May 23, 2007
Speakers Wanted
It's that time again, when I abuse leverage my Cliopatria privileges to help me with my day job--but this time I won't employ the B word.
One of the best parts of my fairly new position at the University of Western Ontario's Centre for American Studies has been organizing its monthly speaker series. We had a terrific bunch of talks last year on all manner of topics: James Carroll on the history of the Pentagon, Lawrence Hill on The Book of Negroes, Jeffrey Cole on the World Internet Project, and the proverbial many more. Now I'm assembling next year's schedule, and I would love to hear suggestions from any of Cliopatria's readers as to speakers we ought to invite in the 2007-08 academic year.
A bit about the series: We are interested in speakers on any topic related to the United States: U.S. history, politics, foreign policy, literature, current events, and culture are all within our purview. Most of our speakers are academics, but this is not a high-level research seminar. Our goal is to attract a broad audience, including undergraduate students in particular. We pay all travel expenses and can offer a modest honorarium, but I am not talking here about big names with five- or six-figure speakers fees.
I am certain Cliopatria's readers are doing, and are in touch with other people doing, all kinds of interesting work. So: have you seen (or given) any great conference presentations lately? Do you have any colleagues who shine before an audience? Please think about people who are doing interesting work on U.S.-related topics, whom you know to be dynamic speakers, and who might be willing to come to London, Ontario (where the heck is that?) to speak to students and faculty here at UWO. Self-nominations are perfectly OK, as long as your feelings won't be hurt if I'm not able to invite you. (There are all sorts of factors that I won't go into here, about scheduling and balancing the range of speakers and topics, that affect who we ultimately bring in.) You can email suggestions to me directly (the address is Rob MacDougall, but with a dot instead of a space, at gmail dot com) or comment here to give your nominee a little extra publicity. Take a moment to think about it, and do let me know. Thanks!
One of the best parts of my fairly new position at the University of Western Ontario's Centre for American Studies has been organizing its monthly speaker series. We had a terrific bunch of talks last year on all manner of topics: James Carroll on the history of the Pentagon, Lawrence Hill on The Book of Negroes, Jeffrey Cole on the World Internet Project, and the proverbial many more. Now I'm assembling next year's schedule, and I would love to hear suggestions from any of Cliopatria's readers as to speakers we ought to invite in the 2007-08 academic year.
A bit about the series: We are interested in speakers on any topic related to the United States: U.S. history, politics, foreign policy, literature, current events, and culture are all within our purview. Most of our speakers are academics, but this is not a high-level research seminar. Our goal is to attract a broad audience, including undergraduate students in particular. We pay all travel expenses and can offer a modest honorarium, but I am not talking here about big names with five- or six-figure speakers fees.
I am certain Cliopatria's readers are doing, and are in touch with other people doing, all kinds of interesting work. So: have you seen (or given) any great conference presentations lately? Do you have any colleagues who shine before an audience? Please think about people who are doing interesting work on U.S.-related topics, whom you know to be dynamic speakers, and who might be willing to come to London, Ontario (where the heck is that?) to speak to students and faculty here at UWO. Self-nominations are perfectly OK, as long as your feelings won't be hurt if I'm not able to invite you. (There are all sorts of factors that I won't go into here, about scheduling and balancing the range of speakers and topics, that affect who we ultimately bring in.) You can email suggestions to me directly (the address is Rob MacDougall, but with a dot instead of a space, at gmail dot com) or comment here to give your nominee a little extra publicity. Take a moment to think about it, and do let me know. Thanks!