Monthly Archives: January 2017

Digital History Panel at Ball State University Student History Conference

I chaired a panel at the 19th Annual Department of History Student History Conference on Friday, February 26, 2016 at Ball State University titled, “Doing Digital History.” The panel included current M.A. students Lisa Hensell and Hayden Shaw and graduate alumna Katina Reedy and Sadie Ritchie presenting their digital history research projects from my HIST 661: Digital History Seminar.

  • Lisa Hensell, “Under Connecticut’s Spell: Witch Trials in Colonial Connecticut, 1647-1697”
  • Katina Reedy, “’No one is going to get cakes and ale’: Women’s Perceptions of Food Rationing in WWII”
  • Sadie Ritchie, “Prisoners of Memory: Camp Morton, Indiana, 1862-1865”
  • Hayden Shaw, “The Ring of the World: A Critical Edition of Snorri Sturluson’s the Saga of Harald Hardrada”

Ball State History Graduate Students Recognized for Advanced Digital History Projects

At the Ball State University Department of History Honors, Scholarships, and Recognition Ceremony held on Sunday, April 10, 2016, I had the honor of recognizing two graduate students who had created advanced digital history projects as part of their M.A. degrees. These student projects contribute to a campus-wide initiative in digital scholarship and immersive learning that is aimed in large measure at cultivating a collaborative culture of innovation, experimentation, and inquiry at Ball State University.

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BSU Graduate Students Participate in THATCamp Indiana 2016

Seven Ball State graduate students and I made the over 2-1/2-hour drive up to South Bend to participate in THATCamp Indiana 2016 held at the Center for Digital Scholarship in the Hesburgh Library on the campus of the University of Notre Dame on April 22, 2016.

Historic preservation graduate student Margaux Dever presented a “Dork Short” (also known as a “lightning talk,” a Dork Short is brief 2-3-minute presentation in which attendees discuss current or upcoming projects, demonstrate new tools, or call for collaborators) on the topic “Interpreting Historic Districts Digitally” and history graduate student Emily Rapoza presented on the topic “Italian Renaissance Widows Through Spatial Analysis.” I presented on “Virtual Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” along with other digital humanists either presenting Dork Shorts or leading discussion sessions on topics of interest to those attending this “unconference.” Also attending THATCamp Indiana 2016 from Ball State University were history graduate students Ashley Cornwell, Samantha Greulach, Ashley Purvis, Alexis Robertson, and Joe Sweet. A good time was had by all!

Historian Jeremy Johnston visits Ball State U. Class

Last April, western historian Jeremy Johnston joined my HIST 318/518: History of the American West class on Friday, April 1, 2016 to discuss William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s role in reclamation in the American West.

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Jeremy M. Johnston lecturing in HIST 318/518: History of the American West at Ball State University

Jeremy M. Johnston is the Hal and Naoma Tate Endowed Chair and Curator of Western History, the Ernest J. Goppert Curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum, and, the Managing Editor of the Papers of William F. Cody at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. He was born and raised in Powell, Wyoming, a reclamation town named for John Wesley Powell. Johnston attended the University of Wyoming, from which he received his bachelor of arts his master of arts. He taught history at Northwest College in Powell for more than fifteen years. He is a past president of the Wyoming State Historical Society, and has appeared on various Wyoming PBS documentaries.

Johnston’s scholarship has appeared in the journals Annals of Wyoming, Colorado Heritage, the Center of the West’s own magazine Points West, Readings of Wyoming History, the George Wright Forum, and Yellowstone Science. He released his first book, a photo history of Powell, Wyoming, in 2009, followed by a “then and now” photo history in 2012. Johnston is the recipient of the 2006 Coke Wood Award, sponsored by Westerners International, for his article “Progressivism Comes to Yellowstone: Theodore Roosevelt and Professional Land Management Agencies in the Yellowstone Ecosystem.” A PhD candidate at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, Johnston is finishing his doctoral dissertation examining the connections between Theodore Roosevelt and William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Collaborating with Dr. Charles Preston of the Center’s Draper Natural History Museum, he published an annotated version of Ernest Thompson-Seton’s Wahb: The Biography of a Grizzly, recently published by University of Oklahoma Press. Johnston is working on an edited edition of George W. T. Beck’s unpublished memoirs that detail Beck’s ranching ventures in Wyoming and his efforts to establish a reclamation project with Buffalo Bill that resulted in the founding of the town of Cody, Wyoming.