I’m a historian because I’m haunted. The words and names from the archives surface in my thoughts and dreams…as I immerse myself in their world, their stories become mine. Am I like a clan storyteller, curating and re-telling the memories from long ago? Or am I merely that eccentric cat lady with no life of her own, her piles of papers and a worn laptop offering ample space for escape from the real world? Though I now sit in an overstuffed chair in my suburban living room with the ambient sound of a lawnmower outside, I am not really here. I am at the sickbed. Hearing a young child’s chest heave and rise, reminding me of my son.

The cough brought our pediatrician running down the hallway. It was the third time I’d brought in my newborn baby out of concern for his stuffy nose and congestion. He had stopped nursing. There was the faintest tinge of blue at the corners of his lips.

Dr. Yu speedily unzipped my son’s pajamas, and placing a stethoscope over his tiny chest and heart. Then stepped back for a moment, watching the labored rise and fall of our son’s breathing, his ribcage dipping down nearly to spine each time he coughed. We all watched. Each intake of air a deep gasp from within his belly. What happened next is a blur of memory, my fear eclipsing exact recall. A rush to the nearest Children’s Hospital and an exam by an infectious disease specialist. Isolation due to the risk of contagion. Learning that our son was infected with a disease that was often fatal, with a name that only faintly registered in my memory: pertussis. As we were to learn later, it’s the “P” part of the DTP immunization that most babies receive at their two month checkup. Our baby was only four weeks old.

Photo by Flickr user 'Eric in SF', shared by Creative Commons

The specter in my research today is not pertussis, but a different letter of the vaccination alphabet. The “D” for diphtheria is hovering around my living room as I shuffle through the account of physicians’ failed attempts at treatment. The disease called the “strangling angel” caused leathery membranous wings to grow in the throat, eventually coating the mouth, nasal passages, and windpipe. Its sounds are much like those that I remember from pertussis: the forced breathing that is dreadful, but not as dreadful as the silence. Those long moments when all sound stops.

Now reading from The Lancet, an 1859 account of diphtheria: “When the surgeon is summoned, he finds the throat and mouth covered with yellow or brownish leathery exudation. Within a few hours a hoarse, barking cough, and a change in the tone of the voice are marked; oppression of the breathing supervenes; then paroxysms of suffocation, more and more frequent; the cough is stifled, and the voice also dies out. As…suffocation is felt, the poor child turns from side to side, throws its arms into the air, clutches its mother violently, and struggles furiously to gain breath, then falls exhausted in the bed, and gaining strength from momentary repose, renews the hopeless struggle to the end. Perhaps, in a violent fit of coughing, it expels a false membrane from the air-tubes, which has extended down to the fifth division of the bronchi; then it breathes easily, smiles again, and sleeps, but soon wakes to resume its struggle with death-it may be again to expel the membrane, and finally to triumph. But such a happy victory is wholly exceptional, and when once the grip of the disease has closed upon the air-tubes, death claims its prey.”[1]

My son survived. Our pediatrician later explained to us that he had only heard a pertussis cough once before, while practicing overseas. Our infectious disease doctor told us that if Dr. Yu hadn’t heard the distinctive cough and recognized it for what it was, we would have lost our son. A few weeks spent in an isolation ward with a steady flow of oxygen and feeding tube restored his vigor–his slight propensity to asthma is the only legacy of that time.

I’m not the only person haunted by children dying of infectious diseases. “Of all the horrors…that of a child struggling under [diphtheritic] strangulation, is, perhaps, the most painful,” wrote one California physician in 1863.[2] Back then, many doctors had simply given up trying to find an effective treatment for the disease, the proscriptive advice in medical texts varying so widely so as to make any practitioner’s head spin.[3] From various texts, the remedies were:

Take spirits of turpentine, 1 ounce…[4]

nitrate of silver, if used at all, is employed in a weak solution…[5]

Many of the German physicians…advise gargling the throat with the brine of Holland herring…[6]

the disease vanishes under the influence of Cimicifuga…[7]

Carbolic or phenic acid is the best remedy…[8]

Dr. Edward Adamson states that he has treated fifty-five cases of diphtheria by the internal administration of the officinal tincture of iodine…[9]

per sulphate of iron as a topical application…[10]

Ice is applied in a bag, or by means of a lump cut to fit, and placed saddle-wise across the throat…a piece as large as a hen’s egg, secured in contact with the neck by a strip of oiled silk, and covered afterwards in front with flannel. It is not to be removed till relief is established, and it may be necessary to prevent reaction after its removal by the application of cold water…[11]

As time went on, more invasive options–tracheotomy surgery or intubation–held some promise for success. But these procedures were risky, because “diphtheria was the only disease in which the practitioner of internal medicine was likely to find himself called upon to wield the knife.[12]” Success rates for tracheotomy tended to be contingent on the skill of the physician as well as whether it was too late for any effective treatment.

Despite an understanding of the appropriate procedure for a tracheotomy, it was relied on only when strangulation was imminent. Thus, this was not a procedure that doctors had time to prepare for. A physician wrote that the need for the surgery was so urgent, after cutting the hole in his patients’ neck, he risked his own health by laying “a handkerchief over the wound made in the trachea and, with the lips, suck[ed] the secretions from the larynx.”[13] Another doctor admitted to similarly aspirating the throat of a patient with his own mouth, adding that afterwards he chewed on a plug of tobacco and “indulged freely in spiritus frumenti [whisky] as an antidote” to the germs he received from his patient.[14] One can only imagine the desperation of a physician cutting through a baby’s throat and putting his own mouth on the baby’s neck, trying to force air from his lungs through the baby’s membrane-coated passageways. Blood on hands, blood on his lips, blood pooling around the body of the strangling child.

The editor of the San Francisco Medical Press explained how he performed the tracheotomy with marked success. Before the surgery his young patient’s skin had a bluish tinge due to lack of oxygen, and afterwards she breathed freely. However, due to the strain of the illness on her body, she died of secondary complications within a week of the surgery. The editor continues to advocate for tracheotomy, however, and explains the success of the surgery in this case because it spared the patient from death by asphyxiation. He writes, “Now from the result of this case, (though fatal,)…we have much to vindicate it from the odium which strongly in its favor, if this were not sufficient, is the relief which it instantly affords the patient struggling with all the throes of death by asphyxia;–for, of all the horrors which are presented to[the] eyes of the Physician, in his pathological experience, that of a child struggling under croupal strangulation, is, perhaps, the most painful, and invokes from the heart the keenest feeling of sympathy.”[15]

Diseases like diphtheria tended to afflict urban communities more than sparsely-settled areas. Like many other infectious diseases, it spread via contaminated water or milk supplies as well as by human contact. In the more sparsely settled regions of nineteenth-century America, diphtheria was still feared, even though the threat was more remote than in densely populated areas. The nearly-exponential growth of nineteenth century California communities experienced numerous waves of diphtheria outbreaks, triggering a response from the local medical community as well as from regional public health organizations. And it wasn’t until the 1890s that an antitoxin for diphtheria became widely available. Within another two decades a successful vaccination for the disease meant that the number of cases on the United States dropped to an almost negligible amount. The strangling angel no longer haunted American children, or at least that’s how it seemed.

The young nurse taking my health history shook his head. He’d asked questions for over an hour, detailed queries that included a thorough recounting of my sexual history, my overseas travel, and of my extended family’s medical issues. My own coughing spells frequently disrupted our conversation. The nurse was the first to connect the dots between me, my mother who had recently visited her firstborn grandchild, and my father who was dying of cancer in a San Diego hospital. A pattern emerged: although we were all immunized as children, those shots wear off over time and leave us vulnerable (my husband, alone, immune due to recent boosters received before living in Asia). The hospital in an international border town was a likely vector for a disease that had all-but-disappeared in the United States. Like with diphtheria, adults carried a mild form of the disease, which was rarely life-threatening. Pertussis infected my son through me, through my mother, though my father, but mostly through forgetting. A decade ago, before a worldwide flu epidemic and drug-resistant TB, who knew that such diseases were still mingling amongst us? Or that they would continue to return, like that strangling angel…

“an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread…Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”[16]

—————————————-

[1] “Report of the Lancet Sanitary Commission on Diphtheria: Its History, Progress, Symptoms, and Treatment.,” The Lancet 73, no. 1850 (February 12, 1859): 169-170, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6T1B-49HF759-4GB/2/07561f0d20eec18ff9b1ab19c39e8524.

[2] Wm. H Sherwood, “of Croup following Diphtheria: Tracheotomy—Successful Termination,” The San Francisco Medical Press 5, no. 1 (April 1863): 24-26.

[3] Physicians were “apathetic and hopeless in regard to the treatment of diphtheria to a degree not experienced in any other disease,” said Evelynn Maxine Hammonds, Childhood’s Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880-1930, (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 36.

[4] “Diphtheria,” Farmer’s Cabinet, February 14, 1867, http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/HistArchive/?p_product=EANX&p_theme=ahnp&p_nbid=K58H51UFMTI1ODU1NTU5MS40MjEyNToxOjE0OjE2OS4yMzQuMTIxLjg5&p_action=doc&s_lastnonissuequeryname=2&d_viewref=search&p_queryname=2&p_docnum=27&p_docref=v2:108BD1FCD7E9FA90@EANX-108D96155CA30E00@2403012-108D96184C9ACA98@0-108D961970141EE8@Diphtheria.

[5] “Editor’s Tools: Treatment of Diphtheria,” The San Francisco Medical Press 6, no. 1 (April 1864): 31.

[6] “Diphtheria: History of the Fell Disease–Some Suggestions as to Treatment that May be Valuable,” Daily Evening Bulletin (San Francisco, CA), February 2, 1887, http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/885/414/81067853w16/purl=rc1_NCNP_0_GT3000872395&dyn=16!xrn_35_0_GT3000872395&hst_1?sw_aep=univca20.

[7] Cimicifuga, commonly known as Black Cohosh, was a medicament popular with eclectic practitioners in the mid-19th century. “Editor’s Tools: Treatment of Diphtheria.”

[8] Ibid.

[9] “Tincture of Iodine in Diphtheria,” St. Louis Courier of Medicine 14: 256, http://books.google.com/books?id=E6QRAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#PPA256,M1.

[10] “Editor’s Tools: Treatment of Diphtheria.”

[11] Ibid.

[12] Anne Hardy, “Tracheotomy Versus Intubation: Surgical Intervention in Diphtheria in Europe and the United States, 1825-1930.,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 66, no. 4 (1992): 538, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ahl&AN=A000376044.01&site=ehost-live.

[13] Francis Long, A Prairie Doctor of the Eighties Some Personal Recollections and Some Early Medical and Social History of a Prairie State (Norfolk Neb.: House Pub. Co., 1937), 60.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Wm. H Sherwood, “of Croup following Diphtheria: Tracheotomy—Successful Termination.”

[16] “On the Concept of History / Theses on the Philosophy of History – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Concept_of_History_/_Theses_on_the_Philosophy_of_History.

A few weeks ago the celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall received widespread media attention in the U.S. and featured among other things a U2 concert at the Brandenberg gate and the symbolic toppling of giant dominoes representing the wall. The subsequent anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in the Czech Republic was more low key and featured a march tracing the route of the 1989 demonstrations as well as a surprise concert by folk singer, Joan Baez. According to the Wall Street Journal, many marchers carried placards and signs protesting government corruption, signaling widespread distrust of the political class. In both countries and in other parts of Eastern Europe the global financial crisis and rising unemployment has lead to questions about the capitalist system and for some, nostalgia for the communist era.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Such nostalgia is contested in Poland by a recently proposed law to ban communist symbols.  According to Spiegel online, an amendment to Polish hate crime legislation would ban the “production, distribution, sale or possession … in print, recordings or other means of fascist, communist or other symbols of totalitarianism.” The ban would allow exceptions for artistic expression, education and research. A clear precedent for the ban is a similar law in Hungary which resulted in the arrest and fine of politician Attila Vajnai in 2003 for wearing a red star on his collar. A similar ban is in effect for Nazi symbols in Germany.

Proponents of the ban, including Jaroslaw Kacynski, the leader of the Law and Justice party, compare communism to Nazism, arguing that it was a genocidal system. Critics of the ban express concerns about free speech and argue that its language is vague. What is a symbol of communism? How is communism defined by this law? As a political regime? An ideology? While symbols such as the hammer and sickle or red star seem straightforward, what about a Che Guevara T-shirt or a bust of Karl Marx? How will the use of such a symbol for educational, artistic or research purposes be differentiated from their use to promote a totalitarian system? Studying a subject can often be conflated, particularly for those outside of the academy, with support or sympathy for that subject. Might a ban discourage scholars from pursuing important research on the Communist Party or other related subjects?

For these reasons, this proposed ban should be of concern to historians even if it is likely that it will, if passed, be struck down at the European level which last year found that the Hungarian law was too broad and violated freedom of expression. Question such as these require the active engagement of historians in the public debate over the legacy of communism in Poland and elsewhere. As Roger Boyes of The Times notes, comparisons to Nazism may be overplayed, perhaps for political purposes.  Furthermore, as history shows, government enforced inhibitions of free expression and free speech have again and again been the hall marks of the very totalitarian systems that such a law is ostensibly intended to repress.

While massacre is an old theme in Irish history, digitisation is, of course, a relatively new one. Both themes have been brought together in The 1641 Depositions Project, an initiative involving scholars from Trinity College Dublin, the University of Aberdeen, the University of Cambridge and IBM (LanguageWare). The project is funded by the AHRC, the IRCHSS and the TCD Library. The depositions are witness statements relating to the Irish rebellion of 1641. They detail a range of experiences and alleged crimes such as losses of possessions, murder and massacre. Their contents have generated controversy for centuries.

One of the main points of contention has been the actual numbers of settler Protestants killed by the Catholic rebels, particularly in the province of Ulster. The number of alleged killings reached a peak of 600,000 in a pamphlet written by John Milton in 1649. While this was obviously a gross exaggeration, poetic imagination perhaps, it was loosely based on an allegation contained in one 1641 deposition. The link between the evidence contained in the depositions and Protestant allegations of mass murder by Catholics won for this source a prominence unrivalled by any other relating to the early modern period in Ireland.

In the nineteenth century, the enduring notoriety of the collection, combined with its sheer bulk, ensured that proposals for full publication would come to naught. Moreover, in a week when some policemen came under attack in the border village of Garrison, it is difficult to conclude that violent conflict has been entirely consigned to history in that part of the world. Nonetheless, the general optimism that exists is seen as at last providing an appropriate context for the online publication of the 1641 depositions. The first instalment, 1,559 Ulster depositions, is due in December 2009.

An enticing appetiser for this new resource was provided in October by the proceedings of a conference entitled Plantation and Reaction: the 1641 Rebellion, hosted by Trinity College Dublin. On 23 October, over 300 people attended Professor Aidan Clarke’s keynote address, ‘The 1641 Massacres’, in Dublin Castle, a venue which the rebels of 1641 had hoped to seize on the same date 368 years before. Professor Clarke has been deeply involved in The 1641 Depositions Project and his lecture provided some tantalising indications of the range of worthwhile investigations which should be possible when the digital resource becomes available.

The three conference panels on 24 October, peopled by an impressive selection of renowned historians, were again well-attended. These offered a mix of Irish, European and American perspectives on key issues relating to early modern massacre, plantation, and politics across a wide geographical area. It quickly became clear that the digitisation of the depositions will enable the events which occurred in Ireland in 1641 to be located in a series of broad historical contexts.

As Ireland strives to leave its old sectarian troubles behind it, it seems that what was once an acrimonious Catholic-Protestant debate on 1641, as much concerned with the present as the past, may perhaps undergo further transformation in a series of outward-looking and mutually enriching international comparisons. Should this occur, it will ensure that the digitised testimonies of the distraught survivors of rebellion in Ireland in 1641 will remain relevant to the concerns of historians researching and writing in a globalised world.

Last week, Jean Smith posed some questions about digitisation in her first piece on History Compass Exchanges. To briefly address two of them: The 1641 Depositions Project will, I believe, be open access; and in this instance the online resource may well be an improvement upon the reading room research experience because the original depositions are sometimes rather difficult to read.

Jana Remy also provided some insight into her experience of using Twitter at a conference. At Plantation and Reaction: the 1641 Rebellion, I saw one laptop in the room, which suggests that we’ve got some way to go until the broad-based digital collaborations imagined by Yaniv Fox come into their own. There are, however,  plans to podcast various lectures from the conference.

As most in the history world have already heard, Lisa Jardine was recently awarded the Cundill Prize for her 2008 publication, Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland’s Glory. The ceremony, held at McGill on November 2, made me think about how the requirements for prize – “exceptional scholarship, written quality, original presentation and broad accessibility” – are reflected in Jardine’s work. In particular, I was first intrigued by how her work fulfilled the requirement of accessibility and what this says about similar historical writing that is directed at a “general readership”. Without a doubt, this book is a tour de force of the vast range of Dutch cultural influence on English social, cultural and political life – and with a $36 price-tag it provides an incredible array of seventeenth-century portraiture, architectural engravings and scientific illustrations.

Jacob van Ruisdael, The Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede, 1670. Wikimedia Commons.

Despite this, I remain unconvinced that Going Dutch is a work with a more broadly defined “popular” appeal.  Rather it is aimed at that segment of the reading public that would already profess a demonstrable interest in one or more of its themes. By no means should this be understood as an indication that I feel it was an unworthy candidate for the prize. Instead this elicits an important discussion of whether the issue of accessibility should and can be improved upon. Am I crazy to not only want a book that utilizes the most cutting-edge themes of historical scholarship and engages with a more educated reading public, but to also require that it provides a lure to readers that might otherwise not pick up a work of historical non-fiction?

In several ways, Going Dutch reminded me of Linda Colley’s Britons: Forging the Nation through its appeal to a “general readership” and an engagement with the rather thorny question of “British” (or English) national identity. Although dissimilar in innumerable ways (such as Jardine’s use of commercialist structures and high cultural pastimes versus Colley’s use of empire-building in defining catalysts for a changing identity), I couldn’t help feeling that both of these books ultimately brought readers towards the familiar story of inevitable British triumphs – both expansionist and commercial. While I respect Jardine’s attempt to subvert traditional Whig explanations of “Britain’s rise”, I think that the end result is more of a substitution (Dutch for English) rather than a fundamental change in how the “story” is written.

This leads me to a final reflection on a question that is central to Going Dutch: “Who is entitled to lay claim to the culture of a designated nation?” I believe that it is from this claim – more than any other – that the book delves into controversy, both historical and modern, and not just from the very real possibility that this question is potentially misleading or even anachronistic. By drawing attention to the crucial issue of immigration the book presents – to use a scientific metaphor – immigrant cultural engagement as a solution rather than a mechanical mixture, which thereby (permanently) alters the composition of a “national” culture. More importantly, Jardine presents this story of cultural immigration, negotiation and identity in a way that is both reassuring and instructive, despite the continuing role of such narratives in creating anxieties for politicians and the public alike.

But this is where things get even more complicated as – to my great disappointment – neither public opinion or popular culture are afforded a significant role. I do not feel that I am wrong in assuming that, despite their inability to access scientific or artistic knowledge, the vast majority of the population possessed a distinct idea of what it was to be English. Are elites or “the people” more invested in creating and defining a national culture? If immigrants are essential to redefining national cultures then does their social status mitigate this fact?  It is in this respect, more than any other that I feel the book fails to convince me of its message, and is of particular poignancy when considering the continued poverty and discrimination felt by so many immigrants.

I don’t want to be unduly harsh, but as a historian of popular print and culture, it seems to me to be a glaring omission. What I can’t argue with, however, is the richness with which both visitor and immigrant experiences are documented. Constantijn Huygens senior was a man of remarkable talent, possessed of a rare facility for cultural understanding and negotiation, while Jardine also does an equally excellent job of reflecting upon Dutch influence through the eyes of English observers such as John Evelyn. This shows Jardine’s argument (that for the political and cultural elite Holland’s interpenetration of English culture had already been achieved by the moment of the “Glorious Merger”) to be both persuasive and compelling. Nevertheless, in attempting to provide wider arguments about cultural miscegenation through immigration, I feel we only get part of the picture.

Imagine a digital working environment where high-definition scanned documents may be summoned at will, and are worked on simultaneously by several historians located in different parts of the world. The document functions not only as a visual facsimile of the original, but also as a ’smart text’.

What does this mean exactly? Let’s say you are a medieval historian, interested in a 7th century manuscript. The digital document not only allows you access to a high-resolution copy of a document you would have been forced to travel half way across the world to see, but is linked to all the relevant literature pertaining to the manuscript. Any word in the text may be instantly translated by a Medieval Latin dictionary, any obscure abbreviation automatically defined, and all the secondary literature written about the document is available at the click of a mouse button. If you want to tag a certain sentence and attach a comment for a member of your work group, that is also possible. Finally, the software can learn your field of interest and suggest material for further reading.

Martianus Capella, Marriage of Philology and Mercury (Wikimedia)

This is just a small example of the future vision of digitization and what it can do for historical research. An ambitious Dutch project, currently underway, already provides scans, transcriptions and glosses for a ninth-century manuscript of Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (‘On the marriage of Philology and Mercury’).

Despite large strides being made, the vision of a platform integrating and coordinating the various existing databases is not yet a reality for historians. Where are we today in terms of reaching this goal? Digital libraries differ from their traditional counterparts in several ways. A physical library can be cataloged according to Dewey, or the Library of Congress methods. When it comes to digital libraries, every project ‘reinvents the wheel’, as it were, and creates a cataloging system incompatible with other ongoing digitization enterprises. This is a problem, because the vision of digitization requires the merging of as many databases as possible to make it effective. When digital archives are unable to work in concert, the entire point of digitization is defeated.

One possible solution for this concern is standardization. By standardizing the entire corpus of scanned documents worldwide, a uniform archive may be created, thus allowing for easy access. But achieving this would require a monumental effort on the side of librarians and software engineers, slaving away to modify the already existent databases. A smarter solution would be to create a work environment which would link the various databases together, and would know how to handle the various standards used by different libraries. This, of course, requires the cooperation of as many digital archives as possible, something that as of today has not occurred.

An initial attempt at such an enterprise is the EU’s Discovery Project, integrating two components, dubbed Philosource and Philospace. The idea behind Philosource is to link together a large number of digital libraries dealing with philosophy, making them accessible through one platform. Philospace acts as a second layer on top of Philosource, consisting of a network of software apps located on researchers’ desktops, allowing for the creation of a shared work environment, incorporating meta-text and annotations to be shared by the research community working on a certain document.

In effect, the bodies regulating today’s digitization efforts are commercial entities, such as Google. In many respects, this is a good thing, because this sort of solution does not require funding by research bodies, which are already financially strained, and the outcome is generally made available to everyone. However, leaving the initiative up to big business also has its drawbacks – commercial bodies are seldom motivated to digitize obscure manuscripts of the sort historians find interesting. Theirs is a wide approach, where historical research requires an in-depth look at digitization. For such an ambitious program to take place, what is needed is a working financial model, allowing universities to participate in, and profit from such an endeavor.

University and research institution libraries spend increasing portions of their annual budgets on subscriber services for online resources. It is only logical that if a large number of university libraries pool their resources, a financial model can be worked out, granting access to as many scholars as possible. This model could have a social facet as well; scholars from poorer countries would enjoy cheaper access to these databases, and the majority of the financial burden would be shouldered by wealthier institutions. Since the money for digitization is already being spent by universities, it stands to reason that a more efficient, egalitarian and productive method would benefit not only individual scholars, but the discipline as a whole.

Holinshed’s Chronicles: The Crowning Achievement of Tudor Historiography

I am constantly surprised by the number of great resources for medievalists and early modernists that sneak up online. The Holinshed project is one of these. Launched a few months back, Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland are a new, freely available, resource for all interested in historical writing in the early modern period. Two differing editions of 1577 and 1587 are provided alongside each other here for the first time.

This parallel electronic edition, funded by Oxford University’s Fell Fund, has been compiled by an Oxford based team comprising Dr Ian W. Archer (History, Oxford), Dr Felicity Heal (History, Oxford), Dr Paulina Kewes (English, Oxford), and Dr Henry Summerson (The Oxford Holinshed Project Research Assistant).

The Chronicles are perhaps best known as the source text for many of Shakespeare’s plays, but they were also a rich source for poets, lawyers, politicians, and general readers. The Chronicles provide a fascinating insight into Elizabethan literature, history and politics with authors including both moderate and militant Protestants and Catholics including Richard Stanihurst and Edmund Campion.

Image courtesy of the the Holinshed Project

The electronic edition is easy to use and importantly, for scholar or student, word searchable. I had never used the Chronicles before as I am a medievalist by trade, so decided to try out the site by searching for Macbeth. I easily came to a section that I recognised from the Scottish Play, Macbeth’s encounter with the witches:

(Holinshed 1577, Vol. I: The Historie of Scotland, 243-4)

…Shortly after happened a straunge and vncouth wonder, which afterwarde was the cause of muche trouble in the realme of Scotlande as ye shall after heare. It fortuned as Makbeth & Banquho iourneyed towarde Fores, where the king as then lay, they went sporting by the way togither without other companie, saue only the(m)selues, passing through the woodes and fieldes, when sodenly in the middes of a lau(n)de, there met them .iij. women in straunge & ferly apparell, resembling creatures of an elder worlde, whom when they attentiuely behelde, wondering much at the sight, The first of them spake & sayde: All hayle Makbeth Thane of Glammis (for he had lately entred into that dignitie and office by the death of his father Synel.) The .ij. of them said: Hayle Makbeth Thane of Cawder: but the third sayde: All hayle Makbeth that hereafter shall be king of Scotland. The prophesie of three wome(n) supposing to be the weird sisters or feiries.

In addition to the Chronicle itself, the project site offers a wealth of additional content, including a comprehensive analysis of the sources behind the Chronicles, a broad bibliography and a number of working papers.
Technophiles can also explore a blog on the use of a TEI-Comparator for the project.  The launch of this site is by no means the end of this project. An Oxford Holinshed Handbook is in the making and funding is being sought to add scholarly annotation to the electronic edition.

Jia Zhangke’s latest film, 24 City, opens with a scene familiar to anyone who has lived in a Chinese city – the imposing front gates of a large factory compound, cheery music on the loudspeaker, and workers on bicycles. Similar gates adorn the front of schools, government offices, hospitals, and any number of institutions. In the film, these gates happen to enclose the extensive compounds of a former military factory on the outskirts of Chengdu, in Sichuan Province. From a humming hub of socialist industry, the factory had since converted to turning out consumer goods, and finally, as the film opens, making way for a mixed-use condominium complex.

Proceeding at the gentle pace of a documentary, the director mixed interviews with real former workers and actors. As the camera wandered through the maze of now empty and forlorn-looking buildings, into people’s homes, along side them on buses, the interviews offered up bits of personal histories. Watching the film, I felt a sense of recognition – the same sense of mild sorrow I frequently could not place a finger on while living in China – that I was witnessing first-hand the passing of an era, with the remaining vestiges of socialism dismantled in grayish clouds of dust and re-birthed one apartment complex at a time.

When I lived in Beijing from the fall of 2007 to the summer of 2008, I passed daily by a block of shacks and one-floor storefronts close to the bus station, the subway, and as it turned out, the end station of the new airport express. As the weather cooled, the entire area sported the painted red character ,拆, to demolish, circled in more red paint. Walking through the bus depot involved an obstacle course, all the while being choked by omnipresent clouds of dust. The people who lived and worked in the shacks, almost all migrant workers, faced the demolition project with equanimity – the husband and wife team who sold youtiao and tea-eggs across the street operated their small business with little regard to the red sign of doom on their building. Until one day they were no longer there. By the time the Olympics rolled around, the entire area had converted to a verdant green park.

Jia Zhangke’s film reminded me of that experience, and of all the demolishing and dislocation which went into delivering the spectacle of a powerful new China, the same one that appears on the front page of New York Times as America’s largest creditor, that is already delivering 9% GDP growth and pointing the way out of a global recession. From “The World” (2004), set in an amusement part on the outskirts of Beijing, to “Still Life” (2006), which took place in the rubble and chaos of the Three Gorges Dam project, Jia’s films provide a counter to the carefully orchestrated image fostered by the Chinese state of a nation on the rise.

Perhaps because they strike too close to home, Chinese audiences have shown little interest in watching these forlorn films of dislocation and alienation. For escapism, CGI-effects and spectacle, they can turn to Chen Kaige’s The Promise (2005), Zhang Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flowers (2007), House of Flying Daggers (2004), Hero (2002), and of course, the Hollywood blockbusters upon which these directors have based the big-budget spectacles. These are the films that get Chinese media talking.

Spectacle – these film share in common eye-popping color and visual schemes, special effects, international casts of stunningly attractive actors and actresses (inability to speak Chinese not a problem), and tenuous and more importantly, politically ambiguous narratives.

What is Hero (2002) but a tacit approval of tyranny, provided that the ends justify the means? Jet Li, the assassin of Hero, most recently made an appearance as the Dragon Emperor in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008). In the climactic battle scene,  skeletons of  those unjustly slaughtered in the effort to build the Great Wall rise from the dead to fight the terracotta minions of the Emperor – but not before their general gives a short speech about fighting for freedom. Absurd, perhaps, but no more ridiculous than the dialogue uttered by the Korean actor Dong-kun Jang in The Promise. In the past year, in an interview with the China Film Journal, even Jia Zhangke did not rule the possibility of going to Hollywood. If he does move on to more commercial project, Chinese film would lose one of the few directors interested in portraying the nation in the throes of change.

Writing about the movie-going experience in 1920s Berlin, Siegfried Kracauer described movie theaters as “palaces of distractions” aimed at appeasing the masses. In the twenty-first century, Chinese directors have excelled at creating stunning visual images. What Chinese person could watch the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, directed by Zhang Yimou, without feeling even a little bit proud and awed at the country’s progress in the last twenty years? Behind the mass spectacle, however, lies a gate to a factory compound in Chengdu and in cities across China, about to be demolished to make way for condominiums. But that story, all too real for millions of Chinese, would hardly be a distraction.

While the benefits of digital resources are clear, particularly for researchers for whom physical access of sources is difficult, questions remain. Will the digitization of archives and its cost result in reduced physical access to archives? What will be the cost to the researcher to use digitized sources? Will online databases provide a satisfactory replacement for reading room research?

In part, the recent decision of the National Archives (United Kingdom) to close the reading room on Mondays was justified by the fact that this closure will not impact those who use the National Archives website. The National Archives will remain open Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Nick Cooper under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike

According to a press release from 30 June 2009, the National Archives estimates that ninety percent of their use comes from “online customers.” Chief Executive, Natalie Ceeney, quoted in the press release, noted that more than 170 documents are downloaded from the website for each document requested in the reading room. However, the group Action 4 Archives, opposed to the changes, have argued in their campaign statement that such statistics do not compare “like with like” as documents downloaded are usually no more than a few pages, whereas those ordered on site are often many hundreds and occasionally thousands of pages long. Also, the group argues such statistics are misleading because they merely reflect the fact that online documents, which are more accessible are therefore used more frequently. Furthermore, Action 4 Archives argues, many of those counted as “online customers” use the website in preparation for and in conjunction to visiting the reading rooms at Kew and that while online usage has increased, so have requests for documents in the reading room, 540,000 documents requested in 2001-02 to 640,000 in 2008-09.

The National Archives has undertaken cost savings in part to fund digitization. According to Mel Hide, spokesman for the National Archives (as quoted in The Independent,)  the closure on Mondays and other cuts including voluntary redundancies have been made to pay for further digitization of records. This is in line with the focus on digitization in HM Government draft archival policy, “Archives for the 21^st century.”  While such projects as the digitization of the 1911 census are to be lauded, the census, as well as other online databases such as Ancestors on Board require users to pay to access records online.  Understandably, digitization projects are costly and many online databases operate on a cost per use basis. Traveling to archives can also be expensive and many researchers may decide that the convenience of online access is worth the cost. However, it is often unclear how useful sources will be without actually seeing them, which could make a pay-per-view model extremely expensive for those conducting academic research, which by necessity casts a wide net.

While the potential benefits of digitized archival sources are clear, the changes they may bring to the nature of historical research should also be considered. Are these concerns about digitization as expressed by Action 4 Archives and others valid? Or is it an overblown reaction to slightly reduced hours in reading room access at the National Archives? More fundamentally, will the expense of digitizing archives in an already underfunded sector necessitate reduced physical access to archival records? What might this mean for historical research?

After mulling around the coffee and muffins in the reception area and feeling awkward because I didn’t know anyone at the conference, I headed into the lecture hall where I eyeballed the walls for electrical outlets.  I would need a power source if I was going to type through several hours of conference proceedings.  I saw another attendee settling in and plugging in her laptop, so I sat down nearby and asked if she would mind sharing the outlet (she didn’t).

So began my day of twittering the “Nowcasting: Design Theory & Digital Humanities” conference held at UCLA last month. My first volley of the day:

@janaremy audience is assembling & positioning themselves around available power outlets (my kind of conference!) #nowcasting

After a few initial tweets I realized, through hashtag searching, that there were several other twitterers in the room.  By following the other tagged tweets I discovered a website that was liveblogging the conference happenings, too.  Within an hour, I found about a dozen people in the audience actively writing about the conference events as they unfolded.  We were not only twittering our impressions, but we were in a dynamic conversation about issues raised by the talks.  One person with a digital camera was taking occasional pictures of the presentations & posting the links.  Another was sending links to the various speakers’ publications.  As the conversations evolved they added more depth to the conference presentations than I gleaned from the talks themselves.  In turn, I was getting to know the various personalities chattering about the conference, and by the end of the day after learning the “in-real-life” identities of my fellow twitters, we chatted at the closing reception and have since then become better acquainted via continued interactions on Twitter and Facebook.

Not every conference that I’ve attempted to liveblog or twitter has gone so smoothly.   For example, my intention to post updates on the 2009 American Historical Association conference was thwarted by the high cost of wireless access at the venue (what history grad student can afford a $129 hotel room plus a $15 daily internet access fee?).  A few months after that, when I tweeted the happenings at another history conference, I couldn’t find anyone else who was also doing so (hashtag searches weren’t helpful this time), which made it feel like I was simply having a conversation with myself rather than creating community with fellow attendees.  For example, in one panel about digital humanities my sense of alienation was evident as I sat in a nearly-empty room in what, in my opinion, should have been the session generating the biggest buzz:

@janaremy Only 4 women in audience of Digital Humanities panel. Why? #WHA

@janaremy Wondering why they didn’t find a commenter who knows more about Digital Humanities than just Powerpoint & online syllabi (sigh) #WHA

The positive outcome from tweeting that conference came later, when my twitter feed funneled into my Facebook page status updates.  Colleagues who weren’t at the conference  responded to my tweets, creating an opportunity for follow-up discussion about the digital tools that are useful for scholars.   Later, I also reflected on my experience with a blog posting about the panel.

My latest experiment with using twitter is in my role as the “Online Media Chairperson” for an upcoming Digital Humanities conference at Yale.  Recently I created a twitter account dedicated solely to discussion of the conference, and started tying that presence to other digital humanists on twitter through “following” them, especially those users included in Dan Cohen’s comprehensive Digital Humanities twitter list. Within 30 minutes of my launching the account Dan tweeted an announcement about our event and numerous users began following @PDP2010 or “re-tweeting” Dan’s message. I don’t exactly know yet how the twitter account will augment attendance or ongoing discussion for this conference, but I’m excited to be experimenting with this technology and to see how it might create possibilities for scholarly collaboration that begin before the two-day event and carry on for long afterward.

I’m curious, do any of you have experiences with liveblogging at conferences or advertising academic events via twitter?  Or do you have any advice to offer on how to use social media for academic networking and collaboration?

Now that we’ve come to the end, the Compass team would like to say a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to everyone who has participated and made our first virtual conference an overwhelming success. The authors and presenters have been, without exception, engaging and professional to the last. We’d also like to extend a special note of thanks to our virtual attendees, who have kept the discussions alive with insightful commentary, and their openness to explore issues across disciplines.

There will be no new content uploaded to the site after Friday 30th October, but there is still much to discuss. All of the presentations and comments will remain on the website indefinitely, and we’d encourage you all to keep engaging with the content so long as there are issues to be explored, and interdisciplinary barriers to be broken down! If you sign up to receive email alerts of new comments, you can keep up with any ongoing conversations.

We sincerely hope you have enjoyed the conference – here are some things that you can do to stay in touch:

• Check out the Compass journals and recommend to your librarian. Researchers, teaching faculty, and advanced students will all benefit from the accessible, informative articles that provide overviews of current research. Personal subscriptions are now also available.
• Complete the post-conference opinion survey, coming to you next week. Your thoughts will help us make decisions about future conferences.
• If you have suggestions, or even just a short comment, you can pop it in our Suggestion Box or Email us
• Access the Publishing Workshops and Keynotes via iTunes (as from the conference website). The raw feed for the podcasts can be found here.
• Share our keynote video lectures via our Vimeo channel
• Tell others about your experience of the conference!

Final reminder: your 20% book discount token is valid until 15th November, so visit the book exhibit before then.

Until next time…?

Thanks again,

The Compass Team
www.blackwell-compass.com

By Paula Bowles

Today marked the penultimate day of Wiley-Blackwell’s first Virtual Conference. As I am sure you will all agree, thus far, each day has contained many gems, and today has been no different. Eileen Joy’s (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) keynote lecture: ‘Reading Beowulf in the Ruins of Grozny: Pre/modern, Post/human, and the Question of Being‐Together’ looks at the aftermath of the Russian bombing of Chechnya through the lens of Beowulf.

The two final papers of the conference were provided by P. Grady Dixon (Mississippi State University) & Adam J Kalkstein (United States Military Academy) and Nicole Mathieu (CNRS, University of Paris). Their papers respectively entitled: ‘Climate–Suicide Relationships: A Research Problem in Need of Geographic Methods and Cross‐Disciplinary Perspectives’ and ‘Constructing an interdisciplinary concept of sustainable urban milieu’ have looked at indisciplinarity from a geographical and environmental perspective. The final publishing workshop was ‘How to Survive the Review Process’ by Greg Maney (Hofstra University).

Although, the conference is due to end tomorrow it is not too late to register and take advantage of the book discount and free journal access. Each of the papers and podcasts will remain on the website, and it is hoped that you will keep the comments coming in.

By Paula Bowles

Day eight of the conference was once again marked by some excellent contributions. The first paper ‘Cultural Sociology and Other Disciplines: Interdisciplinarity in the Cultural Sciences’ by Diane Crane (University of Pennsylvania) suggests that for many scholars ‘disciplinary isolation is the norm.’ However, Crane proposes that by utilising what she describes as ‘free‐floating paradigms’ such barriers can be removed.

The second paper of the day by Christine Mallinson, (University of Maryland) entitled ‘Sociolinguistics and Sociology: Current Directions, Future Partnerships’ also takes sociology and interdisciplinarity as its main themes. Mallinson’s paper concludes with practical advice as to how best to achieve research partnerships.

Together with these exciting papers, Catherine Sanderson (Amherst College) offered advice in her publishing workshop: ‘The Joys and Sorrows of Writing an Undergraduate Textbook.’ There was also an opportunity to spend time in the Second Life cocktail bar with the Compass Team.

By Paula Bowles

The seventh day of the conference has continued with the key themes of ‘breaking down boundaries’ and interdisciplinarity. Roy Baumeister (Florida State University) began the day with his keynote lecture entitled ‘Human Nature and Culture: What is the Human Mind Designed for?’ By utilising the concepts of evolutionary and cultural psychology, Buameister is able to explore the intrinsic significance culture holds for humanity.

Two other papers were also presented today. ‘Text as It Happens: Literary Geography’ by Sheila Hones (University of Tokyo) and Stefan Müller’s (University of Duisburg‐Essen) ‘Equal Representation of Time and Space: Arno Peters’ Universal History.’ These contributions have utilised a wide and diverse range of disciplines including history, cartography, geography and literature. Finally, Devonya Havis’ publishing workshop entitled ‘Teaching with Compass’ offers some interesting ideas as to how best implement technology within the classroom.

By Paula Bowles

Welcome to the second week of the Wiley-Blackwell Virtual Conference. The first day back has started with a keynote speech from Peter Ludlow (Northwestern University) entitled ‘Virtual Communities, Virtual Cultures, Virtual Governance.’ Conference delegates also had the opportunity to meet Peter at the Second Life Cocktail Bar.

There were two other papers on Monday’s session Adam Brown’s (Deakin University): ‘Beyond ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’: Breaking Down Binary Oppositions in Holocaust Representations of ‘Privileged’ Jews’ and ‘A Hybrid Model of Moral Panics: Synthesizing the Theory and Practice of Moral Panic Research’ presented by Brian V. Klocke (State University of New York, Plattsburgh) & Glenn Muschert (Miami University). In addition Wiley-Blackwell’s Vanessa Lafaye held a publishing workshop entitled ‘The Secret to Online Publishing Success.’

As you can see, this week promises to be as exciting and innovative as the previous one. All of the papers and workshops from last week are still available to download from the conference site, and both the ‘battle of the bands’ and the opportunity to contribute a ‘winning comment’ remain.

by paulabowles

The first week of the conference has come to an end, and the final day has included two exciting papers, as well as a publishing workshop. The first paper entitled ‘Full Disclosure of the “Raw Data” of Research on Humans: Citizens’ Rights, Product Manufacturer’s Obligations and the Quality of the Scientific Database’ was presented by Dennis Mazur (Oregon Health and Sciences University). In his lecture, Mazur highlights the difficult and contentious issues involved in human testing, particularly the tensions between participants and drug manufacturers.

The second paper also takes an interdisciplinary approach to medical matters. Eileen Smith‐Cavros (Nova Southeastern University) lecture entitled ‘Fertility and Inequality Across Borders: Assisted Reproductive Technology and Globalization’ looks at the emotive issue of assisted reproduction. By surveying existing literature, Smith Cavros is able to look in detail at some of the many issues which impact upon reproduction.

Together with these two papers, Duane Wegener’s (Purdue University) publishing workshop: ‘Top 10 mistakes New Scholars Make When Trying to Get Published’ marked the end of the first week.

Enjoy the weekend and we look forward to seeing you next week.

by paulabowles The conference today has taken on a distinctly environmental feel. First up was Mark Macklin’s (University of Wales, Aberystwyth) keynote address entitled ‘Floodplain Catastrophes and Climate Change: Lessons from the Rise and Fall of Riverine Societies.’ In his paper, Macklin observes that ‘[w]e are not the first society to face the threat of environmental catastrophe,’ although he stresses that the current threat has unique features. Susan Morrison (Texas State University – San Marcos) has taken a highly interdisciplinary approach to her paper ‘Waste Studies ‐ A New Paradigm for Literary Analysis, Something is Rotten in the Denmark of Beowulf and Hamlet’. By combining the disciplines of literature and waste studies, Morrison offers a reminder ‘that the origins of the Anglophone literary canon are sedimented in waste’. Tim Cooper (University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus) continued this theme of waste with his paper ‘Recycling Modernity: Towards an Environmental History of Waste.’ By taking as a starting point the belief that ‘waste was one of the characteristic products of modernity’ Cooper is able to consider why this subject is so fascinating to historians and other social scientists. Before, we head into the fifth day of the conference, just a quick reminder to visit the virtual book exhibit. As a delegate, you are invited to take 20% off the price of any Wiley Book.

by paulabowles

Today’s papers have focused once more on the key motifs of the conference, that of breaking down borders and indisciplinarity. Nancy Naples (University of Connecticut) uses her paper: ‘Borderlands Studies and Border Theory: Linking Activism and Scholarship for Social Justice’ to highlight just some of the difficulties faced when ‘negotiate[ing] different disciplinary frames, methods, and theoretical assumptions in order to move forward toward collaborative problem solving’.

The second paper today entitled ‘Theorizing Borders in a ‘Borderless World’: Globalization, Territory and Identity’ was presented by Alexander Diener (Pepperdine University) and Joshua Hagen (Marshall University). The authors question the assumption that world is becoming increasingly borderless, instead suggesting that state borders continue to ‘remain one of the most basic and visible features of the international system.’

Finally, on the third day of the conference Kivmars Bowling (Wiley-Blackwell) has presented a particularly relevant publishing workshop entitled ‘The Online Author’s Survival Guide’. The daily book prize was awarded to Maeve O’Donovan for her comment on David Crystal’s keynote lecture and the conference day ended in the Second Life cocktail bar.

by paulabowles

The second day of the conference has been filled with three more interesting and innovative papers. David Crystal’s (University of Bangor) keynote lecture entitled ‘Language Death: A Problem for All’ highlights the troubling statistics that ‘96% of the world’s languages are spoken by just 4% of the people’. Given the interdisciplinary nature, and the methodology of this virtual conference, Crystal’s paper draws attention to the use of language as a way to ‘break down barriers’.

The two other papers presented today relate to disability, albeit with very different approaches. The first was given by Wendy Turner (Augusta State University) and is entitled: ‘Human Rights, Royal Rights and the Mentally Disabled in Late Medieval England.’ In her paper Turner suggests that modern preconceptions of medieval disability are not generally supported by the empirical evidence. The second paper ‘The Status of the Learning Disabled in Philosophy of Mind and Disability Studies’ by Maeve M. O’Donovan (College of Notre Dame of Maryland), approaches the subject of learning disability through personal and academic experience and research.

As well, as the ongoing ‘battle of the bands’ competition – plenty of time still to vote! – today also saw the first ‘winning comment’ prize awarded to Rebecca Wheeler.

by Paula Bowles

Welcome to the first day of the 2009 Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference. Regenia Gagnier (University of Exeter) opened the conference by asking: ‘Why Interdisciplinarity?’ As part of her introductory remarks, Professor Gagnier discusses the definitions of Interdisciplinarity, as well as outlining some of the benefits of interdisciplinary research and praxis.

Roger Griffin’s (Oxford Brookes University) keynote paper: ‘The Rainbow Bridge’: Reflections on Interdisciplinarity in the Cybernetic Age’ highlights the opportunities offered by the novel concept of a virtual conference. By reflecting on his own research into fascism, Griffin recognises the need to make cross-disciplinary connections, or as he describes it academics operating ‘flexibly as both splitters and lumpers, according to the situation’.

Two other conference papers have been presented today. The first ‘Communicating about Communication – Multidisciplinary Approaches to Educating Educators about Language Variation’ by Anne H. Charity Hudley (The College of William and Mary) and Christine Mallinson (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) and the second
‘Language and Communication in the Spanish Conquest of America’ by Daniel Wasserman Soler(University of Virginia).

Finally, Professor of Human Geography, Mike Bradshaw (University of Leicester) has contributed a Publishing Workshop entitled ‘Why Write a Review Paper? And how to do it!’. As well as all of these academic gems, conference delegates have also taken the opportunity to meet the speakers in Second Life and cast their votes in the ‘Battle of the Bands’.

We are delighted to announce that the program for the first ever Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference is now available!

PDF DOWNLOADS:

Full Conference Program

‘At A Glance’ Conference Program – 1 Page

Conference paper abstracts and commentators

Author and Commentator Profiles

Keynote Speaker Profiles

In addition to the conference papers and keynote addresses, we will be offering a series of publishing workshops, ‘Meet the Keynote Speaker’ Q&A sessions, a book exhibit, musical entertainment and a SecondLife cocktail bar.

SOUNDS INTERESTING! HOW CAN I PARTICIPATE?

Join the conversation – we already have over 800 registered delegates from over 70 countries attending!

• Register for free at:
  http://www.blackwellpublishingsurvey.com/survey/149278/29a8.

• Delegates will be able to buy ANY Wiley book with a 20% conference discount.

• Delegates will be eligible for 60 days free online access to over 200 Wiley-Blackwell journals.

• Delegates providing feedback after the conference will also be in the running to win a year’s subscription to a Compass Journal of their choice!

We look forward to welcoming you to this inaugural virtual conference!

- The Compass Conference Team

Rochelle Lieber (Language and Linguistics Compass Editor-in-Chief)
Felice Lifshitz (History Compass Editor-in-Chief)
Jerry Suls (Social and Personality Psychology Compass Editor-in-Chief)
Vanessa Lafaye, Helen Ashton, Kivmars Bowling, Liam Cooper, Philip Smith (Wiley-Blackwell)

Questions? Feedback? Email: compassconference@wiley.com