Amy Millstone, professor of French literature at the University of South Carolina, was one of the prime movers in the Western Society for French History during the 1980s and 1990s. She served on the governing council and distinguished herself in regular conference presentations as a scholar of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French popular culture. Through her singular energies and enthusiasm, Amy drew together diverse resources and personalities. In the process, she helped orchestrate some of the most memorable moments in the society's history. In 1989, Amy arranged for the free use of two executive jets to fly a talented group of musicians from the University of South Carolina to perform on Napoleonic-era instruments at the New Orleans meeting, a highlight of the society's bicentennial commemorations. In 1996, she literally saved the annual meetings in Charlotte, North Carolina by agreeing to step in as local arrangements coordinator when the UNC coordinator could not fulfill the obligation. She secured a distinguished panel of guest speakers, arranged hotel accommodations, and even stuffed conference packets in the last hours before the conference. At the same meetings in 1996, she dazzled participants with a multi-media presentation, which explored the fin-de-siècle chanson, Paris landmarks and working-class identities. Her efforts were all the more impressive because she was in the last stages of a valiant battle with leukemia. Her life's work on the nineteeth-century right-wing author and independent woman, Gyp, was brought short by her untimely death in January 1997, but her legacy continues as a consequence of her generous bequest to the WSFH.

The Millstone Research Fellowship, made possible by a bequest from the Millstone family, recognizes her vision of the intellectual process as a fundamentally social exercise, promoted by the exchange of ideas in person as well as in print.

The Millstone Fellowship provides $2,500 for research in France. Eligibility is restricted to doctoral students, untenured and adjunct faculty members, and independent scholars who reside in North America and whose research related to French history and culture requires work in archives, libraries, or other repositories in France. Preference is given to doctoral students and scholars in the early stages of their academic careers. Applications should include the following: a curriculum vitae, including current contact information; a description of the project not to exceed five double-spaced pages, explaining its purpose and significance, its contribution to scholarship on France, and where and when the research is to be carried out; and two letters of recommendation. All materials should be submitted in electronic format as email attachments in Microsoft Word. Candidates are responsible for seeing that letters of recommendation arrive in a timely fashion. Proposals will be reviewed by a four-member committee chaired by the Vice-President of the Western Society for French History. The next winner will be notified in May 2012, and the award will be announced at the Annual Meeting in Banff, Canada.

Application materials must be submitted by 1 March 2012 to:

Jennifer Popiel, Vice-President
Western Society for French History
popieljj@slu.edu

Previous winners:

2011. Elizabeth Nelson, Indiana University, "Timeknots: Archaic Madness and the Sciences of the Psyche in France ca. 1900."

2010. Meghan Roberts, Northwestern University, "Cradle of Enlightenment: Philosophes, Family Life, and Knowledge Making in Eighteenth-Century France."

2009. Heidi Sulzdorf, University of Michigan, “The Life Cycle of Cloth in Toulouse, 1271-1443."

2008. Rebecca P. Scales, George Mason University, "Sounding the Nation: Radio and the Politics of Auditory Culture in Interwar France, 1921-1939."

2007. Jeannette E. Miller, Pennsylvania State University, "The French State's Policies toward the Harkis from the End of the Algerian War to the Present: Shifts, Stagnations, and Contradictions."

2006. Diana K. Davis, University of Texas at Austin, "Des Plantations Civilisatrices: Forestry, Conservation and the Taux de Boisement."

2005. Melinda Rice, UCLA, "A Fool and His Money: Culture and Financial Choice during the Law Affair of 1720."

2004. Sheila Crane, University of California, Santa Cruz, "Mediterranean Borderlands at the Ends of Empire: Decolonization and Architectural Translations between France and North Africa."

2003. Leslie Tuttle, University of Kansas, "Conceiving Absolutism: Natalism in Old Regime France, 1666-1789."

2002. Katherine Crawford, Vanderbilt University, "The Sexual Culture of the French Renaissance."

2001. John Monroe, Iowa State University, "Evidence of Things Not Seen: Spiritism, Occultism and the Search for a Modern Faith in France, 1853-1920."