan Kaiser
is still on leave, working on his book on "Family Life in
Early Modern Russia." This past summer he attended the VI
International Congress on Central and East European Studies in
Tampere, Finland. His paper there examined "Deathbed Charity
in Early Modern Russia," using last wills and testaments
as an index of charitable giving. This fall he is scheduled to
take part in two more conferences. In early November he expect
to be in Denver for the annual meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Slavic Studies; he is to present a paper
there entitled "He Said, She Said: Sexual Assault in Early
Modern Russia." Just before Thanksgiving, he plans to travel
to Vienna to take part in a small international roundtable devoted
to "Family forms in Russian and Ukrainian History in Comparative
Perspective." Second semester he looks forward to returning
to the classroom, among other things to try his hand at teaching
"Cultural Encounters in History."
Tom Hietala
spent the summer cutting and revising his book manuscript on
race relations and heavyweight boxing. He is under a mandate
from his publisher "to cut the text considerably."
The book will be published by M. E. Sharpe. On a lighter note,
he writes, "I took the plunge into the icy waters of Lake
Michigan with my brothers on the morning of my younger brother's
wedding in early June. It made a memorable day even more memorable!"
Between June 11-15, Andrew Hsieh
visited Guangxi Normal University in Guilin, the People's Republic
of China, where he delivered a public lecture on "Liberal
Arts Education in American Colleges."
This summer Pablo Silva went to
Washington, DC to consult sources in the National Archives and
the Library of Congress. He writes:
"At the archives I spent 12 days reading
State Department documents related to the internal affairs of
Chile. I was interested in knowing what diplomats were reporting
about the white-collar union movement in Chile in the 1930s and
1940s. I was particularly happy to find confirmation of the opinion
I had formed from other sources that by the end of the 1940s
middle-class unions had become the most militant in Chile. Overall,
I did not find any sources that caused me to question my conclusions
about the development of the Chilean white-collar movement. Rather
it seems that the diplomatic correspondence seems to agree with
other evidence.
"At the Library of Congress I read
recent Spanish language scholarship on my topic. I also tried
to read some Chilean periodicals, but the Library's holdings
are not as complete as their catalogue would imply."
Victoria Brown
sends the following letter:
"I write to you from sunny (and hot)
Los Angeles to let you know that I truly miss you but am endeavoring
to make this year away worth all my homesickness. This semester,
I am spending most of my days at the Huntington Library in San
Marino. For those of you who know Los Angeles, that means I basically
drive to Pasadena every day, which is about fifteen easy minutes
from my house near Occidental College.
The Huntington is a beautiful site, famous
for its impressive gardens and (rather less impressive) art gallery.
It has just opened a small gallery for American art and that
currently has a very nice exhibit of American portrait artists
as well as an exhibit of Arts & Crafts furniture. There is
also an exhibit up now on the California Gold Rush, as California
history is one of the Huntington's specialties. That, and Chaucer.
Go figure.
But I confess to spending very little time
in either the gardens or the galleries. I curl up in my office,
tucked away in a corner of this many-cornered library, to read
and write, or I pore over microfilmed copies of Jane Addams's
indeciperable handwriting in a darkened room, taking notes into
the laptop computer that is one of the (temporary) perks of this
fellowship.
"Huntington fellows are supposed to
gather for lunch at the Tea Room every day, a custom I find a
bit silly since very little scholarship is ever discussed. Unwilling
to break my concentration each noon to gossip about the latest
movies, I make an appearance there once a week and am regarded
as rather a recluse. When I leave the Huntington at 5:00, I drive
three blocks to the Cal Tech pool and swim my laps. (And, yes,
I will be swimming outdoors, year-round). Then I go home at night
and work some more. It's a very exciting life I'm having out
here, with Jane Addams and without my husband. But pages keep
coming out of the computer's printer and my husband, when he
makes his monthly visits, keeps telling me that's what is supposed
to happen. So I guess all is well.
"I just returned from a three-hour
meeting of the Occidental College History Department, where we
discussed their historiography seminar. I am enjoying learning
about another department and enjoying my Occidental colleagues.
But I find here, as I've consistently found in the past, that
contact with other academic settings only makes me appreciate
Grinnell more. Next semester, I will teach two courses at Occidental
and I'm sure I will enjoy that but equally sure that part of
the enjoyment will reside in knowing that I get to go home to
Grinnell.
"I send you all my very best wishes
for this year. And if you do need to reach me, I am on my regular
Grinnell e-mail account. I don't relish hours away from my work
to write letters of recommendation, but if your entire future
rests on it, send up an electronic signal and I will respond."
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