Dr Claire Shaw (University of Warwick) is the recipient of the 2018 BASEES Women’s Forum Book Prize for her book Deaf in the USSR: Marginality, Community, and Soviet Identity, 1917-1991 (Cornell University Press, 2017). The judges, Barbara Heldt and Dan Healey, issued the following citation:

‘From the beginning of the Soviet era, the social power of the deaf, their agency and autonomy, was tied to sovietness. This statement, however, oversimplifies a complex history, which Claire Shaw explicates in remarkable detail, drawing on both published and archival sources. Her book expands the scope of our understanding of behaviours and identity in Soviet history, while also providing glimpses into the pre-revolutionary and post-Soviet eras. How deaf identity has been marked by separateness v. inclusion, the status of sign language, the dignity of work, criminality, gender and many other issues will make this landmark study a classic read.’

For more details, please see the BASEES website's press release.

On Tuesday 30th October the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland celebrated the life and work of the late Professor Sir Christopher Bayly FBA, with the award of the inaugural Bayly Prize and the posthumous launch of Sir Christopher’s book, Remaking the Modern World 1900-2015: Global Connections and Comparisons.

The Bayly Prize is for an outstanding doctoral thesis on an Asian topic completed at a British university in the year prior to the award. In this inaugural year the prize was presented to Dr Johannes Lotze for his thesis, Translation of Empire: Mongol Legacy, Language Policy, and the Early Ming World Order, 1368-1453. The shortlist of five for the prize included Dr Kyle Jackson, former PhD student at the University of Warwick History Department, and Dr Callie Wilkinson, former PhD student at the University of Cambridge and now Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Warwick History Department.

Kyle Jackson (University of Warwick) for Colonial Conquest and Religious Entanglement: A Mizo History from Northeast India (c. 1890-1920). The judges said: “This high-quality piece of historical research draws on indigenous language sources and deploys indigenous terminology to re-centre the history of North-eastern India. Dr Jackson has an eye for a good story, and the thesis is written in elegant and fluid prose, making it a pleasure to read.”

Callie Wilkinson (University of Cambridge) for The Residents of the British East India Company at Indian Royal Courts, c. 1798-1818. The judges said: “This work is distinctive because it refreshes the study of Residents and indirect rule in India by applying new historical methods to the subject. Dr Wilkinson provides us with a rich and nuanced picture of East India Company rule in the subcontinent that moves us away from the main centres of EIC power and beyond traditional subjects of historical study.​”

For more details, please see the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland announcement.
 

 
Professor Hilary Marland of the Warwick University History Department has been shortlisted for AHRC's Health Humanities Medal, a new national award led by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in association with the Wellcome Trust.

Professor Marland is one of five academics who has made the shortlist for the Leadership Award category, which recognises those who have demonstrated leadership within the field of health humanities. The Health Humanities Medal comprises five categories designed to celebrate the achievements of those who have helped to inform and transform the health and wellbeing of the nation through the use of arts and humanities research.

Commenting on the shortlisting Professor Marland, said: “This is a huge honour and I am delighted to have been short-listed for the Medal. Health humanities is an exciting field to work in and offers enormous scope to academics to combine research with public engagement.

"Working with my colleagues at Warwick, most recently on a Wellcome Trust funded project on health in prison, I have had the opportunity and support to engage in initiatives that draw on historical research to develop new ways of working with the arts, policy makers and a wide range of audiences.”

 
Professor Rebecca Earle has been awarded the William and Mary Quarterly Douglass Adair Memorial Award 2018 for her article, The Pleasures of Taxonomy: Casta Paintings, Classification, and Colonialism, which also won the William and Mary Quarterly Lester J Cappon Award 2016.

The shortlist for the Wolfson History Prize 2018 has been revealed, recognising and celebrating books which combine excellence in historical research with readability for a wider general audience, and includes Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation by Professor Peter Marshall of the Warwick History Department. The overall winner will be announced on Monday 4th June 2018 at a reception at Claridge’s in London.

For the full shortlist, please see http://www.wolfson.org.uk/history-prize/2018-prize/.

For details of all the academic publications of the academic staff of the Warwick History Department, please see https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/research/publications/.

The British Commission for Maritime History (BCMH) awards a small number of prizes each year for undergraduate dissertations in the broad field of maritime history. The Commission’s aims are to encourage students to pursue maritime questions in their final year research, and to reward the best of that work. Subjects eligible for consideration reflect the Commission’s view of maritime history as a wide-ranging discipline. It includes topics such as shipping, seafaring, ports, seapower, maritime labour, coastal communities, trade, exploration, shipbuilding, navigation, and fishing, and embraces a wide range of political, economic, social, technological and cultural approaches.

Finn Halligan, undergraduate final-year History student in 2016/17, has been awarded one of the prizes for his dissertation "‘[N]othing can be more uninteresting’: The Social and Cultural Contexts of Navigational Instruments and their Development between c.1600 and c.1800", arising from his Special Subject module "Treasure Fleets of the Eastern Oceans: China, India and the West 1601-1833".

Dr Fred Reid, former Head of the History Department, and Mrs Etta Reid will each receive an Honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) in our graduation ceremonies next week, for decades of charity work helping local blind and partially sighted people in Kenilworth and the local area. For more information, please see the Leamington Observer article.