|
|
News
& Events
Winter 2005
History
professor John Dower awarded Mellon prize
John Dower has won a Mellon distinguished achievement award.
This is about
as good as it gets for a humanist, because John will receive
up to $1.5
million over the next three years to carry out his next
research project.
You can find the details on the main MIT website at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/dower.html.
IAP
Activities:
Steve Ostrow, "Ancient Greeks, Ancient
Romans in the Shadow of New Boston." Two separate excursions
to the MFA to examine the rich offering of Greek and Roman
antiquities on exhibit there.
January 18 and 25.
Jeff Ravel, "Varieties of Religion
in Contemporary Latin America." Documentary film series
surveying the variety of faiths and religious practices
in contemporary Latin America, to include Christianity (Cuba
and Brazil), Judaism (Mexico and Cuba), and Syncretistic
Religions (Brazil and Argentina).
January 4, 11, and 18.
Anne Mccants, Will Broadhead, Steve Ostrow, and
Charles Wilkins, "Old Food." Workshop
in which Ancient and Medieval European dishes will be prepared
and eaten. Will feature use of the famous fermented fish
oil (garum), a well-known purgative.
January 16.
Charles Wilkins, "Selections from
Middle East Cinema."
Three-part film series which focuses on the tragicomedies
that play out along national borders and address the vexed
question of political/religious identity in the region.
Features Turkish, Kurdish-Iranian, and Palestinian perspectives.
January 17, 18, and 19.
For more details on each activity, see http://mit.edu/iap/
Fall
2004
History
Faculty Retreat at The Enfield Shaker Inn, September
10-11, 2004.
Professor
Jeff Ravel is a co-organizer for a workshop that will take
place at the Clark Library in Los Angeles on 8-9 October
2004. The title of the workshop is Impostors: Identity
and Pretense in the Atlantic World, 1600-1800. Ravel's
contribution is entitled "Imposture in Late Seventeenth-Century
France". The program can be accessed at http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/c1718cs/ProgImposters.htm.
Professor
Capozzola has been selected as a Carnegie Scholar by the
Carnegie Corporation of New York for his research on political
obligation in World War I America; he has also been awarded
a visiting scholar position at the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences to support this work. He received the
Biennial Article Prize of the Society for Historians of
the Gilded Age and Progressive Era for his article "The
Only Badge Needed Is Your Patriotic Fervor: Vigilance,
Coercion, and the Law in World War I America."
The History Faculty hired two new junior
faculty members. William Broadhead was appointed as
Assistant Professor in ancient history. He received
his doctorate from the University of London for a dissertation
entitled "Internal Migration and the Transformation
of Republican Italy." David Ciarlo was appointed
as Assistant Professor of modern European history.
He received his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
for his dissertation "Consuming Race, Envisioning Empire:
Colonialism and German Mass Culture, 1885-1914."
We are
pleased to announce that an MIT student is among the seventy-seven
Truman Scholars selected for 2004. Swati Maria Saini, Class
of 2005, has been actively involved in community service
since she was a young girl. Since then her determination
for helping others has caused her to be the Founder and
President of various organizations such as Tracy Smiles,
which is an inspirational and motivational publication for
young people, and diabetes prevention programs. She has
performed community service all across America, Mexico,
and India tutoring students in poor neighborhoods. Swati
hopes to pursue graduate education in the areas of technology
and public policy.
The Truman Scholarship, the official federal memorial to
our 33rd president, is an annual highly competitive, merit-based
award offered to U.S. citizens and U.S. nationals from Pacific
Islands who want to go to graduate school in preparation
for a career in public service. The scholarship offers recognition
of outstanding potential as a leader in public service and
membership in a community of persons devoted to helping
others and to improving the environment. This program is
administered by The Truman Foundation, a federal executive
branch agency. Professor Meg Jacobs is the current faculty
representative for MIT.
Professor Anne McCants has been chosen as one of 2004's
MacVicar Faculty Fellows. Each year, beginning in
1992, members of the faculty who are outstanding teachers
of undergraduate students are selected as Margaret MacVicar
Faculty Fellows for a ten-year period. Together the
Fellows form a small academy of scholars committed to fine
teaching and innovation in education.
They meet for luncheon six times during the school year
to discuss educational ideas and policies in a collegial
atmosphere.
Professors
John Dower and Shigeru Miyagawa (Foreign Languages and Literatures)
received a substantial NEH grant for their website called
"Black Ships and Samurai" http://www.blackshipsandsamurai.com
Professor
Dower received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from
Knox College.
A new
book "The
Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political
History" co-edited by Meg
Jacobs, Bill Novak, and Julian Zelizer, has been published
by the Princeton University Press. It is a collection of
15 essays by leading political historians covering the Founding
to the late 20th century.
Professor Jacobs was promoted to Associate
Professor without tenure on the basis of her research on
American economy and Society in the twentieth century;
she also received the Class of 1947 Career Development Professorship.
Undergraduate
Prize in History
The
History Faculty is delighted to announce the winners of
this year’s Annual History Essay Contest. We honor
the following students for their outstanding work in History:
Brentan Alexander '07, Aurora, Colorado, for "The
Civic Center of Denver, Colorado: The Dream and the Struggle"
Anna Bergren '05, Mathematics, Laurel,
Maryland, for "Throwing Punches and Cutting Deals:
Saving Boston's CITGO Sign in 1983"
Annemarie Grandke, Physics, Möhrendorf,
Germany, for "Louis XIV: "The Causes of the Dutch
War, Personal Desires for Glory, and the Power of Art in
the Creation of the Sun King"
Peter Stone, '05, Materials Sciences and
Engineering, Centereach, NY, for "The Failure of Americanization
in the Southern Colonies During the American Revolution:
A Brief Social and Military Review"
[previous
news]
|