CIH Fellows 2008-2009

Aaron Hughes

Aaron Hughes received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Indiana University, and he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies.

Dr. Hughes' fellowship project is titled "Jewish Philosophy, Aesthetics and Bible Translation." It examines a range of philosophical treatises that attempt to justify - both intellectually and aesthetically - the translation of the Hebrew Bible into various vernaculars from the tenth to twentieth centuries. The proposal of the project is that the act of translation helped to ameliorate tensions between Jewish and non-Jewish cultures by showing points of contact between the Bible and contemporary aesthetic, literary, and cultural trends. The ultimate goal of the research is to focus attention on the history of philosophy in practice rather than on the history of abstract ideas.

Ken MacMillan

Ken MacMillan received his Ph.D. in History from McMaster University, and he is an Associate Professor in the Department of History.

Dr. MacMillan's fellowship project is "The Idea of Conquest in England and the Atlantic, 1450-1750." Just as historians have recently recognized the importance of terms such as "empire," and "state" in the context of English territorial and political expansion, the term "conquest" contains remarkable rhetorical and propagandistic power. From the Roman conquest of Albion to the Tudor conquests of Ireland and Wales - England has long been regarded as both a ‘conquered and conquest' nation. The project poses the following questions. What did "conquest" mean in England? Was there a monolithic definition based on historical, legal, political and military activities? Was there a pluralistic meaning of the term? Did the term have specific ideological or rhetorical meanings? Using manuscripts and printed materials of lawyers, government officials, antiquarians and propagandists - the project examines the impact of the term on the intellectual, cultural, political, military and imperial history of England and its dependent territories.

Annette Timm

Annette Timm holds her Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago, and she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History.

Dr. Timm's fellowship project is titled "Lebensborn: Myth, Memory and the Sexualization of the Nazi Past." Popular views of the term "Lebensborn" suggest that it was Heinrich Himmler's pet project to breed a master race. This view is echoed in novels, films, plays and popular history. Indeed, there is a popular perception that this Nazi program was set up to find perfect genetic specimens from within the SS who could be matched with young girls for the purpose of efficient fertilization and the production of pure babies. The reality was not less racist, but far less racy. In reality, Lebensborn homes helped carefully selected women who had already become pregnant by providing for unwed mothers and pregnant SS wives. The project explores the reasons for the common misrepresentation of the Lebensborn program by focusing on how and why the myths have been perpetuated. It will consider the archival evidence on Lebensborn against an analysis of the popular view in film, literature, theatre, the press, and in personal memory by employing methods of cultural history, gender history, and the history of sexuality. The project considers the goals of the Nazi regime and the reactions of its citizens and successors.

Graduate Student Fellow

Angela Waldie

Angela Waldie holds her M.A. in Literary Studies from Utah State University, and she is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English at the University of Calgary.

Ms. Waldie's fellowship project is "Articulating Absence: Expressions of Species Extinction in Canadian and American Literature." "Histories, like species, can go extinct," writes Christopher Cokinos in Hope Is the Thing with Feathers (12). As extinction approaches, the last surviving members of a species are increasingly studied and storied. While extensive research has been conducted on extinction in the biological sciences and the field of environmental history - little research has been devoted to this subject within literature. The project explores literary portrayals of extinction, questioning how these depictions memorialize vanished species and the extent to which they advocate for the preservation of species currently threatened. Although the primary investigation involves fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction - the project is also informed by considerations of extinction in various disciplines including environmental history, environmental philosophy and ecology.

Undergraduate Student Fellow

Joanna Dawson

Joanna Dawson is a fourth-year student in the Department of English.

Ms. Dawson's fellowship project is titled "No Country for Old Myths: Place, Contact and Story in the West." Characterized over time as both ‘promised land' and as unsuitable for human settlement, the Canadian west is a heavily mythologized space. The fellowship project examines dominant myths of the Canadian west and the roles that they play in emerging historical discourse and literature by focusing on such novels as Alissa York's Effigy, Jacqueline Baker's The Horseman's Grave and The Outlander by Gil Adamson.

Visiting Fellow

James Opp

James Opp received his Ph.D. in History from Carleton University and he is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Carleton University.

Dr. Opp's fellowship project is titled "Photography and Public Memory in Prairie Canada." It analyses the collection, preservation and display of photographs as artifacts of history in prairie Canada. Photographs ‘capture' historical moments, but the use of photographs as a means to visualize the past has its own history. For example, images originally produced for a consumer audience in the late-nineteenth century were reframed against new narratives in the twentieth century. Before 1945, the largest collections of historical photographs in the prairie provinces were in the hands of private collectors and corporations, but in the post-war era - provincial governments rapidly expanded their archival holdings and by the 1970s almost all of this material was held as a public resource. By tracing how photographs moved across these different sites, from individual hands to institutional archives, from private to public domains - the project analyses how photographs were transformed into sites of public memory and reinterpreted in new contexts as pathways to envision a regional history of the prairie west.