A Passing in the Institute Family
This year, the Institute lost one of its pillars. Jack Sigler passed away on May 13th, at the age of 80. Jack came to the Institute after not just one, but two full careers: first in the army and then in the foreign service. He wrote his dissertation on General Paul Thiébault under the supervision of Dr. Don Horward and received his Ph.D. in 2006. A resident of Tallahassee, he remained active in the activities of the Napoleon Institute, as well as the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, the Masséna Society, the International Napoleonic Society, the Society for Military History, and many other organizations. He will be sorely missed.
Graduate Student MA and Ph.D. Degrees Awarded
This year was a banner year for the Napoleon Institute grad students. Five of them received their Ph.D. degree and two their MA degree. They were:
Fall 2013
• Timothy Fitzpatrick, Ph.D., “Waterloo in Myth and Memory: The Battles of Waterloo, 1815-1915”
• Joseph Horan, Ph.D., “Fibers of Empire: Cotton Cultivation in France and Italy during the Age of Napoleon”
Spring 2014
• Timothy Best, Ph.D., “Creating France: The Pope, German Princes, Péages, and Privileges, 1789-1791”
• Cindy Ermus, Ph.D., “Pestilence and Politics: A Global History of the Marseille Plague”
• Shane Hockin, Ph.D., “Les Hommes Sans Dieu: Atheism, Religion, and Politics during the French Revolution”
• Caleb Greinke, MA, “Valor in Vain: Commodore Sir George R. Collier and the Suppression of the African Slave Trade”
• Nicholas Stark, MA, “The Art of Humbling Tyrants: Irish Revolutionary Internationalism during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era, 1789-1815”
Graduate Student Success on the Academic Job Market
This year's crop of Ph.D. and MA students had success in a tight academic job market.
• Tim Fitzpatrick is lecturing for the Naval War College and teaching at Tallahassee Community College
• Joseph Horan continues teaching at the Colorado College of Mines
• Timothy Best was hired as an Assistant Professor at Gordon State College in Georgia
• Cindy Ermus was hired as Professor of History at Florida Southwestern State College
• Caleb Greinke was accepted to the doctoral program of the University of Oxford
Graduate Student Publications
The graduate students also published several articles.
• Bryan Banks, Entries for “Revolutions of 1848,” “Religious Issues,” and “France” in World Democracy Encyclopedia (M.E. Sharpe, 2014)
• Richard Byington,”Life Below Decks: A Historiography Following the Sailors, Seamen, and Crew of the Early American Navy,” Tuckasegee Valley Historical Review (August 2013).
• Cindy Ermus, “Reduced to Ashes: The Good Friday Fire of 1788 in Spanish Colonial New Orleans,” Louisiana History, vol.LIV, no.3, (Summer 2013), 292-331.
Graduate Student Conference Participation
This was a very busy year for the INFR graduate students on the conference circuit. Altogether, they presented 15 papers at a variety of conferences in the U.S. and abroad.
• Tim Best, “Not French Enough: The Colonies, Reorganization, and the Creation of Revolutionary Space,” Society for French Historical Studies, Montreal, Canada, 25 April 2014
• Bryan Banks, “The Not So Simple Quaker in France: Louis-Abel Beffroi de Reigny's Reflections on the Nation, 1793,” Society for the Study of French History, Cardiff, UK, 30 June-2 July 2013
• Bryan Banks, “Imaginary Friends in Revolutionary France: Quakers and French Political Culture, 1785-1793,” Western Society for French History, Atlanta, GA, 25-26 October 2013
• Bryan Banks, “Enlightenment's Revocation: Rethinking Protestantism in the Works of Antoine Court,” American Historical Association, Washington, DC, 2-5 January 2014
• Michael Defeudis, “Prince Eugene with the Grand Army in Russia, 1812,” CRE, Oxford, MS, 21 February 2014
• Cindy Ermus, “The Politics of Disaster: Risk and Exploitation during the Marseille Plague and Beyond,” American Historical Association, Washington, DC, 2-5 January 2014
• Tim Fitzpatrick, “Between Myth and Legend: The 1814 Campaign,” CRE, Oxford, MS, 22 February 2014
• Arad Gigi, “Rethinking the Intellectual History of Race in the French Colonial Empire: A Review of Moreau de Saint-Méry's 'Description',” Western Society for French History, Atlanta, GA, 25-26 October 2013
• Caleb Greinke, “To Inflict Such Vengeance As May Be Practicable: Royal Navy Anti-Slavery Expeditions in West Africa,” CRE, Oxford, MS, 22 February 2014
• Caleb Greinke, “For Profit and Patriotism: The Naval Intelligence Services of Lloyd's of London in the Revolutionary Era,” Masséna Society Panel, Society for Military History, Kansas City, MO, 5 April 2014
• Chris Juergens, “Profitable Hunters: German Jaeger Regiments and the American War for Independence,” CRE, Oxford, MS, 21 February 2014
• Chris Juergens, “The Emergence of Meritocratic Military Organization in Hessen-Kassel,” Masséna Society Panel, Society for Military History, Kansas City, MO, 5 April 2014
• Joshua Meeks, “Between Revolution and Counter-Revolution: Corsica and Toulon in 1793,” CRE, Oxford, MS, 22 February 2014
• Patricia Perella, “French Settlement in Upstate New York: Exploration and Enlightenment with le flair de gallant courage,” CRE, Oxford, MS, 21 February 2014
• Nicholas Stark, “The Last Stand of Eire: The Irish Revolutionary Struggles under Napoleon,” CRE, Oxford, MS, 21 February 2014
Graduate Student Awards and Fellowships
The graduate students also garnered a number of awards and fellowships.
• Cindy Ermus, FSU Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award Nomination
• Arad Gigi, Walboldt Dissertation Fellowship (Department of History, FSU), for his dissertation “Fortifying Colonialism: The Colonial State and Society in the French Caribbean, 1685-1789”
• Chris Juergens, Jacob Price Research Fellowship (Clements Library, Ann Arbor)
• Chris Juergens, Research Fellowship (David Library, Valley Forge)
• Chris Juergens, General Matthew Ridgway Grant (US Army Heritage Center)
Continuing Graduate Students and New Admissions
With the graduation of five doctoral and two MA students this year, there are now eleven continuing graduate students in the Institute. In addition, five new students will be joining us the coming year. They are:
• Joseph Harmon, for a Ph.D. (MA, Rutgers University)
• Khali Navarro, for a Ph.D. (MA, University of Central Florida)
• Zachary Stolzfus, for a Ph.D. (MA, Drew University)
• Alexander Rowney, for an MA (BA, University of Central Florida)
• Thomas Thomas, for an MA (BA, West Virginia University)
All these students received funding thanks to your generosity, through the Ben Weider Endowment, through competitive university-wide fellowships, and through the history department. Without your support, it would not be possible to maintain a program of this quality and scale.
Donald D. Horward Graduate Fellowship in Napoleonic Military History
On 4 March 2011, at the annual banquet of the Massena Society, a new graduate fellowship in the Institute was announced. Founded in honor of Dr. Donald D. Horward, founder of the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution, it will provide an annual stipend to graduate students working on aspects of Napoleonic military history. This past year's recipient of the fellowship, Caleb Greinke, successfully defended his MA thesis and is now going to the University of Oxford to pursue his doctoral studies in British naval history.
The new fellowship was funded by generous gifts from numerous alumni of the Institute and friends of Dr. Horward. The fund is still accepting new gifts. Anyone interested in contributing to this award, which honors Dr. Horward while supporting the INFR's current graduate students, can contact Jeffrey Ereckson at jereckson@foundation.fsu.edu.
Activities of the Institute Professors
Dr. Darrin McMahon, Ben Weider Professor of French Revolutionary history, had another stellar year. His newest book, Divine Fury: A History of Genius (Basic Books) was just published and has received rave reviews, including from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Nation. His co-edited volume, Rethinking Modern Intellectual History (Oxford) was also published this year. To top it off, he has been touring the US and Europe, giving public speeches and radio interviews, as well as publishing articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education, New Republic, and Literary review. He was invited to teach this May as a visiting professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Next year, after ten years at FSU, he has decided to take a leave of absence to be a visiting professor at Dartmouth College.
Dr. Rafe Blaufarb, Ben Weider Eminent Scholar of Napoleonic History, completed and submitted his manuscript for Inhuman Traffick (Oxford), an illustrated history of the naval suppression of the transatlantic slave trade. He also submitted final versions of four articles and the manuscript of Interpreting the Old Regime (Oxford), a collection of essays by Professor David Bien (co-edited with Dr. McMahon), all of which will be published shortly. And he continued to teach his elective lecture course on Napoleonic Europe (160 undergraduates) with the able assistance of Institute doctoral students Michael Defeudis and Chris Juergens.