Ninth Triennial Meeting
Conference on the History of Women Religious

Where: St. Catherine University, St. Paul, Minnesota.
When: June 23-26, 2013
Theme: Women Religious Through the Ages: Managing Individual and Institutional Realities

Proposals: Papers or panels that focus on community governance, ethnic, linguistic or racial tensions, demographic composition, inter-congregational cooperation, changing ministries, relations with clergy, hierarchy and secular institutions, spiritual traditions or emerging models of religious life are welcome.

Disciplinary approaches may include history, sociology, anthropology, theology, religious studies, literature, communication, cultural studies, art, architecture and material culture.

Proposals for papers in the form of a one-page abstract accompanied by a one-page C.V. are requested by August 15, 2012. Panel proposals are encouraged but individual proposals are also welcome. Volunteers to chair and comment on sessions are also invited. The language of the conference is English but proposals may be submitted in English or French.

More information about the conference is available on its Web site at chwr.org.

Send all proposals to:

Elizabeth McGahan, Chair, Planning Committee
Department of History and Politics
University of New Brunswick – Saint John Campus
P.O. Box 5050
Saint John, New Brunswick
CANADA E2L 4L5

Email: emcgahan@nbnet.nb.ca

When submitting a panel proposal, please provide the following information:

• Session title (of no more than 20 words)
• Session abstract (up to 500 words)
• Paper or presentation titles
• Abstract or description for each presentation (up to 300 words)
• Biographical paragraph or c.v. summary (up to 250 words) for each participant
• Correct e-mail address for each participant
• Affiliation, city, state, and country for each participant
• Chair (required) and commentator (optional) for the session

For an individual paper submission, please provide the following information:

• Paper title
• Abstract or description for the presentation (up to 300 words)
• Biographical paragraph or c.v. summary (up to 250 words)
• Correct e-mail address
• Affiliation, city, state, and country

The deadline for submitting a proposal to this office for consideration is April 20.

Sincerely,

R. Bentley Anderson, S.J.
Executive Secretary-Treasurer

2012 Reports

• 2012 Presidential Report from President Larissa Taylor
• 2012 Program Committee Report the official account of the proceedings of the Annual Conference in Chicago
• 2012 Secretary and Treasurer’s Report from Executive Secretary-Treasurer R. Bentley Anderson, S.J.

In the United States and Canada, dioceses and eparchies have been contacted and invited to fill out the census prepared by the project that will ask for a brief description of any papers they hold of a Council Father or peritus. Responses will be forwarded to Rome where they will be entered into a database that will contain the information collected from around the world. This database will then be made available to scholars through the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences’ website. If you can assist this project by providing information on where a collection is located, please contact one of the project’s coordinators by the end of March 2012.

A presentation on the data collected for the project will be made at an international conference planned for October 2012, where sessions will be dedicated to promoting research that make specific use of the Archives of the Council Fathers.

Contact information:

The North American Coordinators, Archives of the Council Fathers Project are

• Tricia T. Pyne, Ph.D. (tpyne@stmarys.edu) (United States)
• Rev. Gilles Routhier, Ph.D. (Canada)

A recap will be published shortly. In the meantime, we present these materials from the conference:

• Official program (schedule, panel details, etc.) [PDF]
• Conference overview

At this Convention several Constitutional changes were decided. The Executive Council unanimously approved these changes during their Thursday’s meeting. (Update: the revised Constitution has now been posted to ACHAhistory.org.) On Friday, after discussion, the general membership of the Association approved the changes during the annual Business meeting. One change concerns the manner in which membership is tabulated. Only members in good standing will be included in all official statistics. Another new development is the creation of a new committee to handle all aspects of ACHA elections. An Elections Board (EB) goes into effect this year, comprised of a Convener of the Board and four Elections Officials. All are elected positions. The EB will oversee the vetting and nominating process as well as conducting and verifying the annual ACHA elections. Una Cadegan will serve as Convener and Chair of this new committee. And finally, the Association has a new election cycle. Elections will be held on-line during the month of September.

R. Bentley Anderson, S.J.
Executive Secretary-Treasurer

Photo gallery

President Larissa Taylor with (left to right) Matthew Cressler, John Tracy Ellis dissertation winner, and Katherine Osborne and Peter Baltutis, presidential travel award recipients

President Larissa Taylor with Ulrich Lehner winner of the John Gilmary Shea book prize award, and Stefania Tutino, winner of the Howard R. Marraro Prize

President Larissa Taylor with all the Distinguished Award recipients (Jac Treanor, Angie Dries, Larissa Taylor, and John O’Malley)

Larissa Taylor and John O’Malley

Larissa Taylor with Angie Dries

Larissa Taylor and Jac Treanor

This year’s ACHA awardees John O’Malley, S.J., Angelyn Dries, O.S.F., Ulrich Lehner, and Stefania Tutino (pictured at right, clockwise), as well as John Treanor were honored at the President’s Luncheon on Saturday, January 7, 2012, during the ACHA annual convention.

John O’Malley is this year’s recipient of the ACHA Distinguished Achievement Award for Scholarship for his sustained contribution to our understanding of Catholic history.  Angie Dries received the ACHA’s Distinguished Teaching Award for her distinguished career as teacher, mentor, and friend to numerous young scholars.  John Treanor is this year’s “Award for Service” recipient for his contribution to the promotion of Catholic Studies beyond the arena of the classroom or publishing field.

At the luncheon, scholar Ulrich Lehner received the John Gilmary Shea book prize for his monograph Enlightened Monks: The German Benedictines, 1740-1803 (Oxford), while Stefania Tutino has garnered the Howard R. Marraro book prize for Empire of Souls: Robert Bellarmine and the Christian Commonwealth (Oxford).

The Membership Committee: Angelyn Dries, OSF (Saint Louis University), Charles Strauss (Valparaiso University), Leigh Ann Craig (Virginia Commonwealth University)

November 22, 2011

We’ve moved.

The American Catholic Historical Association has a new home. We are now located on the campus of Fordham University in the Bronx, New York. You can contact the headquarters using the following address–

American Catholic Historical Association
Fordham University
Dealy Hall, room 637
441 E. Fordham Rd.
Bronx, NY 10458

Our new phone number is 718-817-3830 and our fax line is 718-817-5690. We also have a new email address: acha@fordham.edu

The new Executive Secretary-Treasurer is R. Bentley Anderson, S.J., who is associate professor in the Department of African & African American Studies. He assumed office October 1st.

• Maggie McGuinness, vice president
• Leigh Ann Craig, Suzanne Brown-Fleming, and Charles Gallagher, Executive Council
• Una Cadegan, Nominating Committee

We would like to thank all candidates for their willingness to serve.