2008 Woodie Awards
Vote Absentee
History students bring back undergrad journal
Sara Sunshine
Issue date: 2/25/08 Section: Campus News
From 1974 to 1991, Brown's history journal covered everything from Venetian historiography to riots in Harlem in 1943. Then, for unclear reasons, the student-run publication, called CLIO after the Greek muse of history, ceased publication.
Not many history concentrators on campus knew about that publication until last year, when a group of 10 students from the history Department Undergraduate Group decided to start a history journal at Brown, thinking it hadn't been done before. Led by Samantha Seeley '07 and David Beckoff '08, the students realized they were following in others' footsteps when Professor of History Gordon Wood mentioned to them that he remembered another journal and suggested they look for it, Beckoff said.
"It wasn't really a question of a revival, actually," Seeley wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. "When we first started talking about doing an undergraduate history journal, we had no idea that the project had a predecessor at Brown."
Seeley, Beckoff and the other undergraduate editors worked quickly to put the first edition of the journal together in three-and-a-half months in spring 2007. In that time, they designed a Web site, collected 85 submissions, selected eight of those and raised money. The fundraising process was "remarkably easy," since "most departments were incredibly willing to give something to help a new undergraduate endeavor," Seeley wrote.
The Brown Journal of History seeks to be "interdisciplinary," said Co-Editor-in-Chief Jill Luxenberg '08. Submissions are not limited to students in the history department, a policy which "enables (the journal) to have broad approach across campus," added Beckoff, the journal's other co-editor-in-chief. The editors also maintain contact with the Brown Classical Journal, which publishes earlier in the semester, in order to eliminate any overlap.
The students behind the Brown Journal of History are proud of its "emphasis on the relationship between graduate students and undergraduate students," said Paige Meltzer GS, the journal's graduate adviser. While only articles from undergraduate students are published in the journal, a group of graduate students mentor and help the undergraduates who run the journal.
Not many history concentrators on campus knew about that publication until last year, when a group of 10 students from the history Department Undergraduate Group decided to start a history journal at Brown, thinking it hadn't been done before. Led by Samantha Seeley '07 and David Beckoff '08, the students realized they were following in others' footsteps when Professor of History Gordon Wood mentioned to them that he remembered another journal and suggested they look for it, Beckoff said.
"It wasn't really a question of a revival, actually," Seeley wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. "When we first started talking about doing an undergraduate history journal, we had no idea that the project had a predecessor at Brown."
Seeley, Beckoff and the other undergraduate editors worked quickly to put the first edition of the journal together in three-and-a-half months in spring 2007. In that time, they designed a Web site, collected 85 submissions, selected eight of those and raised money. The fundraising process was "remarkably easy," since "most departments were incredibly willing to give something to help a new undergraduate endeavor," Seeley wrote.
The Brown Journal of History seeks to be "interdisciplinary," said Co-Editor-in-Chief Jill Luxenberg '08. Submissions are not limited to students in the history department, a policy which "enables (the journal) to have broad approach across campus," added Beckoff, the journal's other co-editor-in-chief. The editors also maintain contact with the Brown Classical Journal, which publishes earlier in the semester, in order to eliminate any overlap.
The students behind the Brown Journal of History are proud of its "emphasis on the relationship between graduate students and undergraduate students," said Paige Meltzer GS, the journal's graduate adviser. While only articles from undergraduate students are published in the journal, a group of graduate students mentor and help the undergraduates who run the journal.