1 10 2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Celebration Description An account of the resource Speeches from the Celebration of Roy's Life, December 9, 2007, George Mason University, Arlington campus, Arlington, VA. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. My name is Jean-Christophe Agnew, and I knew Roy for some thirty five years. If that sounds a bit like the introduction for someone in recovery from something, that’s pretty much how I feel at the moment. And you too, I’m sure. All of us poised at one step or another of recovery from our loss. And because of the way Roy lived his life and took care of his friends, it is very much our loss. Sad as I am to be here – sad beyond words really -- I am relieved and comforted to be here with all of you. Roy was many, many things, but he was, above all, his friends. There are others here today whose friendship with Roy goes back to high school, even junior high. But feeling trumps fact here, because one of the marvelous things about Roy was his gift for making you feel as if you had hung out with him in junior high. Thanks to Roy’s abiding allegiance and affection for us all – his remembrance of our birthdays, for example, his care to update us on our friends – we all belonged to the imagined community of Roy Rosenzweig: Let’s call it Royville. So it is a comfort to me to see Royville assembled here this afternoon. No longer imagined, no longer virtual, but here, present. Once again, our friend and comrade, our confidant and collaborator has managed to bring us together. Though if were he here himself, you know that he would have a list of better things we might be doing with our time. Frankly, what we’re saying and doing today would have been unendurable for Roy, like a collective hug that went on and on, beyond reason. But what we’re feeling today -- certainly what I’m feeling -- is beyond reason. The love we felt for him, the love we took from him. The last time I remember such a gathering was more than 25 years ago, at Roy’s and Deborah’s August wedding in Middletown, Connecticut, where I distinctly remember thinking to myself: A wedding. What a wonderful pretext, what a great excuse for all of us to call to order the first official meeting -- the charter meeting -- of the Roy-and-Deborah fan club. For that is what that gathering was at that moment of happiness there on that sunlit lawn on that summer afternoon, and that is what it still is, here in this room, at this moment of our grief and loss. But was it not always been thus? From the legendary stickball games in Bayside to pick-up hoops in Cambridge, from dinners at 82 Kirkland Street to picnics in Craryville, from those godawful chocolate donuts and cans of Tab at the Urban Center at Harvard to the gallons of coffee at the History and New Media Center at George Mason, Roy drew us together in one way or another, turning the various pretexts for gathering into real texts: textbooks, monographs, anthologies, slide tapes, cd roms and finally the on-line loop of digital knowledge which so perfectly replicates (at least for me) the circles of friendship and knowledge that Roy himself generated over the years. Six degrees of Roy. Early on, there was MARHO, the Mid-Atlantic Radical Historians Organization, the small nucleus of editorial collectives that started the Radical History Review more than three decades ago. Roy and I would often joke about the now long forgotten MARHO regional associates, a loose network of corresponding members –many of them isolated (by their own account) at various Midwestern and Southern colleges and universities. Wanting desperately to talk to someone, anyone, about, say, the impact of Daniel De Leon or the significance of the British General Strike of 1926. Had it not been for Roy’s empathy and his efforts over many years – all those letters and phone calls -- this committee of correspondence among left historians would have disappeared. No one else in MARHO was willing to take that job. And so it fell to Roy, or rather Roy rose to it. Which is why the Thanks, Roy website seems so right, so apt an appreciation. All the Regional Associates of Roy’s life returning the favor, reminding us of the impact, the significance of this man in our lives. The impressions. The anecdotes. The remembered dialogue. Reading over these recollections, I see my best friend re-emerge, coalesce before my eyes like some pointilliste portrait. No, wait. Pointilliste portrait? No, no, no….what I really see is that signature green or red ink underline scrawled beneath the word “pointilliste” with a polite question mark to the right. What is Roy telling me? Have I got the wrong technology? Should I substitute “dot matrix,” or maybe “pixelated”? Or is he suggesting that my figure of speech is itself a distraction, a way of aestheticizing and avoiding my own sorrow at writing about Roy -- without Roy? I’d ask him but I suspect that by this point in these remarks, Roy would have left this room looking for the coffee machine. Or better yet, fallen asleep. Roy and I spent more than 25 years of our lives writing one thing or another together, from introductions to obituaries. But the longest assignment of all was the column we cobbled together three-times-a-year on history and historians: the Abusable Past. It wasn’t exactly Morrison and Commager, more like Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers of history. Looking under the hood of the profession was not so difficult given how many historians Roy knew and how much time he logged at conventions. So many conventions. Once, just for fun, we did a back-of-the envelope calculation of the time Roy had spent at conventions. It added up to a year. A full year out of his life. Now how he felt about that I don’t really know. And perhaps he didn’t either. But how many of us here in Royville would give a year out of our lives just to see him at the next AHA – in his red shirt and jeans – waiting at the registration desk to go out for coffee? Thank you, Roy, for everything. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 142 Title A name given to the resource Roy Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jean-Christophe Agnew Type The nature or genre of the resource Document Historians history roy years Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. When Roy took me on as a Ph.D. student in 1998, I've been through three American universities and several advisers. I was alone in the US--my entire family was back in Russia. I was also broke and ready to give up. If it wasn't for Roy I would probably be working in a bank in Moscow right now. Instead I teach history at a university in Montreal. I owe both my career as a historian and my urban bohemian lifestyle to Roy. Roy approached my education, as he did many things, as a collaborative project, and all of a sudden instead of no advisers, I had two great ones, Roy and Mike O'Malley. And he gave me a job at CHNM so I could earn enough money to survive in the US. Roy was a perfect adviser--he was always there when I needed help yet did not demand any adoration or flattery in return. In fact, he found any expression of gratitude annoying. I still have Roy’s comments on all of my chapters--he wrote pages of detailed suggestions for revision, complete with spelling and grammar corrections (particularly relevant in my case). I could always count on him to write a letter for me or to help with a grant, no matter how exasperated he was with a last-minute request. When I applied to the university where I'm teaching now, the committee unexpectedly requested a second long letter from Roy, to be emailed the same day, dealing specifically with my work in digital history. I went to his office, and he wrote it right then, in ten minutes, even though he was extremely busy. I wouldn't have gotten that job if he didn't take time to write that letter. Roy didn't just teach historiography and method--from him I learned why history only makes sense as a democratic project, by talking to him, reading his books and comments, working with him at the Center, and listening to his stories about his many friends who did history elsewhere. As others have pointed out here, Roy was generous to all of his students and junior colleagues. Many times, Roy would mention a manuscript he had read for a former student, or an outline for a book he had commented on for a former colleague, or a letter he had written for someone. When in 2007 Roy received a Distinguished Service Award from the OAH, the program included a short film by a high school student. The very first thing Roy did after the ceremony ended was to turn to the student and talk to her at length about her project. In one of his last published articles he made sure to emphasize the importance of a dissertation in progress by one of his students. I know what he did for me he would have done for anyone, but I needed it more. I miss him every day. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 94 Title A name given to the resource Roy as teacher Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource You must be 13 years of age or older to submit material to us. Your submission of material constitutes your permission for, and consent to, its dissemination and use in connection with Thanks, Roy in all media in perpetuity. If you have so indicated on the form, your material will be published on Thanks, Roy (with or without your name, depending on what you have indicated). Otherwise, your response will only be available to approved researchers using Thanks, Roy. The material you submit must have been created by you, wholly original, and shall not be copied from or based, in whole or in part, upon any other photographic, literary, or other material, except to the extent that such material is in the public domain. Further, submitted material must not violate any confidentiality, privacy, security or other laws. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elena Razlogova Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Elena Razlogova Type The nature or genre of the resource Document chnm history kindness mentor