To celebrate Julia Child’s 100th birthday, Professor Emeritus of History David Strauss recently joined a panel of food historians whose task was to consider Child’s continuing impact on the American food scene eight years after her death. Along with the panelists, 40 members of the National Arts Club in New York City first enjoyed a dinner comprised of four entrées, four vegetable dishes, and two desserts, including such signature dishes as boeuf Bourguignon, oven-roasted potato galettes, and mousse au chocolat, all prepared from Child’s recipes. To conclude the evening, slices of los gatos gâteau cake (apricot and hazelnut)–a less familiar Julia Child dessert–were served. In addition to Strauss, panelists included Andy Smith (The New School, New York), Patricia Parkhurst Ferguson (Columbia University) and Dana Polan (New York University.) Strauss’s presentation was informed by findings from his recent book titled Setting the Table for Julia Child: Gourmet Dining in America, 1934-1961 (The Johns Hopkins University Press).
history
Professor Werner Appointed Marlene Crandell Francis Assistant Professor in the Humanities
Assistant Professor of History Janelle Werner has been appointed the Marlene Crandell Francis Assistant Professor in the Humanities, effective July 1, 2012.
Werner earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Here teaching interests include medieval Europe, early modern Europe (1500-1789), Reformation Europe, and British history to 1660. Her thematic fields focus on cross-cultural contact (Byzantium, Europe, Islam); popular religion and lay piety; social and cultural history; and women, gender, and sexuality.
Professor Emeritus Publishes in Revue Bénédictine
John Wickstrom, professor emeritus of history, will have an article published by Revue Bénédictine in 2013. It is titled “Claiming St. Maurus of Glanfeuil: an 11th-Century Sermon from Fossés.”
John is also the 2012 Moritz Lecturer at Kalamazoo College. His talk, “Picturing the Saints: What Medieval Illuminations Can Tell us About History,” will be delivered on Wednesday, April 4, at 7 P.M. in Dewing Hall Room 103. The event is free and open to the public.
Professor Barclay Lectures on West Berlin in the Context of Postwar History
David Barclay, the Margaret and Roger Scholten Professor of International Studies, delivered a lecture titled “Island City, Cold War City: West Berlin in the Context of Postwar History, 1948-1994” at his undergraduate alma mater, the University of Florida.
The presentation was based on his current book project: a general history of West Berlin from the time of the city’s division (1948) to the withdrawal of Russian and Allied troops (1994).
The history of West Berlin—a unique creation of the Cold War, like the two German states themselves—has largely been overlooked.
Barclay’s lecture drew on extensive interviews and years of archival research and argued that, in the wake of the well-known “spatial turn” of the 1990s and thereafter, West Berlin’s role in the history of the Cold War can be understood in terms of that truncated city’s function as political space, symbolic space, and cultural space. Moreover, its history can be divided into two parts: an “heroic” phase from 1948 to 1971-72 and a phase of “abnormal normality” from 1972 to 1989.