Berkshire Conference of Women Historians

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Little Berks

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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 Friday-Sunday, June 1-3, 2018 at Pheasant Run Resort in Mt. Pleasant, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, accessible from both O’Hare and Midway (4051 East Main Street, St. Charles, Illinois 60174-9854). We welcome all members of the Berks to attend this weekend of networking, professional development, and feminist institution building.

We negotiated an affordable rate for the hotel. Singles and doubles were $159 night and that included  buffet breakfast on Saturday and Sunday. The only additional cost was be approximately $140 for dinner on Friday and Saturday nights. We offered local people or those not staying at the resort, dinner for either night at $70 (both would be $140). The Berks provided wine and non-alcoholic drinks for dinner both nights. Attendees were on their own for lunch. We had vegetarian options at all meals.

Please note there was *no registration fee* to attend the Little Berks, but registration was required and the form can be accessed here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tg4aKXsqFTb2VP76E07U6v0r8lai2UtODkgF6Bg1-3g/viewform?edit_requested=true

SUBVENTIONS: To encourage the participation of graduate students, the unemployed, contingent faculty and others for whom cost may prevent attendance, the Berkshire Conference offers such attendees a subvention of up to 50% of room and board costs, along with up to 30% for untenured faculty members. Those who requested a subvention, emailed Jennifer Brier, Vice President and Sandra Dawson, Executive Administrator.

 

Learn about Future Annual Meetings and Past Annual Meetings

17th Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexuality, June 1-4, 2017, Hofstra University

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 »

Join Us

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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 »

Annual Meeting

Lake

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 »

Prizes

Two Women Fencing,. ca. 1885

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 »

Berks News

Berkshire Conference of Women Historians

6 months ago

Berkshire Conference of Women Historians

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. ... See MoreSee Less

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