CEUS First Tuesday Talks @ UB

SUNY Buffalo’s Center for European Studies (CEUS) sponsors a monthly series of faculty talks about ongoing research related to Europe.  All faculty and graduate students are invited to join the conversation on campus that we have initiated with these events, and to meet others working on issues related to European Studies.

These events are held at 4 p.m. during the semester on the first Tuesday of each month. Check back here for locations of talks on campus.

Upcoming First Tuesday Talks: 

Tuesday, February 4th – 4pm.  Room 354, MFAC (Ellicott Complex, SUNY Buffalo North Campus)

“New Pilgrims on a Medieval Route in Brittany: Mobility and Community on the Tro Breiz” by Professor Ellen Badone, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario

ABSTRACT: Throughout Catholic Europe there has been a resurgence of interest in pilgimage since the 1990s, despite dramatic declines in regular attendance at mass and other indicators of religious practice. One of the less well known European pilgrimages is the Tro Breiz, or tour of Brittany, a medieval long-distance walking pilgrimage in northwestern France that has recently been revived (or recreated). On the basis of ethnographic research carried out in 2012, I argue that the Tro Breiz fulfils participants’ desires for connection to a community that transcends the self and is intimately linked to a particular regional heritage and identity.

ELLEN BADONE is a professor in the departments of Anthropology and Religious Studies at McMaster University. She has served as president of the Canadian Anthropology Society and the Society for the Anthropology of Religion. Since 1981, she has been carrying out ethnographic research on popular Roman Catholicism in France. Her publications include The Appointed Hour: Death, Worldview and Social Change in Brittany (California, 1989); “Reflections on Death, Religion, Identity and the Anthropology of Religion,” in A Companion to the Anthropology of Religion, Janice Boddy and Michael Lambek, eds. (Wiley, 2013); and “Pilgrimage, Tourism and the Da Vinci Code at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, France,”Culture and Religion 9(1):23-44, 2008.

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Tuesday, March 4, 2014 @ 4pm.

“Gender and Public Life in West Germany:  The Case of Marion Graefin Doenhoff” by Patricia Mazon, Associate Professor, Department of History (UB)

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Tuesday, April 1, 2014 @ 4pm

“Of Cygnets and Exception: Swan-Knights and Western Aristcratic Fantasy”  Randy Schiff, Associate Professor, Department of English (UB)

 

More Funding Opportunities for Grad Students

GHI Fellowships at the Horner Library (Summer 2014)

Together with the German Society of Pennsylvania, the German Historical Institute will sponsor two to four fellowships of up to four weeks for research at the Joseph Horner Memorial Library in Philadelphia between June 1 and July 15, 2014.

The fellowship will be awarded to Ph.D. and M.A. students and advanced scholars without restrictions in research fields or geographical provenance. The “GHI Fellowship at the Horner Library” will provide a travel subsidy and an allowance of $1,000 to $3,500 depending on the length of the stay and the qualifications of the fellows. Opportunities to research at other special collections in Philadelphia may be available.

The Joseph Horner Memorial Library houses 70,000 volumes and is the
largest German American collection outside of a university. The collection offers rich materials from the 17th to the 20th centuries to historians of German American immigration culture, especially in Pennsylvania, as well as historians of German fictional and non-fictional literature, including travel and popular literature. See the reference guide on the GHI web site (http://www.ghi-dc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=207&Itemid=101) and the catalog (http://www.germansociety.org/library_catalog.html) at the German Society of Pennsylvania (http://www.germansociety.org/).

Applications (in English or German) should be made electronically to the GHI (c/o Bryan Hart – fellowships@ghi-dc.org). They should include a project description of no more than 2,000 words, curriculum vitae, copies of academic degrees, and one letter of reference. Application deadline is February 15, 2014.

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Leo Baeck Fellowship Program 2014/2015

The international Leo Baeck Fellowship Programme invites applications from doctoral students who carry out research in the field of history and culture of German-speaking Jewry for the award period October 2014 to September 2015. The programme is jointly organised by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and the Leo Baeck Institute London. It is open to doctoral students world wide, irrespective of their nationality. The deadline for applications is the 1st February 2014.  The text is available on the website of the Studienstiftung: http://www.studienstiftung.de/en/leo-baeck.html

Requirements:

• University degree(s) with excellent marks
• Date of latest degree not before February 2011
• Formal qualification for doctoral studies
• Doctoral research project focussing on the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry

Programme schedule:

For the academic year 2014/15 up to twelve fellows will be selected for the programme. The fellowships are awarded for the period October 2014 to September 2015. Regular workshops and a common intranet encourage scholarship holders to present their research and discuss their methodology and findings with other fellows. Working languages are German and English. Students enrolled at a university in Germany may apply for an extension after the first year, if the Studienstiftung is able to provide the funding.

Funding:

Fellows receive a stipend of 1,150 EUR per month. For research trips and conference participation monthly supplements and travel allowances are available on request. Tuition fees are not covered.

Application:

Candidates are invited to submit the following documents in English or German:

• Application form (download: *.doc, *.pdf )
• Cover letter outlining the motivation for participation in the programme (1 page)
• Curriculum vitae with details on education, general interests and language skills
• Photocopy/-copies of university degree(s), including marks/grading
• Research proposal (5 pages)
• Research schedule for the academic year 2014/15, including planned research trips
• Letter of recommendation by the supervisor of the PhD project
• Second letter of recommendation

The deadline for application is the 1st February 2014. We accept applications by e-mail (one pdf-document) or conventional mail. Only complete application sets will be considered. Short listed candidates will be invited for an interview in Frankfurt in April 2014.

Contact

Dr Matthias Frenz

Telephone +49 228 82096-283

leobaeck@studienstiftung.de

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Yiddish Book Center Fellowship Program
September 2014 – August 2015

Apply by January 6, 2014.

The Yiddish Book Center is now accepting applications for its 2014-2015 Fellowship Program. Yiddish Book Center Fellows spend a year as full-time staff, learning valuable skills and participating in a dynamic environment of Yiddish cultural production and preservation.

Applicants should be recent college graduates with strong backgrounds in Jewish studies or related disciplines, a working knowledge of Yiddish, a commitment to Yiddish language and culture, and a demonstrated ability to work both independently and as part of a team. Working in one or two main project areas, each fellow has the opportunity to build on his or her strengths and experiences and to acquire valuable new skills such as: exhibition design, audio and video production, education program administration, language pedagogy, oral history practice, and museum tour development. In addition, all fellows gain important professional skills such as working as part of a team, working closely with supervisors on long-term projects, and writing in a professional context.

Each fellow receives a stipend of $28,000 plus health insurance.

For more information or to download and print a flier, visit
www.yiddishbookcenter.org/fellowship-program.

QUESTIONS? Contact Director of Educational Programs Amy Leos-Urbel at
aleos-urbel@bikher.org or at 413-256-4900 ext. 131.

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SUNY Buffalo (UB) Public Humanities Fellowship 

The UB Humanities Institute will award two $5000 Graduate Student Public Humanities Fellowships in 2014-15.  The Fellowships, developed with the New York Council for the Humanities, will involve a combination of training in the methods of public scholarship and work by the Fellows to explore the public dimensions of their scholarship in partnership with a community organization.

For the full announcement, click here.

UB Fellows will be part of a cohort of Fellows from the CUNY Graduate Center, Columbia University, Cornell University, New York University, and Syracuse University.

REQUIREMENTS: The Fellows are required to attend a two-day orientation training run by the New York Council for the Humanities on Monday, August 18 and Tuesday, August 19, 2014. During the Fellowship year, the Fellows will research methods in the public humanities and develop a plan to give a public dimension to some aspect of their scholarly interests. As part of this process, Fellows will identify potential community partners for this work. The Fellows will be asked to present about the outcomes of their research and public work to the university community in coordination with HI and to submit a final report to the New York Council for the Humanities.

ELIGIBILITY: Applicants must be enrolled Ph.D. students in a humanities field (broadly defined) at UB, and must be ABD:  they must have completed all coursework and oral exams by September 1, 2013.

DURATION & STIPEND: Duration of the Fellowship is August 2014 to May 2015, including mandatory attendance at a two-day training in August in New York City. The stipend is $5000 plus travel funds to attend the August training and other Fellowship-related events.

TO APPLY: Interested applicants should submit an online application, including cv and references, by Friday February 7, 2014.  The cv should indicate when the applicant achieved ABD status.  The link to the application is here: https://nych.wufoo.com/forms/zbaknmm0dfzjjv/

Applicants will be notified of final decisions by early April 2014

UB Humanities Institute Faculty Research Fellowships

The Humanities Institute offers fellowships for UB tenured and tenure-track faculty engaged in humanistic research. HI defines the humanities broadly, accepting proposals from a wide range of disciplines, including literature, history, classics, anthropology, sociology, geography, music, and more.

These residential fellowships provide the Fellow’s department with course replacement funds at the standard CAS adjunct rate ($3,500 per course) to provide a semester of course release, which will allow the Fellow to focus primarily on a major research project and to participate actively in Institute programs.

Three Faculty Fellowships are generously supported by the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR).  OVPR/HI Faculty Fellows are selected based on proposals that are especially strong in promoting the interdisciplinary mission of OVPR and HI.

All fellows should expect to participate in the following programs and events over the course of their fellowship:

Humanities Institute Events: Fellows will attend Scholars@Hallwalls talks and monthly lunches with other Faculty Fellows.  In addition, Fellows are encouraged to participate in HI Research Workshops and other interdisciplinary activities.

Faculty Fellow Presentation: Fellows are expected to share the fruits of their research through a presentation open to the UB community and the general public. This is usually a Scholars@Hallwalls talk, but it can also be an exhibition or performance.

Faculty Research and Follow-Up: Fellows will pursue their research topics as outlined in their proposals. The semester following the leave, Fellows must submit a one-page summary of their research that outlines project goals, how the fellowship helped the recipient towards those goals, how close the project is to completion, and how it will be made available to the public (e.g. the publication of a book, a series of articles, an exhibition, a documentary film, a performance).

Selection Criteria

Institute fellows will be selected based on the following criteria:

• The quality and potential of the proposed research project as outlined in a brief proposal ( four to six double-spaced pages )
• The quality and completion record of previous research projects and scholarly publications
• The proposal’s ability to communicate the importance of the project beyond the applicant’s home discipline
• The demonstrated ability and desire of the applicant to participate in Institute programs

Selection Procedure

Applications will be evaluated by an ad hoc committee comprised of faculty members selected to represent a wide cross-section of the humanities.

Application Restrictions

• No current member of the Humanities Institute’s Executive Committee can apply for a fellowship
• Fellows must be in residence in the Buffalo area during the term of their fellowship
• Past recipients of a Humanities Institute Fellowship may reapply after five years.
• Fellows may not accept any other internal or external research support designed for salary replacement during the tenure of their award.

Applications must include the following:

• Completed Cover Sheet. Click Here to Download Form
• Four- to six-page, double-spaced research proposal.
• Research proposal abstract (200 word maximum)
• Current CV of no more than three pages, which should indicate in detail previous and upcoming research support (grants, fellowships, leaves).
• Signed form from the applicant’s department chair that indicates the chair’s agreement to free the applicant from two courses in return for course replacement funds at the $3,500 per course adjunct rate. Click Here to Download Form (This can be sent separately to 712 Clemens or huminst@buffalo.edu)

Applications must be sent as a single pdf file by Friday, January 24, 2014 to: Jinhee Song (huminst@buffalo.edu)

Upcoming Conferences

23^rd Annual Milton Plesur Graduate History Conference

University at Buffalo, State University of New York

Saturday, April 5, 2014

The University at Buffalo Graduate History Association (GHA) would like to place a call for papers for the twenty-third annual Milton Plesur Graduate History Conference. Co sponsored by the Graduate Student Association, the History Department, and graduate student groups from the Humanities and Social Sciences, the Plesur conference has provided an opportunity for M.A. and Ph.D. students across the United States and Canada to present original research in history and related fields for over two decades. The GHA is proud to continue the tradition of supporting graduate student research in a collegiate forum.

This year we are pleased to welcome Dr. Erin K. Rowe, Assistant Professor at The Johns Hopkins University, who will deliver the keynote address. Dr. Rowe’s address is titled “How Can a Black Man Be a Saint?: Constructing Black Sanctity in Early Modern Global Catholicism,” and investigates the rise and circulation of devotion to sub-Saharan African saints in the early modern Catholic world. We would like to encourage individuals to submit papers that would complement Dr. Rowe’s work, though we will be accepting papers on a wide range of themes and topics including, but not limited to:

• History and Historiography
• Race, Ethnicity, and Identity
• Public Memory and Commemoration
• Migration and Diaspora
• Gender, Sexuality, and the Body
• Science, Medicine, and Technology
• Religion and Society
• Sovereignty and the State
• Popular Culture and Consumerism
• Public History and Education
• Empire and Nation
• Intellectual History
• Work, Class, and Community
• Urban, Rural, and Environmental

Applicants are invited to submit 250-300 word proposals for individual papers, or panels of three papers. Submissions should be accompanied by an updated C.V.

The priority deadline for submissions is January 15, 2014.  The final deadline is February 15, 2014.

Please submit your proposal by clicking HERE, or email your proposal and C.V. to Josh Schroeder at jrschroe@buffalo.edu.

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38th Annual GSA Conference

The German Studies Association (GSA) will hold its Thirty-Eighth Annual Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, September 18-21, 2014.

The Program Committee cordially invites proposals on any aspect of German, Austrian, or Swiss studies, including (but not limited to) history, Germanistik, film, art history, political science, anthropology, musicology, religious studies, sociology, and cultural studies. Proposals for entire sessions and for interdisciplinary presentations are strongly encouraged. Individual paper proposals and offers to serve as session moderators or commentators are also welcome. Applications for seminar topics went out a few weeks ago; that deadline isDecember 15. Applications for participation in seminars will be opened on January 6.

Please see the GSA website for information about the submission process for ‘traditional’ papers, sessions, and roundtables, which opens on January 5, 2014. ALL proposals must be submitted online; paper forms are not used. The deadline for proposals is February 17, 2014.

Please note that presenters must be members of the German Studies Association. Information on membership is available on the GSA website (www.thegsa.org).

In order to avoid complications later, the Program Committee would like to reiterate two extremely important guidelines here (the full list of guidelines is available on the GSA website):

No individual at the GSA Conference may give more than one paper or participate in more than two separate capacities.

It is the responsibility of the submitter of proposed panels to ensure that any AV requests are specific (i.e., requiring both audio and visual) and clearly justified.

For more information, visit the GSA website, where previous conference programs may be found (www.thegsa.org), or contact members of the 2014 Program Committee:

Program Director: Margaret Eleanor Menninger, Texas State University (mm48@txstate.edu)

Eighteenth-century history/culture: Daniel Riches, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, (dlriches@ua.edu)

Nineteenth-century history/culture: Anthony J. Steinhoff, Université de Quebec, Montreal, steinhoff.anthony@uqam.ca

Twentieth- and twenty-first-century history: Thomas Kohut, Williams College (Thomas.A.Kohut@williams.edu)

Twentieth- and twenty-first-century history: Heather Perry, University of North Carolina, Charlotte (hrperry@uncc.edu)

Twentieth- and twenty-first-century Germanistik: Sara Hall, University of Illinois, Chicago (sahall@uic.edu)

Twentieth- and twenty-first-century Germanistik: Todd Heidt, Knox College (theidt@knox.edu)

Political Science: Angelika von Wahl, Lafayette College (vonwahla@lafayette.edu)

Interdisciplinary/Diachronic: Drew Bergerson, University of Missouri, Kansas City, (BergersonA@umkc.edu)

Interdisciplinary/Diachronic: Maria Makela, California College of the Arts (mmakela@cca.edu)

Seminars:

Lutz Koepnick (chair), Vanderbilt University (Lutz.Koepnick@vanderbilt.edu)

Elisabeth Herrmann, University of Alberta (herrmann@ualberta.ca)

Emre Sencer, Knox College (esencer@knox.edu)

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Hirschfeld-Tagen Conference

Die Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld hat 2012 mit den “Hirschfeld-Tagen” eine Veranstaltungsreihe ins Leben gerufen, mit der in den verschiedenen Regionen und Bundesländern Deutschlands an den Namensgeber der Stiftung sowie allgemein an all diejenigen erinnert werden soll, die sich in der Vergangenheit für die Emanzipation von LGBTIQ-Menschen eingesetzt haben und sich auch heute noch in diesem Bereich engagieren.

2014 finden die “Hirschfeld-Tage” in Nordrhein-Westfalen statt. Fester Bestandteil der Veranstaltungsreihe sind die “Hirschfeld-Lectures”, die 2014 von Robert Beachy (Associate Professor, Department of History/Goucher College, Baltimore, MD, USA) und Claudia Breger (Professor of Germanic Studies, Department of Gender Studies/Indiana University, IN, USA) in Köln bestritten werden.

Das Centrum Schwule Geschichte Köln (http://www.csgkoeln.org/) und Prof. Dr. Norbert Finzsch (Universität zu Köln, Historisches Institut/Anglo-Amerikanische Abteilung; http://histinst.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/382.html) übernehmen im Auftrag und in Kooperation mit der Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld die Ausrichtung der Hirschfeld-Lectures 2014 in Köln. Als Rahmen für die Vorträge organisieren CSG und Norbert Finzsch eine Konferenz für NachwuchswissenschaftlerInnen aus dem Bereich der Queer und Gender Studies und allen anderen akademischen Disziplinen, die sich mit der Historiographie der LGBTIQ-Emanzipation befassen. Den ReferentInnen soll dabei die Gelegenheit gegeben werden, ihre aktuellen (Abschluss)Arbeiten und Projekte zu präsentieren und zu diskutieren. Eine thematische oder epochale Eingrenzung wird bewusst nicht angestrebt; Ziel ist es vielmehr, im Rahmen der Tagung die aktuelle Bandbreite der Nachwuchsforschungen zum Thema LGBTIQ-Emanzipation möglichst weitgehend zu erfassen.

Willkommen sind Beiträge von ReferentInnen aller akademischen Qualifikationsstufen (BA, MA, Magister, Promovierende…). Darüber hinaus sind auch nichtakademische Initiativen, Geschichtswerkstätten, Vereine und unabhängige ForscherInnen, die sich “vor Ort” mit der LGBTIQ-Geschichte befassen, dazu aufgerufen, Themenvorschläge einzureichen. Wir möchten so zur Vernetzung von Queer und Gender Studies, “Mainstream-Historiographie”, Nachwuchsforschung und nicht-akademischer LGBTIQ-Geschichtsforschung beitragen.

Themenvorschläge (maximal 1 Seite DIN A 4; zusätzlich kurze biographische Angaben) können bis zum 14.2.2014 an folgende Mailadresse gerichtet werden:

queergenderhistoriographie2014@gmail.com

Vorbehaltlich der Bewilligung beantragter Fördermittel wird die Übernahme der Kosten für Anreise, Unterkunft und Verpflegung angestrebt. Eine Publikation der Tagungsbeiträge ist angedacht.

Do Biographies Matter?

“Do Biographies Matter? Exploring Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)” by Prof. Andreas W. Daum

To be held on Friday, September 20th at 4pm, this talk is the first in this year’s Scholars @ Hallwalls series, sponsored by UB’s Humanities Institute.  This series is hosted at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in downtown Buffalo (341 Delaware Ave.)

This talk will discuss the biographical genre, often dismissed in today’s humanities. Can it help us understand those processes that contributed to constituting a more modern—and more global—world two hundred years ago?

Andreas W. Daum is a professor of history at the State University of New York at Buffalo. His research interest reach from the eighteenth to the late twentieth century. Daum focuses on transatlantic relations in this era, the history of knowledge and popular science, and the Cold War. He is currently working on a biographical study on Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859). Andreas Daum is the author of Kennedy in Berlin (German 2003; English, with Cambridge University Press, 2008), a micro-history of the Cold War with an emphasis on the role of emotions as well as a monograph on popular science in the nineteenth century (1998, 2nd edition 2002). He has co-edited, with Cambridge University Press, a volume on the Vietnam War in international and comparative perspectives as well as a volume on Berlin and Washington, DC as capital cities in a comparative perspective.

Select Fridays between September 2013 and May 2014 the Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center becomes an intellectual salon. Scholars at Hallwalls features eight thought-provoking, award-winning lectures in the humanities, presented in the intellectual and inspiring setting of Hallwalls.

Faculty Fellows will present their cutting-edge humanities research in terms accessible to those in other disciplines and outside academia.  The events will continue to be social occasions as well, with complimentary hors d’oeuvres..

All lectures are free and open to the public.