The Cliopatria Awards
At the 4th Annual Banquet of the Cliopatricians at the American Historical Association convention in Atlanta, the winners of The Cliopatria Awards for 2006 were announced. 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: Alan Allport, Martha Bridgam, Ben Brumfield, Miriam Burstein, Rebecca Goetz, Rob MacDougall, Caleb McDaniel, Nathanael Robinson, and Brandon Watson. 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: David Noon's Axis of Evel Knievel
Recently using an"on this awful day in history" format to highlight eclectic examples of the unforgivable, Axis of Evel Knieval employs its acidic wit with forensic precision.
David H. Noon is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alaska, Southeast, at Juneau.
Best Group Blog: Mark Grimsley, Brooks Simpson, and others at Civil Warriors
Lively, smart, and welcoming, with members from both inside and outside the academy plus an active community of readers and commenters, Civil Warriors has become a central hub around which an entire portion of the history blogosphere revolves. The war itself is the jumping-off point, but conversations at Civil Warriors engage the craft of history, the heritage industry around the war, and the very nature of historical memory. Civil Warriors offers an admirable model of interaction between professional historians, lay enthusiasts, and the broader public that is not only civil but productive, inspiring, and fun.
Brooks D. Simpson, a Professor of History at Arizona State University, and Mark Grimsley, an Associate Professor of History at Ohio State University, are joined by others at Civil Warriors.
Best New Blog: William J. Turkel's Digital History Hacks
William J. Turkel's Digital History Hacks goes beyond new media platitudes and internet hype to demonstrate in word and deed what history in the twenty-first century will be all about. From the nuts and bolts of spidering and scraping to the loftiest questions about what historians do and why, Digital History Hacks points the way to a brave new world with infectious enthusiasm and blazing imagination.
William J. Turkel is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Western Ontario.
Best Post: John Jordan,"For a Canadian Wikipedia," Participant Historian, 7 November 2006
An opening bid in an intriguing historiographical conversation, much larger on speculations than overconfident assertions - in other words, everything that a mature, exemplary blog post ought to be.
John Jordan is a Canadian student.
Best Series of Posts, Chris Bray,"The Historian as Soldier: Shadows and Fog," Introduction and Parts One, Two, and Three, Cliopatria, 12, 13, 16, and 26 January 2006.
Chris Bray achieves rare insights into the events of the present by bringing his knowledge of the past to bear on his experiences as a soldier. He peers through the fog of war, revealing the problems caused by rhetoric and optimism in conducting war.
Chris Bray is a doctoral candidate in history at UCLA.
Best Writer: Alan Baumler at Frog in a Well
Of all the nominations, the judges felt that Alan Baumler's writing for Frog in a Well is the finest example of how blogs can make history accessible. He stands in the middle ground between scholar and non-scholar, adeptly demystifying historical and academic issues, bringing clarity to debates with his own arguments, and enlightening the unfamiliar of Asian history and culture.
Alan Baumler is an Assistant Professor of History at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
At Saturday's session,"Were All the World a Blog: History Bloggers and History Blogs," at the AHA convention in Philadelphia, the winners of The Cliopatria Awards were announced.
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, Two, and 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.
