History Faculty Present at EurHo Rural History Conference in Girona, Spain
From the desk of Bailey Young:
Among the roughly 450 participants in the bi-annual EurHo Rural History conference held in Girona, Spain last week (September 7-10, 2015) were not one but two dauntless members of the EIU History Department, Drs. Deb Reid and B.K. Young, taking the scholarly partnership they launched with a successful Presidential Fund for Research and Creative Activity (PFRCA) in 2014 to a new level. Though the Eur (for Europe) in EurHo accurately reflects its origins and continuing leadership, the scope of this prestigious meeting of scholars of rural studies is truly global, with scholars attending from all over, and case studies from every continent featured.
Dr. Deb Reid and Dr. B.K. Young at the EurHo Rural History conference held in Girona, Spain.
Dr. Reid was particularly active at this, her third EurHo conference: presenting a paper on Race in a terrific panel devoted to the American South and West in the 19th and 20th centuries, and serving as one of three museum experts (the other two were from Spain and England) invited to offer, as the very last event of the conference, a keynote on the problems and potential of museums in preserving the rural heritage in the 21stcentury. It was also at her initiative that an entire panel devoted the Walhain project was organized, with Dr. Young sketching the preliminary conclusions to be drawn from the first 15 years of excavation, while she drew attention to their implications for the long-term study of rural landscape, economy and social history in the heart of northwest Europe’s fertile farmlands.
Finally Adam and Annie Tock Morrissette, both recent EIU MA here making their international scholarly debut, presented a paper discussing the exciting new perspectives GIS can bring to this study. An unexpected bonus: our visit to this very picturesque medieval Catalan town (narrow winding cobblestone streets, soaring Gothic cathedral, the old town huddled within lofty ramparts) coincided with the filming of Game of Thrones, the absolute favorite of our student excavators at Walhain!
