Mary Maples Dunn, 1931-2017

Howdy, friends–I’ve got a big announcement today!  Many of you may know that Mary Maples Dunn, a prominent early American women’s historian, died in March.  Nicole Eustace of New York University invited me to co-edit a special edition of Early American Studies in her honor.  Here are the details:

Call For Papers: Women and Religion in the Early Americas

For a special issue in honor of the life and career of Mary Maples Dunn, Early American Studies seeks article-length contributions from scholars working on the history of women and religion in the early Americas. Mary Maples Dunn (1931-2017) was a leading practitioner of women’s history, as a scholar, as a teacher, and in her life as a university leader. She worked in a variety of fields from early American women’s history; to colonial Latin American history; to the history of religious women; to the history of women’s education as well as, of course, the worlds of William Penn and early Philadelphia.

The editors invite essays that consider the history of early American women, early American religion (or both) and are especially interested in work that makes cross-cultural comparisons or integrates multiple Atlantic orientations: North and South (French, British, Dutch, Spanish and/or Portuguese) East and West (from European and/or African links to Native American perspectives). We are interested in both formal article-length contributions (10,000 words) and in shorter essays on “Notes and Documents” that highlight innovative or creative ways of reading/using primary-source documents (3,000-5,000 words).

To submit, please email a 3-page CV and a 1,000 word summary of the contribution you propose to write by September 30 to Ann Little (ann.little@colostate.edu) and Nicole Eustace (nicole.eustace@nyu.edu). Please use the subject line “Mary Maples Dunn Special Issue Submission.” We will notify you of your preliminary acceptance by October 31, 2017 and final essays are due on April 30, 2018. Articles are to be published, subject to peer review, in 2019.

Let’s get writing!

I know that many of you working in this field are readers of this blog, but if you’re not, please forward this call to any and all folks whose work might be on point.  Graduate student advisors, please circulate this call to your students and encourage them to send us something!  Please note that this is an interdisciplinary journal, so scholars in other fields beyond history are very much invited to send us proposals.

What are you waiting for? Pick up a pen and get going!

The scholarly world that Mary swam around in was indeed a #VastEarlyAmerica.  She was from the generation that solved problems and filled the curricular holes that needed filling.  Although trained as a traditional Anglo-American historian back when that was effectively a subfield of early modern British history, she decided to start teaching a course in Latin American history at Bryn Mawr because she thought it was an important field.

Be like Mary!  Be bold and creative!  We are eager to  get rolling on this, so please use the summer to think about your contribution.  Any questions?  Please let us know.