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Happy Birthday, Cliopatria

If Mark Grimsley forgot to note the day that lives in infamy, I forgot to note the day that lives in history: this humble blog's birthday. Cliopatria was born on 6 December 2003. My first post that day coined a new word, "transblogrification," explored the derivation and meaning of our name, and introduced the founding members of the new group blog. "Transblogrification" referred to the fact that my personal blog, Welcome to My World, was being transformed into a group blog, Cliopatria. The new word seems to have had only limited use.

Our name, on the other hand, is a more interesting word. I read over that original post, occasionally, to think about whether we're living up to its promise. To the extent that we do, it is largely due to my colleagues. Timothy Burke and KC Johnson were founding members of Cliopatria and the dialogue between them about American higher education and priorities for doing history gave this group blog much of its early vitality.

Our current colleagues, Manan Ahmed, Chris Bray, Miriam Burstein, Rebecca Goetz, Mark Grimsley, David Kaiser, Daniel Larison, Rachel Leow, Rob MacDougall, Scott McLemee, Jonathan Reynolds, Nathanael Robinson, Hugo Schwyzer, and William Turkel, each bring distinctive qualities, strengths and voices to our discussions.

Thanks, also, to Cliopatria's Contributing Editors, James Cobb, Hala Fattah, Michael Kazin, Wilson Moses, Thomas Palaima, Mechal Sobel, Sean Wilentz, and Sam Wineburg. We'd like to hear from them more often. Finally, we're also deeply indebted to Cliopatria's alumni: Alan Allport, Ophelia Benson, Derek Catsam, Oscar Chamberlain, Jonathan Dresner, Kenneth Heineman, Sharon Howard, Caleb McDaniel, Taylor Owen, Paula Petrik, Greg Robinson, Michael Tinkler, Dan Todman, and Jeff Vanke. Each of them made distinctive contributions to Cliopatria. I should single out Jon Dresner and Sharon Howard for thanks in particular. Jon Dresner is the father of Cliopatria's History Blogroll; and Sharon Howard is the mother of History Carnivals. I still consult with them regularly. Thanks to all of you.

Posted on Sunday, December 9, 2007 at 12:16 AM | Comments (6) | Return

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