Fuel Your Research: AHC Funding Opportunities

 

The American Heritage Center (AHC) at the University of Wyoming offers several funding opportunities to support research using its collections, which cover a wide range of topics related to the American West, environment and conservation, military history, transportation history, the entertainment industry, and more.

 

Alan K. Simpson Fellowship

• Offers scholars at all career levels a $3,000 stipend for 20 days of research at the AHC on western political history.

 

Bernard L. Majewski Research Fellowship

• Provides scholars at any stage funding through a $3,000 stipend for 20 days of AHC-based research on economic geology history.

 

Women in Public Life Fellowship

• Supports scholars across disciplines with a $3,000 stipend for 20 days of women’s history research at the AHC.

 

Peter K. Simpson Fellowship on the American West

• Open to emerging scholars and seasoned researchers for research at both the AHC and Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody, WY), includes an $8,000 stipend.

 

Travel Grants

• Offer funding up to $750 for scholars at any career phase to travel to the AHC to use its collections.

 

The application deadline for all opportunities is March 31, 2024. Complete application details can be found on the AHC website at https://www.uwyo.edu/ahc/grants/index.html. You may also contact AHC Archivist Leslie Waggener at lwaggen2@uwyo.edu or 307-766-2557.

Cal Poly Pomona is hiring in Latina/o History and the US/Mexico Borderlands! The Department of History at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona invites applications for a tenure-track position in Latina/o History and the US/Mexico Borderlands at the rank of Assistant Professor for appointment effective Fall 2024. We have a strong commitment to inclusive excellence and to educational experiences that leverage the diverse perspectives and experiences needed to succeed and thrive in a diverse society. The new hire will be a part of the Interdisciplinary Ethnic Studies Faculty and will have the opportunity to engage with the Office of Interdisciplinary Ethnic Studies and the faculty affiliated with it.

Duties and Responsibilities: teaching Latina/o history, American history surveys, and upper- division courses in areas of interest; research and publication; and service to various levels of the university and the related community.

Required Qualifications:

1) Ph.D. in History with exposure more broadly to Latina/o history and the US/Mexico Borderlands from an accredited university at the time of appointment. ABDs are welcome to apply, but such applicants must complete all the requirements for the Ph.D. by the time of appointment

2) Evidence of ability to bring an Ethnic Studies lens to the candidate’s area of study

3) Evidence of potential for excellence in university-level teaching

4) Evidence of ability to work with and mentor a diverse student population; 4) Evidence of potential for  scholarly engagement in Latina/o history and the US/Mexico Borderlands

5) Evidence of potential for teaching survey courses in United States history

6) Demonstrated commitment to inclusivity and equity as provided in a Student Success Statement that responds to the prompt “Inclusive Excellence and Student Success” in the detailed position announcement and application found at careers.cpp.edu.

Consideration of completed applications will begin on January 19, 2024 and will continue until the position is filled. For expanded position description and application information, please go to careers.cpp.edu or this link. For general inquiries, please call (909) 869-3860 or email evwallis@cpp.edu.

(EOE/Minorities/Females/Vets/Disability

Save the date for the Best Practices Exchange (Un)Conference, which will be held June 10-12, 2024 at the Sacramento State University Library in Sacramento, California.

 

Best Practices Exchange (BPE) is a community of practitioners who manage digital information that meets annually to share their experiences and have honest conversations about the work that we do. This conference is a great opportunity to share, question, and learn from colleagues across a spectrum of government, academic, and cultural organizations.

 

This year's theme is The Digital Life Cycle. How do any of the various stages of the Digital Life Cycle fit into your everyday work or interests in born-digital and/or digitized materials? What are you excited or concerned about with regard to work done in these stages? What are you doing now to prepare for future challenges or opportunities? What about our current professional practices should we take forward into the future and what should be left behind? See the 2024 Conference website for more information.

 

Look for a call for proposals in early December 2023. More information will be shared on the BPE Website (https://bpexchange.wordpress.com) as the conference program is finalized.

UPDATE:

BPE 2024 Call for Proposals!

 

The Best Practices Exchange (BPE) 2024 Program Committee is now accepting session proposals for our next unconference, which will be June 10-12, 2024, at California State University, Sacramento in Sacramento, CA. 

Submit your proposal via this short form (https://forms.gle/pv1dWJcibGZxo3QG7) by Monday February 16, 2024 at midnight. Acceptance notifications will be sent by mid-March.

Our theme this year is The Digital Life Cycle. Link: https://bpexchange.wordpress.com/2024-conference/program-2024/

UPDATE - MARCH 18, 2024: 

Registration is now open for the Best Practices Exchange (Un)Conference, which will be held June 10-12, 2024 at the Sacramento State University Library in Sacramento, California.

 

Please follow this link to register for the 2024 BPE Conference: https://bit.ly/BPE2024registration  

The Department of English at Southern Methodist University invites outstanding applicants for a tenured appointment at the rank of advanced Associate or early Full Professor to the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Chair in Humanities beginning August 1, 2024.

The field is open. We welcome candidates in any and all fields of literary study in English, broadly defined, whose expertise would strengthen the department and its connections to affiliated departments and programs in the humanities and liberal arts, among them History, Philosophy, Art History, Ethnic Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies. The holder of this chair should be committed to an ambitious research agenda and active involvement in a dynamic department and its highly endowed Ph.D. program (in which all graduate students are fully funded and therefore carry little to no debt upon completion of their program).

The department provides generous support for faculty research, travel, and conferences, and has undertaken plans to devote its resources to an array of postdoctoral fellowships, symposia, and new programs that will provide the holder of this chair with an opportunity to help shape its future.

We especially encourage applications from women and members of other underrepresented groups.

Candidates must hold a Ph.D. in English (or related discipline) at the time of the appointment.

Applications should include a cover letter, curriculum vitae, and contact information for three references. Review of applications will begin December 15, 2023, but the committee will continue to accept applications until the position is filled. Please submit applications to http://apply.interfolio.com/136262. Questions about the position and process, as well as confidential inquires and nominations, may be directed to the chair of the search committee, Rhonda Garelick (rgarelick@smu.edu).

SMU is a private, secular university dedicated to upholding and supporting academic freedom, the protections of tenure, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. It is located in Dallas, Texas, which is part of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the United States, a cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse city with a booming economy and a very affordable cost of living.

SMU will not discriminate in any program or activity on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, or gender identity and expression. The Executive Director for Access and Equity/Title IX Coordinator is designated to handle inquiries regarding nondiscrimination policies and may be reached at the Perkins Administration Building, Room 204, 6425 Boaz Lane, Dallas, TX 75205, 214-768-3601, accessequity@smu.edu.

Hiring is contingent upon the satisfactory completion of a background check.

The Linda Hall Library is now accepting applications for its 2024-25 fellowship program. These fellowships provide graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and independent scholars in the history of science and related humanities fields with financial support to explore the Library’s outstanding science and engineering collections. Fellows also participate in a dynamic intellectual community alongside in-house experts and scholars from other Kansas City cultural and educational institutions.

The Linda Hall Library holds nearly half a million monographs and more than 43,000 journal titles documenting the history of science and technology from the 15th century to the present. Its collections are exceptionally strong in the engineering disciplines, chemistry, and physics. In addition, the Library boasts extensive resources related to natural history, astronomy, earth science, environmental studies, aeronautics, life science, infrastructure studies, mathematics, and the history of the book.

The Library will once again be offering residential fellowships to support on-site research in Kansas City, as well as virtual fellowships for scholars working remotely using resources from the Library’s digital collections. Applicants may request up to four months of funding at a rate of $3,000 per month for doctoral students and $4,200 per month for postdoctoral researchers.

The Library is also offering several fellowships intended for specific groups of researchers:

• The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Postdoctoral Fellowship provides nine months of residential funding ($5,000 per month) to a postdoctoral scholar whose research explores the intersection of science and the humanities.

• The History of Science and Medicine Fellowship, cosponsored by the Clendening History of Medicine Library at the University of Kansas Medical Center, provides one month of residential funding ($3,000 per month) to a doctoral student whose research examines the intersecting histories of science and medicine.

• The Pearson Fellowship in Aerospace History provides up to two months of residential funding ($4,200 per month) to a postdoctoral scholar studying the history of aviation or spaceflight.

• The Presidential Fellowship in Bibliography provides up to four months of residential funding ($4,200 per month) to a postdoctoral scholar whose research focuses on the study of books and manuscripts as physical artifacts.

• The Ukraine Fellowship, offered in partnership with the UK-Ukraine Twinning Initiative, provides up to two months of virtual funding ($4,200 per month) to a Ukrainian doctoral student or postdoctoral scholar pursuing a history of science or humanities project that would benefit from the Library’s holdings.

The Linda Hall Library is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive research environment and encourages members of any groups that have traditionally been underrepresented in academia to apply for fellowship support.

Please share this announcement with graduate students, colleagues, or anyone else who might be interested in the Linda Hall Library’s fellowship program. All application materials are due no later than January 19, 2024. For further information, visit the Fellowships page on our website or e-mail fellowships@lindahall.org.

Job Posting: 

Endowed Assistant or Associate Professor in Arts of the Americas, School of Art, University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, AR

 

Position Summary: 

The Art History Program seeks a faculty member with expertise in research areas integral to the arts of the Americas. The position is open in terms of chronological specialization, and scholars may focus on any aspect of North, Central and/or South American artistic production, or trace cultural convergences linking the Americas to the wider world. Interdisciplinary, intersectional, and transregional approaches centering overlooked or marginalized histories are particularly welcome, as is scholarship that extends beyond current program strengths, including African American, Afro-Latin, Asian American, Indigenous, Latino, and Native American artistic production.

This position is considered fundamental to the implementation of a new MA program in the arts of the Americas, developed in partnership with the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and its contemporary arts satellite, the Momentary. For this and future hires, we seek creative thinkers who will contribute to the diversity and excellence of the intellectual community in the School of Art, Crystal Bridges, and the growing arts ecosystem of Northwest Arkansas. Northwest Arkansas is home to Hispanic, Asian, Black, Pacific Islander, and Native American populations, among them significant Marshallese, Vietnamese, Hmong, and Mexican communities. The Art History Program is actively committed to diversifying art historical knowledge and approaches, embracing new methodologies, and educating students in a multivocal and inclusive art history. Applications are encouraged from those invested in making art history accessible and compelling to first-generation students and students from communities underrepresented in U.S. arts institutions. Scholars with a passion for collaboration, program-building, and partnership-development are also encouraged to apply. 

Endowed positions come with an annual research budget of up to $60,000 to support scholarship, the expectation of a research record appropriate to the prominence of the appointment, and the requirement of at least one community outreach effort per year. This is a nine-month faculty appointment, with a standard workload of 40% research, 40% teaching (2 courses per semester, 4 courses total per year), and 20% service. Expected start date is August 12, 2024. 

Deadline:

Completed applications received by 12/01/2023, will be assured full consideration. Late applications will be reviewed as necessary to fill the position. 

Application components:

• a curriculum vitae
• a cover letter/letter of application 
• two scholarly writing samples (preferably published or forthcoming research, submitted in a single PDF) 
• a list of three professional references (name, title, email address, and phone number) willing to provide letters of recommendation if requested during the application process. Letters of recommendation will be requested only for candidates selected for interviews. 

For additional inquiries, please contact the search committee chairs Jennifer Greenhill at greenhil@uark.eduand John Blakinger at johnrb@uark.edu.

For a complete position announcement and information regarding how to apply, visit: https://uasys.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UASYS/job/Endowed-Assistant-or-Associate-Professor-in-Arts-of-the-Americas_R0047175?locations=17a66cdad98201f7890cfb48ca00e249

The Cokie Roberts Research Fund for Women’s History will support one to three annual fellowships for emerging and established historians, journalists, authors, or graduate students who perform and publish new research for the general public to elevate women’s history using the records held by the National Archives. 

This fellowship will award up to $12,500 to support emerging and established historians, journalists, authors, or graduate students who perform and publish new research for the general public to elevate women’s history using the records held by the National Archives. Recipients of the fellowship will perform original document research from the National Archives on women’s history for a published book, article, essay, film, short series, or art piece developed for the general public.

The application period for the Cokie Roberts Fellowship is November 1, 2023 through May 15, 2024. Please view the FAQs below for more information. Applications are completed online via this form.

If you have questions about the fellowship, contact fellowship@archivesfoundation.org for details.

Alfred Bush, the longtime Curator of Western Americana at Princeton University and WHA Honorary Lifetime Member, died on November 9, 2023. A published obituary is available on Town Topics, Princeton's Weekly Community Newspaper. 

You can read about Bush's significant contributions to the field of western history in a recollection written by the WHA's Immediate Past President Bill Deverell (see below). I have also included a link to the 2006 piece written by former WHA President (2017) Steve Aron on Alfred Bush and the collections at Princeton: "The Western Man in the Eastern Parlor". 

Alfred L. Bush

We mourn the death of Alfred L. Bush (1933-2023), Princeton University’s longtime Curator of Western Americana. Alfred mentored generations of students, particularly Native American students, at Princeton. He was unfailingly loyal, utterly kind, and it was always delightful to spend time in his company. When I was a young graduate student, Alfred advised me to attend the Western History Association meeting. I had no funding to do so, but Alfred made it happen. We spent time together in Santa Fe and nearby pueblos, and Alfred guided me to documentary and human sources for an essay I wrote on the return of Blue Lake to the Taos Pueblo. Alfred was funny, irreverent, and could see through artifice in an instant. He took me once to a springtime luncheon at the home of a fabulously wealthy woman who lived on an huge estate near Princeton. At the long table set for our meal, I had never seen so many silverware items and goblets placed at each setting. “I don’t know how to do this,” I said to Alfred. “It’s ok,” he said, “just watch me.”

I watched Alfred Bush for decades, and I saw firsthand his geniality and generosity, his grace and humility. One day, decades ago, he and I were driving together on the Tesuque Pueblo, where Alfred’s adopted son, Paul, lived with his family. We passed a hitchhiker whom Alfred seemed to know. He stopped, and the man ran to our car. “Hi Bush!” he said. Alfred greeted him equally warmly (though I never knew Alfred to speak other than in his ‘indoor voice’). “Hello, Alfred,” he said. Our drive continued, with this young Native man referring to Alfred as “Bush” the whole time. After we dropped him off, I asked Alfred why our passenger called him by his last name. “Oh,” he said, “his name is Alfred, and he lives here. There can only be one Alfred.”

That was true of our friend, too. There was only one Alfred Bush. His work on western subjects, particularly through investigations of Native American photography – Native as both subjects and artists – was ahead of its time. So many of us are saddened by his death, and so many of us are proud to call ourselves his friends and his students. Alfred made a difference, and he will be missed.

William Deverell

Divisional Dean for the Social Sciences

USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts & Sciences

Montana The Magazine of Western History announces its 2024 Emerging Scholar Contest.

Now in its fifth year, the emerging scholar contest was established to encourage graduate students, early career faculty, and previously unpublished independent historians to publish their work in a peer reviewed journal. Submissions can cover any topic relevant to the history of the American West and should be grounded in primary and secondary source research. Judges, who are members of the magazine’s editorial board, will assess the submissions based on the evidence of research, originality of argument, and quality of writing.

 

Upon selection, the winning article will go through the peer review process and be published in the magazine. The winner also receives $1000 and an opportunity to travel to the Montana History Conference to give a presentation on their topic.

 

Deadline is January 8, 2024.

 

Submission Guidelines at:  mhspublications.submittable.com/submit

 

Previous winners include:

Alex Miller, “Building an Avalanche Community in the Mountain West: From Studies to Public Awareness, 1945-1985”

Gregory B. LeDonne, “Rebranding Neoliberalism: Idaho’s Owyhee Ranchers Confront Rangeland Reform”

Kerri Clement, “What is a country without horses? Robert Yellowtail and Horse Herd Restoration on the Crow Reservation, 1934-1944”

Established in 1998, the J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards recognize excellence in nonfiction that exemplifies the literary grace and commitment to serious research and social concern that characterized the work of the awards' Pulitzer Prize-winning namesake, J. Anthony Lukas, who died in 1997. Four awards are given: two J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progress Awards, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and the Mark Lynton History Prize.

J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Awards

Two J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Awards, in the amount of $25,000, are given annually to aid in the completion of significant works of nonfiction on topics of American political or social concern. Recognizing that a nonfiction book based on extensive research often overtaxes the resources available to its author, the project envisions the Awards as a way of closing the gap between the time and money an author has and the time and money that finishing a book requires.

 

J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize

The J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, in the amount of $10,000, is given annually to a book-length work of narrative nonfiction on a topic of American political or social concern that exemplifies the literary grace, commitment to serious research, and original reporting, that characterized the distinguished work of the award's namesake.

Mark Lynton History Prize

The Mark Lynton History Prize, in the amount of $10,000, is awarded to a book-length work of history on any topic that best combines intellectual distinction with felicity of expression. 

Lynton Scholarship Program

The Lynton scholarship program annually provides two research grants of $5,000 apiece to outstanding students in the Book Seminar class at Columbia Journalism School. These grants help support the reporting of narrative non-fiction books in the tradition of J. Anthony Lukas. Since the Lynton scholarships were first awarded in 2005, many of the student recipients have gone on to produce acclaimed books on subjects ranging from the destruction of the Great Lakes to the underworld of pop music piracy to an early school desegregation case brought by a family of Chinese immigrants.

 

About J. Anthony Lukas

 

The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, J. Anthony Lukas published five epic books, each of which examined a critical fault line in America’s social and political landscape by examining individual lives caught up in the havoc of change.

A former foreign and national correspondent for The New York Times, Lukas tackled the country’s generational conflict in his first book “Don’t Shoot: We Are Your Children”; examined the impact of school desegregation in “Common Ground,” and told a sweeping tale of class conflict at the turn of the century in “Big Trouble,” completed just before his death in 1997.

His other books were “The Barnyard Epithet and Other Obscenities: Notes on the Chicago Conspiracy Trial” and “Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years.”

Prof. Samuel G. Freedman on J. Anthony Lukas in Salon(link is external) (June 12, 1997)

Robert W. Snyder on Lukas’ “Common Ground” in CJR (link is external)(Sept./Oct. 2006)

About Mark Lynton

One of the three Lukas Prize Project Awards, the Mark Lynton History Prize, is named for the late Mark Lynton, a business executive and author of “Accidental Journey: A Cambridge Internee’s Memoir of World War II.” Lynton was an avid proponent of the writing of history, and the Lynton family has sponsored the Lukas Prize Project since its inception.

“I was born Max­ Otto Ludwig Loewenstein, in Stuttgart, Germany,” begins Mark Lynton’s autobiography, “Accidental Journey: A Cambridge Internee’s Memoir of World War II,” published in 1995 by The Overlook Press. A student at Cambridge University when WWII began, Lynton provides a witty account of his odyssey from internment at a Canadian detention camp to his return to England and, ultimately, enlistment in the British military, where he served for seven years. Assigned to the Pioneer Corps, Lynton later transferred to the Royal Tank Regiment, attaining the rank of captain. He completed his career with British Intelligence, interrogating German officers.

Born on April 16, 1920, Lynton moved to Berlin two years later when his father was named head of a major German car manufacturer. Raised by a Swiss nanny, Lynton was bilingual in French and German and was educated in Germany, France and England.

Lynton had a long career working for Citroen and was a senior executive at the firm Hunter Douglas in the Netherlands at the time of his death in 1997. His wife, Marion Lynton, and children, Lili and Michael, established the Mark Lynton History Prize as part of the Lukas Prize Project to honor Lynton, who was an avid reader of history. The Lynton family has generously underwritten the Lukas Prize Project since its inception in 1998.

The Lukas Prize Project is co-administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University.

See more here.