Prof. Gwyn Campbell, Director of the Indian Ocean World Centre, has been awarded the prestigious Humboldt Research Award by Germany's Humboldt Foundation.听The Award recognizes a researcher's career achievements and the impact their insights have had, and are expected to continue to have, on their field. Recipients are invited to Germany to cooperate on long-term research projects with other specialists.

While in Germany, Prof. Campbell will promote Indian Ocean World (IOW) Studies generally, and the historical 听role of human-environment interaction, and historical and contemporary issues of bonded labour in the IOW in particular. He will be collaborating notably with Professor Burkhard Schnepel of the Centre of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, Martin-Luther-University and Max Planck Institute, Halle; the Centre of Area Studies, Leipzig; and the Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. In March 2017, Prof. Campbell will be honoured at the University's "Bravo" event, which showcases winners of important research-related prizes and awards.

Wenyi Huang, a PhD student of Prof. Griet Vankeerberghen, has won a year-long fellowship from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for her dissertation project "Crossing the Frontier between North and South in Early Medieval China, 386-534 CE.鈥�

The Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships are awarded annually to outstanding PhD candidates in the field of Chinese Studies to support the completion of their dissertations. More information can be found .听Wenyi鈥檚 Early China blog, , now at close to 80,000 viewers, is quickly becoming the go-to place for new publications and conferences in the early and medieval China fields.

Congratulations go out to PhD student听Cynthia Tang, who was the Department's first Research Fellow at the Canadian Science and Technology Museums in the summer of 2016: read her post on the CSTMC blog about the history of surgical gloves .

Recently Cynthia, in collaboration with her supervisor,听Prof. Thomas Schlich, has published two articles. 听"Surgical Innovation and the Multiple Meanings of Randomized Clinical Trials: the First RCT on Minimally Invasive Cholecystectomy (1980-2000)" (Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences)听 uses the first randomized controlled trial evaluating laparoscopic cholecystectomy (removal of gall bladder) to investigate the introduction of minimally invasive surgery in the 1990s. To view the abstract, .听

In addition, Cynthia and Thomas's article on "Patient Choice and the History of Minimally Invasive Surgery" has just appeared in the October 2016 issue of听听abstract. Based on recollections of Canadian pioneers of laparoscopic cholecystectomy, this article reveals how patients sought out the new operation, and urged surgeons to extend the minimally invasive intervention to children and pregnant women.听

Double congratulations go out to听Prof. Laura Madokoro听on the publication of her book, and on winning an SSHRC Insight Development Grant. The book, published by Harvard University Press, is entitled Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War, recovers the history of China鈥檚 twentieth-century refugees.

Focusing on humanitarian efforts to find new homes for Chinese displaced by civil strife,听Prof. Madokoro听points out a constellation of factors鈥昬ntrenched discrimination amongst white settler societies, the spread of human rights ideals, and the geopolitical pressures of the Cold War鈥晈hich coalesced to shape domestic and international refugee policies that still hold sway today.听For more information, .听

Prof. Madokoro's听SSHRC project Sites of Sanctuary project will undertake a detailed, historicized analysis of religious and secular sanctuary offers in Canada since Confederation. The study will trace the evolution of sanctuary as a grassroots community practice, one that operated - and continues to operate 鈥� in tension with various conceptions of the nation and national belonging.听In addition to exploring the historical and political contingencies that shaped the involvement of all the participants, including those who sought sanctuary and those who provided it, the project will also detail how offers of sanctuary have been remembered, and in some cases, commemorated and mythologized by local communities.

The听Department of History and Classical Studies, the听Indigenous Studies Program, 91社区's听Faculty of Law, the听First Peoples' House, and the听Social Equity and Diversity Education Office (SEDE),听is sponsoring a free screening of听"The Pass System"听on 19 September at 6:00 p.m. in Leacock 26.

Beginning in 1885 and for more than 60 years, the Canadian Government denied many Indigenous peoples of the prairies the right to leave their reserves. This investigative documentary features Cree, Saulteaux, Dene, Ojibwe and Blackfoot Elders and their stories of living under and resisting this system, revealing a little known picture of life under segregation in Canada.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion including the director Alex Williams, History professor听Allan Downey, History MA student听Sandra-Lynn Kahsennano:ron Leclaire, Winona Wheeler, Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel and Orenda Boucher-Curotte. For more information, visit听听or email听allan.downey [at] mcgill.ca.

The Department is pleased to welcome听Prof. Stuart McCook of Guelph University听as a visiting research affiliate for the academic year 2016-2017.

Prof. McCook's interests include global history, commodity history, the history of science, technology, and medicine, the history of natural disasters, and Latin American history. His current project studies the economic and environmental connections between the world's coffee zones, especially since the mid-nineteenth century by following a catastrophic crop epidemic听鈥攖he coffee rust (Hemileia vastatrix) as it spread through the Indian Ocean Basin, Africa, and听the Americas. The course of the epidemic in each place was shaped by many factors, including the patterns of coffee cultivation, scientific knowledge about rust and its control, and transportation linkages (steamships, railroads, air travel).听

While at 91社区, he will be finishing a book on the coffee rust听project, and starting research for a more general global environmental history of听coffee.听For more on Prof. McCook, visit his home page .

Yusuf Karabi莽ak, PhD₃, conducted research in Athens during the month of May 2016 thanks to a 听scholarship funded by the French School at Athens. He was also the recipient of a fellowship allowing him to participate in the Hellenic College Holy Cross 8-week long Asia Minor travel seminar entitled "Greek Orthodox Christians of Ottoman Cappadocia." His seminar research paper dealt with the refugees of the city of 鈥� through transcribed interviews and biographical accounts of first-generation refugees kept at the Center for Asia Minor Studies archives

Congratulations to听Prof. Lorenz L眉thi,听who has been awarded a four-year SSHRH Insight Grant for his projected听History of the Cold War without the Superpowers: Asia, the Middle East, Europe,听an ambitious re-interpretation of the 1945-1990 period from the perspective of the three regional experiences.听

By focusing on smaller powers, Prof. L眉thi aims to show how their interactions changed the structure of the global Cold War, and to challenge many conventional assumptions 鈥� for example, that the Cold War started in 1945 and ended in 1989, that Europe was the critical theatre, and that events in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe were separate and independent from each other. The project explores how regional Cold Wars were connected, and how they brought about structural changes that enabled the superpowers to overcome their enmity.

Prof. Laila Parsons'听new book is the definitive biography of a charismatic and controversial figure in modern Middle East history.听Fawzi al-Qawuqji and the Fight for Arab Independence 1914-1948听traces the remarkable life of a man who fought the British in the Ottoman Army during World War I, the French is Syria in the 1920s, and the British in Iraq. In 1936 he re-appeared in Palestine where he helped direct the Arab revolt of 1936.听Exiled during World War II, he returned to command the Arab Liberation Army in the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.

Charles Tripp of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, praises Prof. Parsons' "impressive scholarship:听"In a well-paced and lucid account, she succeeds admirably in bringing to life the hopes, struggles, and disappointments not only of al-Qawuqji but of many of his contemporaries." For further information, .

Prof. Allan Greer听has been re-appointed as Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Colonial North America for a period of seven years.

Prof. Greer is a distinguished historian of early Canada and is the winner听of the Sir John A. Macdonald Prize of the Canadian Historical Association and both the Prix Lionel-Groulx and the Prix Maxime-Reymond of the Institut d'histoire de l'Am茅rique fran莽aise.听

He has published books on such diverse subjects as Saint Catherine Tekakwitha, the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837, and the social history of rural Quebec from 1740 to 1840. His new research projects focus on property formation, and on slave ownership in the French Atlantic world.

Dr听Marie-Claude Felton, Research Affiliate in the Department of History and Classical Studies, has been awarded an SSHRC Insight Development Grant for her new project on self-publishing in Paris and London in the 17th听and 18th听centuries. Dr听Felton received her B.A. with first-class Honours from our Department, and went on to obtain her doctorate from UQAM and the 脡cole des Hautes 脡tudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.

She held a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University, and recently was Banting Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at 91社区. Her monograph听Ma卯tres de leurs ouvrages: L'茅dition 脿 compte d'auteur 脿 Paris au XVIIIe si猫cle听was published by the Voltaire Foundation, Oxford, in 2014.

Faith Wallis, professor of Western Medieval History, and University of Minnesota Emeritus Professor Calvin Kendall, announce the publication of their translation of, and commentary on Isidore of Seville's听On the Nature of Things.听

For medieval people, bishop Isidore of Seville (560 AD-636 AD) was one of the most influential authorities for understanding the natural world.听On the Nature of Things听is the first work on natural science by a Christian author that is not a commentary on the creation story in Genesis. Instead, Isidore adopted a classical model to describe the structure of the physical cosmos, and discuss the principles of astronomy, physics, geography, meteorology and time-reckoning.

That听On the Nature of Things听presents an essentially Greco-Roman picture of the universe, but amplified with Christian reflections and allegories, played a crucial role in the assimilation of ancient science into the emerging culture of the Middle Ages. For more information, .

A Short History of the State in Canada听is the newest book by听Professor Elsbeth Heaman.

Prof. Heaman examines the development of the state in both principle and practice, examining Indigenous forms of government before European contact; the interplay of French and British colonial institutions before and after the Conquest of New France; the creation of the nineteenth-century liberal state; and, finally, the rise and reconstitution of the modern social welfare state.

For more information, .

Prof. Tassos Anastassiadis,听in collaboration with colleagues from York University, Simon Fraser University and the University of Patras (Greece), has received a major grant from the听Stavros Niarchos Foundation听to develop a听Centre for the Study of Greek Immigration and Diaspora at 91社区.

The scope of the project is global, but Canada will be the focus of the pilot studies. The size and diversity of Montreal's Hellenic community will allow the team to map patterns of settlement, gather oral histories, and study the impact of the Canadian milieu on the Greek language and culture.听 A major goal of the Centre is a Virtual Museum for Greek Immigration.

Sarah Ghabrial,听a student of听Prof. Malek Abisaab,听has won the prestigious John Bullen Prize of the Canadian Historical Association for her doctoral dissertation 鈥�Le Fiqh Francis茅? Modernizing Personal Status Law in French Algeria, 1870-1930.鈥�

The John Bullen Prize honours the outstanding PhD thesis on a historical topic submitted in a Canadian university by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. For more information, .

Prof. Bill Gladhill, newly appointed Director of the Classics听program, has just published Rethinking Roman Alliance: a Study in Poetics and Society with Cambridge University Press. Foedus is the Latin term for the ritual event that cements an alliance, but its cultural resonance extends beyond law and politics to encompass private life, friendship, the relation of humans to the gods, and even the coherence of the material cosmos. Foedus is about poetic imagination as much as social ideology, and serves as a unique lens for understanding Roman culture. For more on Rethinking Roman Alliance, .

Subho Basu, professor of South Asian history, was interviewed on CCTV about the recent threats to Bangladeshi bloggers. You can see the full interview .

Prof. Gavin Walker听launched his new book听听(Duke University Press, 2016).听

In听The Sublime Perversion of Capital, Gavin Walker examines the Japanese debate about capitalism between the 1920s and 1950s, using it as a "prehistory" to consider current discussions of uneven development and contemporary topics in Marxist theory and historiography. Walker locates the debate's culmination in the work of Uno Kozo, whose investigations into the development of capitalism and the commodification of labor power are essential for rethinking the national question in Marxist theory. Walker's analysis of Uno and the Japanese debate strips Marxist historiography of its Eurocentric focus, showing how Marxist thought was globalized from the start. In analyzing the little-heralded tradition of Japanese Marxist theory alongside Marx himself, Walker not only offers new insights into the transition to capitalism, the rise of globalization, and the relation between capital and the formation of the nation-state; he provides new ways to break Marxist theory's impasse with postcolonial studies and critical theory.

Prof. Walker also received the听听(Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas) Faculty Fellowship, which he will hold from 2016-2018, as well as a five-year SSHRC Insight Grant, "Global Japan in the Twentieth Century."听

The grant project听focuses on two broad aims: 1) the development of research on twentieth century Japanese intellectual history in its global links, particularly in the political economy of capitalist development, critical theory, and the history of Marxist thought; 2) the development of a concerted series of workshops, research groups, student training, editorial and translation projects focused on the intersection between critical theory and intellectual history, particularly in the non-western world.

James Krapfl, professor of Eastern European history,听is the recipient of two awards honouring his book听Revolution with a Human Face: Politics, Culture and Community in Czechoslovakia, 1989-1992听(Cornell University Press, 2013).

The most significant award is the听听for best work in East European Studies, awarded by the British Association for Slavonic & East European Studies.听 Additionally, the book won the听.

For more on听Revolution with a Human Face, visit听.

Max Hamon, a doctoral student,听working with Professors Elsbeth Heaman and Elizabeth Elbourne, has published an article in the March 2016 issue of听Canadian Historical Review听entitled "Contesting Civilization: Louis Riel's Defense of Culture at the Coll猫ge de Montr茅al."

91社区 friends of Max can access the article through the Library听听(use the Project Muse archive). If you are not at 91社区, click听.

Luke Ryder, a doctoral student听working with Professor James Krapfl, is a visiting fellow at the United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial. See his profile page听.