Use the form below for questions about the 2020 Big Berks Conference: Gendered Environments: Exploring Histories of Women, Genders, and Sexualities in Social, Political and “Natural” Worlds at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, May 21-23, 2020.
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The 2020 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities will be held at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland on May 21-23, 2020. Read More >> Keep up-to-date with Big Berks News Sign me up to receive information about the "Big … Read More »
Become a Member The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians is a vital network of scholars that welcomes all women in the historical profession. We offer two kinds of events: our triennial … Read More »
The next Little Berks will be held in Cambridge, MA, June 7-9, 2019. Please check back for details. Fall meeting of the Berkshire Conference of Women's Historians June 1-3, 2018 The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians annual business meeting, better known as the Little Berks, was held from … Read More »
The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians awards two annual book and article prizes in the following categories: An article in the fields of the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality. An article in any field of history other than the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality. A first book that deals … Read More »
We are excited to announce that the Call for Papers for the 2020 “Big” Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders, and Sexualities is now live.
Join us for the conference, which will be held May 21-23, 2020 at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. And please help us spread the word.
The theme of the 2020 conference is Gendered Environments: Exploring Histories of Women, Genders, and Sexualities in Social, Political, and “Natural” Worlds. We encourage submissions that promote a wide range of intersecting conversations and interactions among scholars, activists, artists, and members of diverse communities on the conference themes and on the history of women, genders, and sexualities more broadly.
More information can be found on the 2020 Berks website:
berks.confex.com/berks/berks20/cfp.cgi
berks.confex.com
Call for Papers: Gendered Environments: Exploring Histories of Women, Genders, and Sexualities in Social, Political andIt's time.
Exploited Amazon workers need a union. When will they get one? | Michael Sainato
theguardian.com
Amazon has suppressed all efforts since its founding, but with widespread employee abuse, only unions can hold the company accountableThanks to everyone who joined the Little Berks writing workshop this May! If you are interested in joining or leading a virtual groups with other Berks folks, please fill out this simple form - bit.ly/2tUmKq0.
docs.google.com
Sign up to join or lead a Berks Virtual Writing group. These groups will meet for the summer and close in September.Please consider signing this national letter from college and university professors demanding the release of the children being held on the border and their return to their families. There is a link at the top of the letter itself that you can use to submit your signature.
docs.google.com/document/d/1B3pLkGl0TYWgLU9FcDLdzT49vMcp7MDAielgKW7ddSg/edit
docs.google.com
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdrrA5nxkBSF6kyI8ZHDj1QdzQiVnj2980o_02X_IOlyuJ4Ew/viewform?usp=s... “It would be something fine if we could learn how to bless the lives of children. They...The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians is pleased to announce the following awards for books and articles published in 2017.
Book Awards
For a first book that deals substantially with the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality
2017> Sasha Turner. Contested Bodies: Pregnancy, Childrearing, and Slavery in Jamaica (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017).
Citation:
Bringing together histories of women, gender, and sexuality with those of abolitionism, Turner’s book offers a history of the experiences of enslaved women in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Jamaica, showing how these women were cast as reproductive laborers by the abolitionists who claimed to seek their freedom. Recognizing that slave owners and abolitionists held different values and views about the value of enslaved women’s bodies, Turner employs insightful analyses to examine how British abolitionist men reified patriarchal relations in promoting reproduction as the primary purpose of an enslaved woman’s life. Throughout the book, Turner never loses sight of the experiences of enslaved women themselves, illuminating how unfree women maintained their own childbirth and child-rearing rituals, resisting outside efforts to control their reproduction. This results in a fresh and dynamic take, showcasing best practices for historians who seek to recover and amplify voices that have been either accidentally overlooked or deliberately silenced. The book offers a masterful synthesis of cultural history, social history, and the histories of sexuality, reproduction, and childbirth, producing a very complex book with serious implications for the field. Turner’s Contested Bodies has the potential to reach meaningfully to audiences both inside and outside of academia.
2017> S. Debora Kang, The INS on the Line: Making Immigration Law on the US-Mexico Border, 1917-1954 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).
Citation:
Kang’s timely, thought-provoking book offers a history of the ways that officials from the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service formulated and implemented policies and laws to manage the U.S.-Mexico border. The book sheds light on the long history of militarizing this border, showing how, over the course of the twentieth century, the U.S. Border Patrol became an increasingly aggressive government body. In contrast to today, U.S. immigration officials used to show remarkable flexibility in accommodating both a cross-border economy and cross-border cultural ties. Drawing upon the lived experience of border officials, residents, and immigrants in Arizona, California, and Texas, Kang’s book uses an impressive range of sources drawn from a deep archive, including both local and national perspectives, and balances published material with rich oral histories. The book makes wonderful contributions to many subfields, including borderlands and transnational histories, immigration studies, and the history of the U.S. government. Kang’s book offers invaluable insights into the ways that immigration policy has evolved on the nation’s southwestern board with Mexico, and how critically important it is for us to understand the long and tumultuous history of power, politics, and control on the border.
2017-2018 Berkshire Book Prizes Committee
Amanda Herbert, Chair, Folger Library
Christian Ayne Crouch, Bard College
Crystal Feimster, Yale University
Anna Krylova, Duke University
Yumi Moon, Stanford University
Allison Miller, The American Historical Association
Tatiana Seijas, Pennsylvania State University
Article Awards
For an article in the fields of the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality
2017> Cassia Roth, “From Free Womb to Criminalized Woman: Fertility Control in Brazilian Slavery and Freedom.” Slavery & Abolition, 38:2
For article in any field of history other than the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality
2017> Carole McGranahan, “Imperial but Not Colonial: Archival Truths, British India, and the Case of the “Naughty” Tibetans.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol 59, No 1.
and
Vanessa Ogle, “Archipelago Capitalism: Tax Havens, Offshore Money, and the State, 1950s-1970s,” American Historical Review, 122, no. 5.