Annual Newsletter 2007_Full.pdf - Department of History, UC Berkeley

I have been on leave this year, finishing up research for a book tentatively titled: "Catholic Ladies and Culture Wars: Gender,the Church, and Mexican Politics, 1750-1940." I made several trips to Mexico City, Morelia, Guadalajara, Zamora, andCelaya using church archives, for the most part, to test my hypothesis that women's various relationships to the church--theirleadership of devotional associations, their role in religious education, their role as activist nuns--had an important impact onpolitics throughout this period.Thomas DandeletThe past year was marked by the publication of "Spain in Italy, 1500-1700," a volume that I co-edited with John Marino. Itbrings together nineteen essays by leading Italian, Spanish, German, French and American historians in the field, and includesmy essay entitled "Paying for St. Peter's." I was also invited to give a paper on the Colonna family, the present topic of myresearch, at a conference at the Spanish Academy in Rome this past May. In that same month, I traveled to New York toreceive a Guggenheim fellowship that I was awarded to continue work on the Colonna project.Jan de VriesJan de Vries returned this year to full-time teaching after serving seven years as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs. Hisbook, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present, is scheduled forpublication in April by Cambridge University Press.Beshara DoumaniBeshara Doumani is spending 2007-2008 academic year as a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, HarvardUniversity. He is working on a book on gender, law, and the political economy of family life in the Eastern Mediterraneanduring Ottoman times. His recent publications include the production of a special issue of the Jerusalem Quarterly, "SocialBiographies and Family Histories." and an article, "Palestine Versus the Palestinians? The Iron Laws and Ironies of a PeopleDenied," in the Journal of Palestine Studies.Paula FassAs a recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Paula Fass was able to spend the last academic year at the Centerfor Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. While there, she worked on her book on parents and children in Americanhistory since 1800 and led an international group of scholars in conversations on the history of children and youth. Her bookof essays, Children of A New World: Society, Culture, and Globalization (New York University Press) was published earlierthis fall. Several of the essays that appear in the collection have appeared in journals published in Chile, France and Turkeyduring the past two years. She also made an appearance at an international symposium on public fears about children at theNew School in New York, which aims to bring scholars and the general public together to talk about subjects of generalconcern.Victoria FredeMy most exciting pedagogical experience in the academic year 2006-2007 was a freshman seminar I taught on Heresy andBlasphemy in Modern Europe (including Russia): the charisma of Berkeley's first-year students is impressive. I was alsodelighted by the inquisitiveness of students in my lecture survey of Imperial Russia. This academic year, I am on leave,finishing my book on atheism and other forms of unbelief among educated Russians in the nineteenth century. Next year, Ilook forward to teaching a course on Russian intellectual history.