Things Noted Here and There

The American Historical Association has announced the winners of its awards and prizes for 2007. David Brion Davis, Lloyd Gardner, and Fritz Stern will be recognized as senior scholars of the highest distinction. George Mason University's Center for History and New Media and its World History Matters will receive the James Harvey Robinson Prize for"the teaching aid that made the most outstanding contribution to the teaching and learning of history in any field for public or educational purposes." Congratulations to all the winners, who will receive their honors at the AHA's general meeting on Friday evening 5 January.

Poor George III! Plagued by misbehaving siblings, he barely had time for misbehaving colonists. He thought he'd respectably married off his youngest sister, Caroline Mathilde, to Denmark's Christian VII, but there she's ended up in Elsinore! The House of Hanover seems like"a reclamation project for Dr. Phil," writes William Grimes."If only there could have been a group hug."

Marcella Bombardieri,"Graying of U. S. Academia Stirs Debate," Boston Globe, 27 December, notes that nearly 10% of Harvard's tenured professors are over 70. Take 81-year-old Roy Glauber, for example. No plans to retire. Better yet, take Duke's I. B. Holley. He's been teaching in the history department since 1947. Fifteen years later, he was clearly one of my best teachers there."My goal," he said in -- um -- 1989,"is to teach to 100. People are living longer now. I know a [retired] physician who's 104. He's still got all his marbles. I'm enough of a realist to know that I might not make it, but that's the goal."

In"The Academy and the Duke Case," Inside Higher Ed, 28 December, our colleague, KC Johnson, blisters the"Group of 88" Duke faculty members who prematurely condemned their own students last Spring.

The Young America's Foundation's"The Dirty Dozen: America's Most Bizarre and Politically Correct College Courses" is about as sexually pre-occupied as it accuses our college curricula of being. Its First Prize goes to Occidental College's"The Phallus." (Scroll down) Could be right-wing phallus-envy. The course description doesn't include the Pat Boone Phallus. (Warning: NOBODY got more explicit than ol' Blue Suede Shoes.) Hat tip: boingboing.

Duke's William H. Chafe,"Hope for New Orleans," Washington Post, 27 December, reports on his experience on a volunteer weekend in the city. New Orleans' recovery from Katrina has been painfully slow and the Southern Historical Association did the city no favor by moving its recent convention from the Big Easy to Birmingham. John Inscoe tells me that he was unable to find hotel accommodations for the convention in New Orleans, but the American Library Association's much larger meeting was held there before the SHA decided to abandon the city. Shame on us!

Finally, thanks to Jan Hodel of histnet.ch for featuring Cliopatria as the Geschichtsblog des Monats Dezember 2006!