Historiann has promised herself that she’s going to run many miles this morning and then spend the rest of the day in the eighteenth century thinking about Abenaki national security issues, but fortunately so many other clever and insightful Berks bloggers have posted wonderful comments and overviews of the sessions they saw last weekend at the 2008 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women that Historiann is pleased to direct you to them today. To wit:
- Knitting Clio has an excellent post up about a roundtable discussion that I desperately wanted to see, and it looks like it was as good as I thought it would be, darn it all! About the panel called CHILDHOOD AS A USEFUL CATEGORY OF HISTORICAL ANALYSIS, she writes that it was a fascinating look at the ways in which feminist historians are inventing a new history of childhood. She also has overviews of SEXUAL SCIENCE REVISITED: A ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION WITH CYNTHIA RUSSET, another roundtable called TRANSFORMING HEALTH CARE FROM BELOW, a fascinating public history panel that links directly to KC’s own research agenda called TEACHING ABOUT HEALTH AND CONTRACEPTION OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM, and KC’s own seminar, WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE BODY? (My only complaint: why does she call her post a “post-mortem?” Women’s history is alive I tell you! It’s ALIVE!)
- Kittywampus has a little blurb about us, directing us to new feminist blogs. It was great to meet you, and I’m so pleased you enjoyed our new seminar format!
- Finally, Tenured Radical has more Berks blogging, from the Complaints Department. Apparently, the notion of 1,400 women and men getting together to talk about women’s and gender history is proof of the irrelevance and faddishness of our field. (Either that or it’s extremely threatening to someone named Miss Mary Rusticus, who didn’t attend the conference but apparently feels extremely entitled to complain about our little kaffeeklatsch. Jealous, much?) Now, while not all forms of history are Historiann’s cuppa joe by the campfire, I can’t imagine the sense of entitlement (or embattlement?) that would lead me to complain publicly about the mere existence of a sub-field of history. Historiann says: let a thousand flowers bloom! And if that’s just not your style, you can kiss my ass.
Historiann 
Hi Historiann,
Thanks for mentioning my post and the rest of the round-up. I borrowed the “post-mortem” term from American Association for the History of Medicine. The planners have a “post-mortem” breakfast on the last day of the conference to go over what worked, what didn’t. Sounds a little macabre I’ll admit.
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OK–I wondered if it wasn’t due to your immersion in the history of medicine and the body! Seriously, thanks for covering the history of childhood roundtable so thoroughly. I was so excited when that proposal came in, and am very pleased to hear that my confidence in it was justified.
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Hi Historiann! I’m glad the Berks was a smashing success.
One of my grad student colleagues just got back; she said the conference was awesome.
I can’t help but comment on Mercurius Rusticus’s observations. Rusticus(Cliopatria links the original post he subsequently deleted) claims he has not read any of the historians who presented at the Berks and that their texts will not show up on reading lists. He is a rube. Just for the record, Historiann’s book and the books of many other Berks presenters were on my Comps reading list.
Anyway, my cousin the pig farmer says, don’t get in the mud to fight with pigs. So, I shall comment no more on the men who continue to denigrate the vibrant fields of Women’s and Gender history.
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Hi Ortho–good advice about not fighting with pigs! One of them is over at Tenured Radical apparently trying to engage her about stuff over on my blog–maybe he just doesn’t understand how this blog thing works? I’m glad your grad student friend had a good time, and pleased (although very surprised!) that my book was on your comps list.
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Nice kicker, historiann!
I want to go to the Berks…I might have to do more research on Emilia Casanova and the Cuban exile women activists operating in the latter part of the 19th C.
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Rad, you should definitely put in an application for 2011–I can hook you up. Biography was hyooooge this weekend–there was a seminar, a workshop, and at least three or four panels or roundtables on women’s history and biography. Everyone I know–including the gal in the mirror–is writing a bio these days.
Go to the on-line version of the program, and do a keyword search on “biography,” “autobiography,” or “lives” and you’ll see what I mean.
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