Harvey Goldberg Center
Annual Report for Year Ending December 31, 2002

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I. GENERAL:

Goldberg Center Executive Committee:
Laird Boswell
Nan Enstad
Alison Frank
Francine Hirsch
Steve Kantrowitz, co-chair
Al McCoy, co-chair
Tony Michels
Francisco Scarano
Brett Sheehan
Jeremi Suri

2002 Activities and Accomplishments:
Women's History Conference.
CREECA speaker support.
Anna Clark visit
Local Government Conference
Civil Rights Conference
Tom Hayden Lectures

Future Plans
Mosse-Goldberg Conference on Internationalizing History.

General:
        Over the past year, the Goldberg Center has again become an active presence on this campus, and will hopefully become more so in the future. After a brief hiatus during a generational transition within the History Department, the Goldberg Center reformed itself in late 2001 and launched a new program of activities starting in early 2002. With an income of about $5,000 a year, the Goldberg Center has established its presence on this campus by providing seed capital for intellectual innovation within a Department with an annual budget of several million dollars, most of which is committed to fixed costs such as salaries. Throughout 2002, the Goldberg Center funded a range of activities including a national conference, several campus-wide symposia, and a number of well-attended public lectures. At its November 2002 meeting, the Goldberg executive committee made plans for an ambitious future conference on “Internationalizing History” that has the potential of making an impact on the History curriculum at this University and a contribution to curricular changes nationwide.

II. ACTIVITIES IN 2002:

1.) Women's History Conference (Report from Prof. Nan Enstad, History Department):
The Goldberg Center was a major funder of a one-day conference and banquet celebration organized by the Graduate Program in Women's History.  The event was designed to honor the 21st anniversary of the program and its founder, Gerda Lerner, and took place on September 28, 2002 at the Pyle Center on the University of Wisconsin campus from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm.  The conference was entitled, "Headwaters: The Past and Future of Women's History" and featured six renowned speakers who are doing cutting edge work in the field of women's and gender history.  Over 110 people attended the conference, including alumni of the program (more than 25 Ph.D.s and M.A.s returned), current graduate and undergraduate students, faculty from a wide range of departments, and members of the community. Two formal panel presentations were followed by break out sessions and a roundtable discussion, making for an intellectually stimulating day looking at future directions of women's history. In the evening, a banquet held in the Pyle Center's alumni lounge was attended by 83 people.  The banquet celebrated Gerda Lerner's founding of the program, and the program's 21 years of operation.
The conference and banquet provided exciting intellectual stimulation for undergraduates, graduate students and faculty, provided direction for future study, and helped to coalesce a women's history faculty for the future. The conference and banquet linked alumni to current students and fostered dialogue between and among students and faculty.  The number of people attending both portions of the program exceeded our expectations and all felt the event was a great success.

2.) CREECA Speaker Support (Report from Prof. Alison Frank, History Department):
        As relatively new members of the history department, Professor Francine Hirsch and I wanted to contribute to the community by setting up a colloquium for graduate students and faculty members interested in the history of Eastern Europe, Russia and the Soviet Union.  The colloquium is intended to be a forum for students and faculty to present and get feedback on works in progress (from dissertation chapters to conference papers to articles for publication) as well as to benefit from guest presentations made by distinguished visitors to UW-Madison.  To launch the colloquium, we were able to take advantage of the presence of two preeminent scholars of Soviet history, Amir Weiner and Steven Kotkin.  Professors Weiner and Kotkin were in Madison to give formal talks sponsored by CREECA (Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia).  With support from the Goldberg fund, we were able to invite Professors Weiner and Kotkin to give special talks to the members of our workshop.
        Each special workshop took place in the evening at Fran's home. There were approximately 15 participants in the workshop featuring Amir Weiner and 24 participants in the workshop featuring Steven Kotkin.  In both cases, the guests gave a brief presentation about conducting the research that formed the basis of the formal talk they had given earlier that day.  This was followed by a question and answer session and an open discussion of research in post-Soviet archives as well as the general state of the field of Soviet history.
        The workshops were of particular interest to graduate students facing their first research trips abroad and unfamiliar with the techniques and approaches that make working in the archives of the former Soviet Union successful.  Because many students have limited opportunities to conduct research abroad (due to time constraints and limited funding), it is critical that they make full use of the time available to them.  For that reason, I personal believe that the information provided by Professors Weiner and Kotkin at these workshops will be of immense value to the graduate student participants.
        As a faculty participant, I enjoyed the opportunity to meet two of the most respected and renowned historians in the field, and to hear their thoughts on trends in Russian/Soviet historiography and what remains to be done in the field.
        The workshops provided a forum for the kind of discussion which is not possible in a more formal setting, and which fosters a sense of community both across different campuses (Princeton, Stanford, UW) and across hierarchical boundaries (graduate students, junior and senior faculty).  I believe they were a stunning success, and look forward to continuing the workshops upon Fran's return.

3.) Anna Clark Lectures (Report from Prof. Suzanne Desan, History Department):
        Anna Clark, professor of History at the University of Minnesota, gave two presentations during her visit to UW-Madison.  She gave a lecture entitled "A Theory of Scandal: The Sexual Politics of the British Constitution," in the Curti Lounge on Wednesday, March 6, 2002. About twenty people attended.  On the same day, she also led a discussion of her past and current work in the graduate seminar, team taught by Jeanne Boydston and Suzanne Desan, on the “Transatlantic World (1750-1850).”  Seventeen people were present. The students had read her book on labor and gender in nineteenth-century Britain and had read a chapter of her book in progress on British politics in the revolutionary era.
       Both events provoked lively discussion and offered faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates (in the case of the afternoon lecture) a stimulating intellectual experience.  We had some participants from other departments, including English and History of Science.  In the afternoon lecture, Anna Clark's theories on how political scandal undermined the power of the monarchy in early nineteenth-century Britain proved especially  controversial and the audience questioned whether she had adequately developed a "theory" of scandal, as promised.  In the morning seminar, Professor Clark responded effectively to the students' criticisms of her work in labor history and explored how her ideas had evolved toward her new project. Both events provided graduate students in particular a rewarding opportunity to critique and discuss work in progress with an open-minded and responsive senior scholar.  

4.) Local Democracy Conference (Report by Patrick Barrett, Administrative Director, A. E. Havens Center):
The conference on “Community Power 2002: International Conference on Local Democracy” was held on the weekend of November 15-17, 2002 in the “On Wisconsin Room” of the Red Gym on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Hosted by the A.E. Havens Center, the conference was attended by approximately 225 individuals, primarily from Madison and other communities in Wisconsin, but also from California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Texas. There was also a very good mixture of ages, as well as strong representation from the campus community, including faculty and students.
The conference opened on Friday evening, November 15 with a talk by Luciano Brunet on the recent election of Lula, the Workers Party candidate for President in Brazil. Brunet is a long-time Workers Party activist and a past member of the Municipal Government of Porto Alegre. Until 2001, he was the adjunct coordinator of the municipal government agency responsible for Porto Alegre’s world renowned “Participatory Budget.” He has also been involved in the planning of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. His talk explained the background to Lula’s election and the challenges that the Workers Party faces as it attempts to democratize Brazil. His talk received a very enthusiastic response from the audience of approximately 150 people.
    The remainder of the conference, which took place on Saturday and Sunday, was devoted to examining the experiences of local pro-democracy struggles and movements in the United States and abroad. The central objective was to generate debate and discussion about the substance of and possibilities for democratic deepening at the local level. This part of the conference proceeded in two stages. The first stage was a discussion of international examples of more or less successful pro-democracy struggles, including the Workers Party in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the Broad Front in Montevideo, Uruguay, and “municipal socialism” in Britain. The format consisted of a plenary panel discussion followed by guided small group discussions. The panelists were: Luciano Brunet, who spoke about the experience of “participatory budgeting” in Porto Alegre; Daniel Chávez, who addressed the experience of the Broad Front in Montevideo; and Michael Keith, who examined the phenomenon of “municipal socialism” in Britain during the 1980s. Chávez is a researcher and project coordinator for the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute (TNI), a global network of scholars from the Third World, Europe, and the US. Before moving to Europe approximately six years ago, he was a grassroots political activist and a technical advisor for Montevideo's largest urban movement: the Uruguayan Federation of Housing Cooperatives (FUCVAM). His PhD dissertation is a comparative analysis of the municipal experiences of Montevideo and Porto Alegre. He therefore offered a very valuable comparative perspective to the conference. Michael Keith is the Director of the Centre for Urban and Community Research and Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Until 2001, he was the Leader of the Council in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London. He continues as a cabinet member in Tower Hamlets with responsibility for economic development, urban regeneration and “community partnership” and is currently the Chair of the Thames Gateway London Partnership (TGLP), the sub regional urban regeneration alliance covering 11 boroughs to the East of London.  
    The second stage of the conference was a discussion of current examples of democratic potential in the United States, including Madison (WI), San Francisco (CA), Hartford (CT), and rural Pennsylvania. Again, the format consisted of a plenary panel followed by guided small group discussions. The panelists were: Brenda Konkel, who spoke about the experience of Progressive Dane in Madison; Matt Gonzalez, who discussed the campaigns for public power and electoral reform in San Francisco; Elizabeth Horton Sheff, who discussed the challenges of democratic deepening and progressive change in Hartford, CT; and Thomas Linzey, who examined the efforts to ban corporate agribusiness in rural Pennsylvania. Brenda Konkel is a member of the Madison common council and a co-chair of Progressive Dane; Elizabeth Horton Sheff is the Majority Leader of the Hartford city council; Matt Gonzalez is a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the sponsor of the recently successful resolution to adopt Instant Run-off Voting in San Francisco; and Thomas Linzey is the co-founder and staff attorney for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit organization working with community-based organizations and municipal governments to counter the power of corporate agribusiness in rural
Judging by the many comments received from those who attended, the conference was clearly very successful and even inspirational. The international segment of the conference was perhaps the most successful and clearly accomplished its purpose of exposing the participants to examples of advanced pro-democracy struggles from other countries. Porto Alegre’s experience with “participatory budgeting” was the main focus of discussion among the participants, though the presentations made by the other panelists (particularly, Daniel Chávez, Thomas Linzey, and Matt Gonzalez) also generated considerable reflection.
    The conference was intended as the first in what the organizers hoped would be a series of conferences aimed at examining the substance of and possibilities for democratic deepening at the local level. Given the strong enthusiasm expressed by the participants for continuing the discussion initiated at this conference, we are confident that those hopes will be realized. We have therefore begun the process of planning a follow-up conference, which we have tentatively scheduled for the spring of 2004. We are very grateful for the contribution that the Goldberg Center made to the success of this year’s conference. Please accept our sincere thanks.

5.) Civil Rights Conference (Report from students Joseph M. Fronczak, Jerome Dotson, and Tyina Steptoe):
The lecture series  on “Voting Rights and the Road to Freedom” was a tremendous success!  Between a panel discussion, an evening lecture, visits to History, Afro-American Studies, and Music classes, and a talk at East High School, our attendance added up to about one thousand people (not to mention the multitude that heard our guests interviewed on radio). It all happened with the Harvey Goldberg Center’s generous support!
Students and members of the community learned powerful lessons about the ongoing African American freedom struggle.  Ms. Joanne Bland told us about the most frightening day of her life, when she marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday.  Mr. Gordon Sellers challenged the traditional narrative of the Civil Rights Movement with his stories about
his life--he was a militant who believed in armed self defense until Martin Luther King was murdered; then, Mr. Sellers explained, he became nonviolent.  Mr. Joe McClain also challenged our conceptions of the Movement by telling us about the marches right here in Wisconsin, where Milwaukee has been called the Selma of the North.  Mrs. Vel Phillips inspired all who met her with an ageless energy and capacity for love.
Judging by audience reactions, this was a cherished opportunity for the UW-Madison community.  The Daily Cardinal and the Badger Herald described “a capacity crowd”--the crowds were not only large, but they were rowdy and fired up--and quoted students excited to have history come alive.  The speakers continually brought crowds to their feet for standing ovations. All this happened with the Goldberg Center’s crucial support.  For this, those of us in the student organization Freedom are forever thankful.  This was a memorable occasion and we are proud to have organized it.  You, too, should be proud of making “Voting Rights and the Road to Freedom” possible.

6.) Tom Hayden Lectures (Report from Prof. Jim Donnelly, History Department):
Radical political activist and author Tom Hayden was on campus on Thursday and Friday, October 3 and 4. He did three notable things while he was with us. First, on the evening of October 3, he gave a lecture entitled “Saving Democracy from Globalization and the War on
Terror” in the first-floor auditorium of the Business School (Grainger Hall 1100). I would estimate the attendance at 150-175 persons. Second, after lunch at the University Club on Friday, October 4, Hayden talked about relationships between the history of Irish America and the conflict in Northern Ireland since the late 1960s--themes addressed in his book Irish on the Inside (published by Verso Press in 2001). The attendance here included 45-50 persons. And third, later that same afternoon, Hayden was the star witness at a special meeting of Professor Jeremi Suri’s “Seminar on the Sixties” in the Curti Lounge of the Mosse Humanities Building. There were about 25 or 30 people in attendance for this event.
In his "Saving Democracy" lecture Hayden developed a whole series of parallels between his understanding of the rise of the student and antiwar movements in the 1960s and his views of the recent foreign policy of the Bush administration. He stressed the concern of radical student leaders like himself in the 1960s with the multiple ways in which the Vietnam War deflected political attention and financial support from fundamental economic and social problems at home and abroad, and then demonstrated how the “War on Terror” and the looming conflict with Iraq were producing very similar effects now. In responding to questions from the audience for the better part of an hour after his lecture, Hayden ranged over a very wide number of topics. But he repeatedly answered questions about the potential for mobilizing opposition to the foreign policies of the Bush administration by drawing on his anti-Vietnam War battles and his decades of experience as a radical activist since then.
In his Friday talk at the University Club, Hayden advanced his view that in their search for acceptance and respectability in the United States in the twentieth century, Irish Americans had ceased to be engaged on the nationalist side (especially the side of revolutionary republican nationalism) in Northern Ireland. Though some of those present offered countering arguments about the reasons for the attitudes of Irish Americans on the Northern Ireland conflict, the talk and the debate which followed were highly stimulating.
Hayden's last performance--in the “Seminar on the Sixties”--was perhaps his best and most impressive. For two hours he answered a whole series of often pointed questions from graduate students, undergraduates, and faculty members about student radicalism and organized opposition to the Vietnam War. His answers were by turns thoughtful, challenging, slightly exasperated, humorous--and always informative. It is no exaggeration to say that the many intellectual exchanges between Hayden and members of the seminar made the Sixties come fully alive again and threw all sorts of fresh and interesting light on them. Many of those in attendance made a special point of saying how much they enjoyed this event.
Let me conclude by expressing my deep personal gratitude to the Goldberg Center for its financial and moral support in making all three of these events possible. Through this support we enriched the educational experience of both graduate students and undergraduates and
extended the reach of the university into the local Madison community. I think that Tom Hayden's visit and concerns were very much in the spirit of the causes and principles for which Harvey Goldberg established the Center that bears his name.

III. FUTURE PLANS:

Goldberg-Mosse Conference on Internationalizing History
At a planning meeting in November, the Goldberg executive discussed tentative plans for an international conference to take place in Madison in Spring, 2005 on the theme of  “Internationalizing History.” With joint funding from the Goldberg and Mosse Centers, scholars will be invited to submit original papers, and conference proceedings will be published in a volume in 2006. A primary aim of the conference will be to further discussion of the UW-Madison undergraduate history curriculum. These discussions were inspired by a suggestion from Professor Colleen Dunlavy:

“Internationalizing history” has become a bit of a buzzword in recent years. It's not about getting scholars to do more comparative history but rather about encouraging them to lift their heads out of their national historiographies and to situate their particular topics in an international context.  The need to do so may be more pressing in U.S. and European history, because they tend to be more systemically insular, but, if so, then perhaps historians of other parts of the world have good insights to share about how to internationalize.  Given that present-day interest in the subject has been prompted by globalization, it would seem to accord well with Harvey Goldberg's agenda (integrating historical inquiry with contemporary concerns).

            In keeping with current History Department discussions about revising the undergraduate curriculum and reviving graduate-level Comparative World History Program, this conference could play a catalytic role in bringing about curricular changes. Although Wisconsin was a pioneer in the World History movement 40 years ago, today we have no undergraduate courses of that description. By contrast, peer institutions across the country have introduced such courses, making World History a core component of undergraduate education and graduate employment. At the graduate level, the Comparative World History program, once a vital part of the Department under John Smail and Phil Curtin, has faded. Such a conference could play a seminal role in encouraging complementary curricular changes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
In advance of our meeting, Professor Jeremi Suri  spoke to the Mosse program coordinator, John Tortorice, about sharing funding and sponsorship for a future conference on "internationalizing history." With the exception of fulfilling the Mosse mandate of involving scholars from the Hebrew University, the Mosse program seems flexible about the participants the conference and is willing to fund the participation of international scholars. Mosse is interested in broad international themes that reach across regions such as military technology, capital flows. On the matter of publication, Mosse has a series with the UW Press that would provide us with a natural outlet for this volume. Jeremi agreed to pursue this matter in future conversations with John Tortorice.
There was general agreement that we should limit primary sponsorship to two groups, making this the "Goldberg-Mosse Conference on Internationalizing History." Among those we might approach for secondary sponsorship and funding are: UW Foundation, International Institute, and Anonymous Fund.

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