The Cliopatria Awards
First, many thanks to Jeremy Boggs of ClioWeb and George Mason University who designed the logo for The Cliopatria Awards. Thanks also to the judges who made the difficult decisions in selecting winners of the awards from among the many excellent nominations: Manan Ahmed, Another Damned Medievalist, Natalie Bennett, Timothy Burke, Jonathan Dresner, Hiram Hover, Sharon Howard, Adam Kotsko, and Brian Ulrich. They have done a fine job. Here, then, are the winners, short identifications of them, and brief explanations of the judge's rationale for their decisions:
Best Individual Blog: Mark Grimsley's Blog Them Out of the Stone Age
"Blog Them Out of the Stone Age is the finest example of the application of a historian's passion and tradecraft in the new medium of blogging. It combines research, analysis and pedagogy issues with a keen desire to engage with the broader public."
Mark Grimsley is Associate Professor of History at Ohio State University
Best Group Blog: K. M. Lawson, Jonathan Dresner, and others, at Frog in a Well
"After much thought, the judges chose the Frog in a Well project as a whole, rather than singling out any one of its constituent parts: not only do they feature overlapping personnel and a considerable degree of shared identity and purpose, all have been characterized by diverse contributors, strong historical content and consistently high quality writing. Both individually and as a whole, they represent a great achievement and a model to inspire and challenge in the future."
K. M. Lawson is a graduate student in history at Harvard; Jonathan Dresner is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Hawaii, Hilo. They are joined in Frog in a Well/Japan, Frog in a Well/Korea, and Frog in a Well/China by a number of other professors and students of east Asian studies.
Best New Blog:"PK"'s BibliOdyssey
"BibliOdyssey has only been on-line since September of last year, but has already amassed a significant following for the dramatic and thought-provoking historical images and books featured there. This unusually visual blog by"PK" brings together a wide variety of on-line materials and original scans, and will provide teachers and researchers and hobbyists alike with rich graphic and bibliographic sources."
"PK" blogs pseudonymously.
Best Post: Rob MacDougall's"Turk 182" at Old is the New New (9 January 2005)
"Rob MacDougall's ‘Turk 182' brilliantly traversed time and genres to illuminate the abiding fascination with Automata. His use of varied sources, erudition and clear affection for the subject-matter highlights it as the best post of the year."
Rob MacDougall is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Western Ontario.
Best Series of Posts: Nathanael Robinson's"The Geographical Turn," Parts One, Three, at Rhine River.
"The judges thought that, of the nominations, this was the best example of historical scholarship. It was a well-written, thoughtful and accessible essay about an important historiographical movement that may be unfamiliar to many non-specialist readers, while for academic historians it discussed a less familiar aspect of a well-known subject. As such, it represented an excellent example of the uses historians can make of blogs both to explore their ideas and to increase understanding of the past and of the discipline of history."
Nathanael Robinson is a graduate student in Comparative History at Brandeis.
Best Writer: Timothy Burke at Easily Distracted
"Timothy Burke writes strong, clear prose that advances interesting ideas and moves debates in new directions. His energetic and considered writing stands out even in such a competitive category as this one, and reaches out to historians, other academics and non-academics alike with great skill."
Timothy Burke is Associate Professor of History at Swarthmore.