As we move into voting for brackets 3 & 4, lots of questions remain unanswered: will Roger Williams’s Key Into the Languages of America continue its cinderella run? Will Graham Crakers gain more momentum? Will Junto readers be able to explain their excitement for this tournament without sounding imminently nerdy? Only time will tell.
Voting closes on Thursday at 5:00pm. Results for all four brackets will be announced on Friday. Continue reading
Kimberly Alexander is an Adjunct Professor in the History Department at UNH, Durham, where she teaches courses in museum studies and material culture. She earned her Ph.D. in Art & Architectural History from Boston University and was a founding Curator of Architecture and Design at the MIT Museum. She’s also served as Curator of Architecture and Design at the Peabody Essex Museum and Chief Curator of Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, NH. Dr. Alexander has published several books and essays, and has recently had papers presented at history of fashion conferences in London and Florence. Her current catalog and exhibition project is titled “Cosmopolitan Consumption: Georgian Shoe Stories From the Long 18th Century.”
How does one select a sampling of dozens of pairs of eighteenth-century shoes and translate the assemblage into a coherent museum exhibit housed in one charming, but tiny gallery? How does one translate a five-year study of eighteenth-century consumption patterns, cultural diffusion, and gentility in the Atlantic shoe trade into a show that will excite the imaginations of early Atlantic scholars yet appeal to the general public? How does present a material culture and fashion history exhibition in a refined Athenaeum situated in a corner of New Hampshire? Continue reading
Happy Monday, everyone! You can cast your votes for Round 2 of Junto March Madness after the jump. Continue reading
As always with March Madness, there have been some expected wins and some upsets–and man oh man am I excited for the next round. Results and match-ups for the next round follow after the jump. Continue reading
Today we commence with voting on Round 1, brackets 3 and 4. As a reminder, you can find the entire bracket here. Again, we’ve included arguments on behalf of various documents, written by either Junto bloggers or friends of the blog. Please feel free to add your arguments in the comments, because the purpose of this month’s “tournament” is to provide a resource for teachers of early American history.
Today we’re featuring a friendly reminder from our friends in the British Group of Early American Historians (BGEAH) that the deadline for abstracts is imminent. Continue reading
The time has come: trash talking is over; voting begins. As a reminder, you can find the entire bracket here. Today, we will vote on brackets 1 and 2; Wednesday, we will vote on brackets 3 and 4. We have included arguments on behalf of various documents, written by either Junto bloggers or friends of the blog. Please, feel free to add your arguments in the comments, because the purpose of this month’s “tournament” is to provide a resource for teachers of early American history.
Let the games begin! Continue reading
The wait is over. For the next few weeks, over-specialized nerds across the country will huddle over their desks, pencils in hand, brows furrowed, debating matchups and predicting winners. Lines will be drawn. Disagreements will be had. Relationships may be strained. The historiographical world as we know it may never be the same again.
That’s right, the Junto March Madness Bracket has finally arrived!
This year, the bracket is focused on primary sources. Specifically, primary sources that you would use in the classroom. These could be larger edited collections, single letters, or even an engraving. This is meant to introduce readers and teachers to new pedagogical tools designed to unlock the study of the past. Continue reading
It’s March here at The Junto (and, um, the rest of the world), which means it’s time for our annual March Madness tournament! By now you probably know the drill: you nominate, we bracket, and voting begins to establish a champion. Last year’s tournament can be found here: Michael Jarvis’s In the Eye of All Trade beat out a number of strong competitors to finally triumph in the tournament of nerdom.
Each year there’s been a twist, and this year is no different. Continue reading
At the beginning of February, Wake Forest University hosted a symposium marking the 25th anniversary of the publication of Nathan Hatch’s The Democratization of American Christianity (Yale University Press). The list of participants was a “who’s-who” of American religious history: Catherine Brekus, Sylvester Johnson, Mark Noll, Amanda Porterfield, Harry Stout, Grant Wacker (on more of a “who’s-that?” note, I was there, too, feeling honored but absurdly under-credentialed in that company). Each offered reflections on the book’s influence and reach, on his or her personal experience with it, on how its arguments have aged. Hatch, now the president of Wake Forest, offered an eloquent response. (Video of the event is available here.) Continue reading
The Junto 