CLIOPATRIA: A Group Blog
Entries by Jonathan T. Reynolds
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Show me the Money.
There has been a lot of rumination as of late about whether anybody should ever go to grad school in History (or the Humanities, for that matter). See here, here, and here.
At my own dear school, I have the unofficial role as the "Scary Grad School Guy." I give a number of talks each year on how hard it is to get into a good grad school, how hard it is to survive grad school, and how hard it is then to get a real job.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Ex Post WHA
I just returned from a first-rate meeting of the World History Association. Despite the hard economic times (and small travel budgets), some 450 scholars and teachers of World History managed to find their way to Salem, Mass.
Beyond the normal assortment of really smart papers, there were a host of special events, including a Keynote presentation by Salem State's own Dane Morrison ("Citizens of the World? Salem's Early Expatriate Communities") and a public lecture by William McNeil ("Leaving Western Civ Behind"). Also of note was a roundtable entitled "World History: Past, Present, and Future" featuring Jerry Bentley, Alfred Crosby, Kennth Curtis, Candice Gaucher, and William McNeill.
Finally, a big shout-out to Salem State College, who really rolled out the red carpet for the WHA. This is a school which has distinguished itself both in its dedication to World History and its outstanding engagement with local history. I'm sure I wasn't the only conference attendee who came away impressed by the host institution.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Africa Past and Present Podcast: Ethnicity, Slavery, and Trade in Sudan
The intelligent and good looking Peter Alegi sends me the following news:
Episode 28 of Africa Past and Present -- the podcast about history,culture, and politics in Africa -- is now available at: http://afripod.aodl.org
In this episode, historians Stephanie Beswick (Ball State University) and Jay Spaulding (Kean University) on ethnicity, slavery, and trade in Sudan. The focus is on pre-colonial times, with an emphasis on how power relationships and economic factors influenced identity formation and political conflict. The interview was conducted at the Sudan Studies Association meeting held recently in East Lansing.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Of Brains, Hands, and the Links Between.
My Dear Brother just sent me a link to this article by Matthew B. Crawford, author of the forthcoming Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work. Reminds me of Robert Pirsig... just less depressing.
Gotta say, it really resonates with me. In my younger (and poorer) days, I spent a lot of time "wrenching" on my own car (out of necessity) and for friends (out of desire for beer and pizza). I was far from a professional mechanic, but I could fix lots of stuff that it would otherwise cost of lot of money to pay a professional to attend to.
Unlike Crawford, however, I found working on cars far less rewarding than teaching and writing. That said, one of the things that struck me about it was just how differently you had to think in order to be good at each. Teaching and writing require a certain "open brain" thought process for me.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Cool Documentary on International Students in US
One of our cool international students at NKU, Yousif Salame, has produced a cool documentary on... er, international students! It's actually a great tool to help American students understand just how challenging it is just to get to the US, much less to get a degree.
Watch the whole thing, and you get to see me call myself a weenie.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
PhotoBlogging and History
John Mason, Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia is a cool guy. How many historians do you know who are also highly regarded motorsports photographers? John, of course, isn't just into burning rubber (though he an I share an appreciation for it in and of itself). He's developed a keen eye for technology and performance (social, that is) and how, ironically, certain forms of racing have helped break down American boundaries of , er, race.
But, he doesn't limit himself to cars. When he's working in South Africa, he has the camera ready.
Check out his PhotoBlog here. I recommend the categories on "The Democracy of Speed," and CapeTown... but feel free to check out some others, too.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Africa Past & Present: Episode 22
Episode 22 of the Mega-Cool Podcast series Africa Past and Present is now available.
Hosted by Peter Limb and Peter Alegi, this episode features Historian Wapu Mulwafu from the University of Malawi and focuses on African environmental history.
http://afripod.aodl.org/
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Zimbabwe Wins!
A while back, I asked if Zimbabwe had "won" the unfortunate honor of having the world's largest banknote. One of our sharp readers, Timothy Abbot, pointed out that this distinction went to Yugoslavia with a 500 Billion note.
Well, according to this International Herald Tribune story , Zimbabwe has blown the top off the record with a 100 TRILLION Zim dollar note.
But, to show that even the Mugabe government has a learning curve, they have given up adding zeros, and opened Zimbabwean markets to trading in dollars and neighboring currency.
Now, I'm very much a "let's not dwell only on the bad news from Africa" kind of guy. But's let's face it, this is a total disgrace. The Mugabe regime now qualify as the most incompetent economic managers in modern history. Congrats, guys -- it's a hard won title, but well deserved.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Africa Past & Present Podcasts
Some very cool African History podcasts available from Peter Limb and Peter Alegi of Michigan State University's African Studies Program
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Eyes on Ghana
According to the BBC, results from Ghana's presidential run-off have been delayed, because residents of the Tain region were not able to vote on Sunday. In an almost Minnesota-like finale, less than 24,000 votes separate the two presidential contenters.
Ghana holds a special place for me, in that it was the subject of my undergraduate Honors project. Back then (in the early 1980's), Ghana was something of a basket case. Rising like a phoenix in the 1990's, however, it became an example of the potential for African renewal. After years of working in Nigeria, I visited Ghana for the first time in 2000, and was thrilled by how well things seemed to work.
Mostly, I was impressed by how there seemed to be a real economy.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Heroic Historian
Many have probably heard of the tragic shooting and double murder at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. I just found out, however, that one of the heros of the event was Dr. John Bohstedt from the University of Tennessee Department of History. He was one of three members of the Church to tackle the attacker and prevent further bloodshed. One witness described that he was the first to hit the gunman... with a "flying tackle," no less.
I actually know Dr. Bohstedt from my time as an undergraduate and later adjunct faculty at UT. Frankly, I'm not terribly surprised that he helped stop the attack. Heck... he's an expert on riots and mobs, so he probably knows a thing or two about how to act in a seemingly chaotic environment.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Zimbabwe Channels Carl Sagan
The BBC announces that shortly after issuing a 100 billion dollar bill, Zimbabwe's Central Bank is going to try and deal with the country's catastrophic inflation by lopping a couple of zeros off the next round of notes. This means we'll probably have to wait a bit to see a trillion-dollar bill.
Anybody out there know the largest denomination bill issued during a round of hyperinflation? (Let's keep it to the 20th and 21st centuries.) Has Zimbabwe already won?
Thursday, June 26, 2008
My History is Bigger than Yours...
It's that time of year again... it's the World History Association conference. As is the WHA's tradition, every third year, the conference is hosted outside of the US. That means that this year we're in Sunny London, being hosted by Queen Mary Campus of the University of London.
Given the location, the conference themes are apropo: "Global Cities" and "The Sea: Highway of Change." The program is chock full of papers that actually address the subjects, too. Go figure. The setting has also helped draw in presenters from all over the world, which seems right and proper.
Friday, January 4, 2008
The OTHER History Convention
While most of the Cliopatriarchs are off at the AHA, I'm on the other side of the country with Phi Alpha Theta. Indeed, this is the biggest PAT conference yet, with several hundred enthusiastic history undergraduates and grad students from around the country having journeyed to New Mexico for the festivities.
There is a lot to be said for this conference. People are actually excited about their paper presentations. There's no job registery. And, on average, the participants are better looking. And, did I mention that we're in New Mexico?
Mind you, I'm not only here because Northern Kentucky University has one of the best PAT chapters in the country... I'm also here, along with Michael Tarver, shamelessly hawking student membership in the World History Association.
Somebody's gotta do it.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Of Cell Phones and Area Studies
OK, I'm something of a tech junkie. As such, I've been particularly pleased to see the communications revolution taking hold in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. Back in the early '90's when I was doing my fieldwork, calling home to the US was a big deal. I had to schedule a call a day or two in advance with NITEL (Nigerian Telephone and Telegraph, the State Monopoly), and then I would pay $6 a minute for the call.
Now, however, cell phones have smashed NITEL's monopoly, and in many ways, Nigerians have access to better communications technology than most Americans, since their phones are all "unlocked." One of my Nigerian brother-in-laws was shocked to hear that I didn't have wi-fi internet access on my cell phone. "Hot spots are everywhere here now... so I never pay for international calls anymore." As a result, I get calls from Nigeria all the time (occassionally even during class... always a hoot for my students here in Kentucky).
On a more academic note the real significance here is that
Sunday, October 21, 2007
A Noble Proposal
There is certainly no shortage of outrage about James Watson's recent comments on race and intelligence. And rightfully so. As an Africanist who has also taught a fair number of African-American history surveys, I know that these particular toxic memes have survived all too long. More so, as the husband of an African Computer Scientist and as the father of two African-American children, I take it a bit personally, too.
Mind you, he has a right to be obnoxious... and those who disagree with him have a right to say just what a throwback he is.
That said, let me suggest that perhaps one way to help rectify the situation would be to award the Nobel Prize posthumously to Rosalind Franklin , whose own research was passed to Watson and Crick without her permission and who received little attribution and no small abuse from Watson.
Seems only fair to me.
Monday, October 1, 2007
World History Association Podcasts
This past June's WHA meeting in Milwaukee was an especially good one, even by the WHA's increasingly high standards. Lots of great panels, lots of geat discussion, some first-rate receptions... and all too many of you missed it.
But, fear not, because now a number of the presentations are available as podcasts. Yeah technology!
Friday, September 14, 2007
Chutzpa and development?
The ad for and review of Stephen Mihm's A Nation of Counterfeiters advertised and linked to right here on the Cliopatria page reminds me of a comparison I have often made: that Nigeria today enjoys much the same international reputation for scams as did the US in the 19th Century. This is a fine example that the path to development is not necessarily straight and narrow.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Delicious Historical Irony: Take 72
Indian industrial heavyweight Tata is giving serious thought to buying Jaguar and Land Rover.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Mysteries of the Universe, Part One
Ralph's recent mistaken reference to me as a country musician (though it is true that I have been known to associate with the Nebraska Guitar Militia) for some reason made me think of one of my favorite examples of Africa not being what most people in the West expect it to be... and that is the popularity of American Country Music in Africa.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Academic Rites of Passage
For reasons which escape me, I have recently found myself frequently speaking about the process by which I came to be a tenured faculty member at dear Northern Kentucky University. Most of these discussions have been with students considering academica careers (every one of whom is sent here), but others have been with community types and other faculty.
It has recently struck me that most of the events that seemed most important to me weren't the standard "transition points" that most would expect. Graduations and exams had very little to do with my own sense of my progress towards a 'successful' academic career.
So, here is a brief list of the things that seemed significant to me along the way...
Friday, November 10, 2006
Veterans History Project... a timely plug
Whatever your politics, the Veterans History Project is a great way to get students involved in doing history.
Preparing for and executing the interviews demands that students develop their research skills, organize the results, and learn to apply that knowledge in real-time. The process of documenting and submitting the results teaches students the critical nuts-and-bolts of establishing proper documentation and a sense of how archives work.
But, perhaps most importantly, the process of interviewing a number of Veterans (and others who "experienced war"), whose experiences vary based on the conflicts or times in which they served and on their own roles and backgrounds, cannot help but complicate and challenge students' preconceived notions of conflict.... Whatever their politics.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Propaganda-o-Rama
I'm constantly amazed by the sort of primary documents that appear on the web. Lots of good stuff comes from archives that go on-line, but some of it just appears thanks to generous history buffs of one ilk or another. In the spirit of Rob MacDougall's "Things Illustrated" post below, a great example is Maopost.com which has a simply fabulous collection of Chinese propaganda posters. They don't sell 'em, they just scan 'em & share 'em. I like that.
Beware, however, a visit to this site can easily devour a whole evening...
Wednesday, July 5, 2006
Hip-Dia. You never saw it coming.
OK, I'm having one of those "Man, the world is a funky place/I can't believe what I've found on the internet" kind of evenings.
I'm working on the second editon of Africa in World History and have been searching about for useful material.
A search for images led me to Flickr, where I found the Africa Pool , which featues a fine selection of both the most and less stereotypical of African images.
From here, I googled my way off in search of information on Hip-Life, the oh-so-Ghanaian synthesis of Hip-Life and Hip-Hop. I was delighted to find The HipLife Complex on Blogspot, which features Hip-Life video links via YouTube.
However, it was the companion website, Awesome tapes from Africa that really blew me away.
Monday, June 5, 2006
What's New About African History?
Elsewhere on HNN, my friend (abokina!) John Edward Philips offers insights into What's New About African History? He's a smart guy, so you should read it.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Riots in Maidugari (Nigeria)
The recent riots in Maidugari, Nigeria, which have left over a dozen dead, have been getting a fair bit of coverage. Sadly, clashes of this sort have hardly been rare in Nigeria over the fifteen years. Indeed, such violence has been becoming increasingly common since the early 1990s.
During my fieldwork in Northern Nigeria, I had a knack for missing such ugliness, leaving just before outbreaks or returning after things had returned to a degree of normality (I've been less successful in dodging riots in the south). With every year, however, the cities where I lived and worked (particularly Kano and Kaduana) seemed to build up an ever-increasing store of tension. I remember Kadunda in 1995 simply seething with a sense of mutual distrust.
Such conflicts in Nigeria, though often reported simply as "religious conflicts," also have deep roots in ethnicity, colonial divisions, and economic power. Further, there can be no doubt that contemporary global politics are playing out amongst Nigerian communities. In a way, I'm struck by the comparison to the Cold War, wherein the US and Soviet Union often fought via proxies in Africa (or elsewhere). However, rather unlike the Cold War, which tended to be a sort of top-down phenomenon with governments and rebel groups choosing sides, this conflict is playing out more at the individual and community level, which makes it all the more nasty.
Perhaps the best insight into the dynamic of violence in Northern Nigeria is Douglas Anthony's Poison and Medicine: Ethnicity, Power, and Violence in a Nigerian City, 1966 to 1986. Doug didn't have my luck in missing out on the violence of the early 1990's, and his research does a better job than anyone elses that I know in offering an understanding of how the tensions built up over time.
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
Cartoons and Sin
At the risk of re-opening Chris Bray's can of worms regarding the Jyllands-Posten bru-ha-ha, I would like to reflect, briefly, on some of the issues underlying the recent furor. In particular, I want to get at the question of whether Islam really forbids representations of the Prophet Muhammad. However, as a disclaimer, let me state that my expertise lies more within the realm of political theology (siyasa) than in issues of sin and apostasy, which is really what seems to be at issue here. As such, rather than the regular diatribes, I would encourage those with knowledge of the subject to respond in a constructive manner.
First and foremost, there is a long tradition within Islam of at least frowning upon and often forbidding any representation of the Prophet. The main reason for this, however, is to prevent veneration of the Prophet in the place of God. To do so is to commit Shirk, (rough translation = "association") which is generally regarded by Muslim theologians to be extra-sinful, since it undermines the Tawhid (absolute unity of God).
Sunday, January 1, 2006
Don't Make me Get the Flying Monkeys!
A former student of mine in now seeking a Masters in Library Science, and has also started a blog. In one of her first posts, she compares Graduate School to the Wicked Witch of the West... "Always ready to send in the evil monkeys after me."
Unfortunately, I must point out to Dawn that if one must utilize a Grad School/Wizard of Oz metaphor, then it's probably the Graduate Students who are the Flying Monkeys.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
A Holiday Debate
Over on H-World, a vigorous debate is raging regarding whether or not Christianity should be considered a "Western" Religion.
Clearly, grades have been submitted and the participants have already completed their shopping.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Afri-Wiki?
I recently posted about some rather atypical academic behavior -- constructively engaging a problem rather than just griping about it. In this case, the issue was the accuracy of Africa-related material in the Wikipedia.
The discussion at H-Africa has now moved beyond the initial (and still very smart) call for Africanists and their students to write material for the Wikipedia, and has developed into a discussion by some tech-savy young scholars about how to organize the effort.
In particular, Donald Z. Osborn has suggested the creation of an "AfriWiki" system (modestly rejecting my own attempt to dub it the "Osborn initiative") which would incorporate an alert system wherein sharp-eyed users could report problems (be they inaccuracies or ommissions) so they could be logged and listed until attended to -- at which point they would be identified as "corrected" or "edited."
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Wiki-Solutions and Teaching
Over on H-Africa there is yet another discussion of the Wikipedia going on.
Notably, however, this one isn't a grump-fest about the (well established) failings of the Wikipedia. Rather, it is an unusually constructive discussion about how Africanists can help improve the Africa-related material available and thus utilize the popularity of the Wikipedia to help get accurate African info into the hands of students and lay-readers.
More so, there is also an interesting discussion of how faculty can assign students the task of researching and writing/rewriting entries, as well. Timothy Burke has previously made some very smart suggestions here on Cliopatria about how to use the Wikipedia as a teaching tool. Having students actually contribute (under a suitable degree of supervision, of course) strikes me as a very good idea.
Monday, December 12, 2005
The Wages of Wiki-Sin
It appears that the author of the now infamous Wikipedia Bio on John Seigenthaler Sr has been identified, and has apologized.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
What we do and Why we do it
Via our ever-topical Breaking News link, I just noticed this story on Post University's decision to eliminate their majors in both History and English.
Sadly, this isn't a terribly unfamiliar situation for me. The tiny History program I tought for at Livingstone College was threatened with disillusion on an annual basis by the administration on the grounds that we didn't have enough majors. The letter informing us of this risk always offered that faculty from the program would be given the opportunity of being "retrained" to serve the college in some other fashion. Oh, joy.
Even at my beloved
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Kiosken Makes Me Happy
Think of it as a union between old and new media. On-line links to newspapers all over the world. Take Kiosken, for example. It's old-fashioned (web-wise, at least). It is full of broken links. It is hosted by fairly nutty Esperanto types. And yet, I love it. actualidad.com is a bit less clunky, but somehow lacks panache. Where else can you tour global newspapers from Nigeria to Fiji? If there are better sites, I'd be tickled if somebody would mention it.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Sabbatical Blogging
This is a special year for me. It is my first sabbatical. After a few years in the trenches as a term-hire adjunct assistant professor living from semester to semester, and after a job change that set back the tenure clock, I finally put in the requisite time at a single institution and was awarded this oh-so-precious academic perk.
First, of course, I'd like to thank my oh-so-supportive Department Chair and the rest of the folks who made it possible. One thing I've learned since coming to NKU is just how much better academic life can be with administrators who actually want to help professors do their job, as opposed to all the other nasty things they are all-too-often so much more likely to do.
Sucking up to the powers that be aside, I've been wanting to reflect a bit on the beauty of the sabbatical. What other job in the world pays you to take a year off from your normal duties in order to do something creative? I feel like I've scored a one-year MacArthur Fellowship.
Thursday, September 8, 2005
Ruwa, Ya Yi Gyara
Or, in Hausa, "Rain, it does the Fixing." This year's rains have been better than the previous year's and it looks as if a decent harvest will come to pass in Niger. That, however won't help things until October at the earliest. So... even if you are feeling tapped out by Katrina, it certainly wouldn't be a bad thing to consider offering aid to your fellow people in Niger. The New York Times offers a list of agencies here .
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Still More on Happiness
Just below, the esteemed Ralph E. Luker links to The Little Professor's insightful discussion of how various religious groups tend to view others as unhappy. The same can also be said for national/political and even economic groups.
In particular I am reminded of one of the greater incidents of epiphany in my life. During my fieldwork in Kano, Nigeria, in the early 1990's, I passed through a certain roundabout (traffic circle) several times a day. By virtue of its strategic location, it had a larger-than-usual population of folks whom life had dealt a particularly rough hand. Old folks without family, lepers, those crippled by polio, children with debilitating birth defects, accident victims missing limbs... you name it, they were there, often clustered in their own little communities, segregated by disability. There was also a large compliment of almajarai, the young (age 6 to 13 or so) Qur'anic students who generally beg for food.
Inevitably, cars stopped at the roundabout were visited by the local residents (or their more mobile assistants -- lepers were almost always aided by small children, for example). As a white guy, I tended to attract extra attention. Over time, I got to know the residents of Murtala Mohammed Roundabout as well as could be expected for somebody who passed through five minutes at a time a few times a day. Despite being among what might be considered some of the least lucky people on the face of the earth, almost all of Murtala's residents were pleasant and polite. Even if I didn't have any "small money" on me on a given day (growling "get a job" wasn't really appropriate given most of the people's life histories), they would still chat with me briefly -- asking how my own family was and wishing me good luck for the day and for my safety on the road.
Indeed, a few months into my fieldwork, I was neigh to struck dumb one day when I realized that most of the folks at the roundabout were, by and large, more at peace with their lot in life and even, shockingly, perhaps happier than an awful lot of people I knew back home in the states. Many Americans seem to spend a lot of time complaining. Be it the price of gas or how little they like their jobs, family, or neighbors, complaining about something is almost like a hobby.
Perhaps the results of last year's World Values Survey, which ranked Nigerians as the world's happiest people and Americans as 16th (out of 65) can be instructive.
Goodness knows that whenever I catch myself foolishly lamenting my lot in life I try and think about the Mutanen Murtala (people of Murtala). It rarely fails to bring a smile to my face and, often, a near-tear to my eye.
Friday, July 8, 2005
The WHA -- Ex Post Facto
Well, my plans to blog the World History Association meeting in Ifrane, Morocco, came to naught... largely because it was such a great conference that between the excellent panels and the fabulous meals, I hardly had time to get online.
A few highlights of the conference are worth noting, however. First, this was the most international of the WHA's conferences to date -- with scholars from 22 countries attending. Currently, the WHA holds conferences in the US two out of three years, with the third year being held overseas. Mark your calendars for London in 2008.
Probably as a result of the more international aspect of this year's conference, one of the main themes of discussion was the place of the US as the overwhelming center of World History teaching and scholarship. The discourse, which began in a panel on "New Directions in World History" and ran over into a bonus afternoon session, was too far-ranging to be easily summarized here, but most academics can guess that it ran the gamut from allegations of academic imperialism to more textured examinations of what makes a country "outward-looking" in terms of historical awareness.
Another major theme of the conference was the place of "Area Studies" in World History. In no small part, this issue came up in part because the official themes of the conference were "Africa in World History" and "The Mediterranean in World History." Africa represents a classic Area Studies unit of analysis, while the Mediterranean helps cut across many of the standard ways we organize History (Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Christendom, the Dar al-Islam, etc). In general, there seems to be an increasing unease within World History that while the rise of Area Studies programs clearly helped to improve our understanding of the breadth of human history, the units of analysis provided do not work terribly well in helping to organize World History.
Finally, another recurring theme was that of "Big History." David Christian, who is not only really smart but also a remarkably charming soul, took home the much-coveted World History Association Book Prize for Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History. Big History, which takes the "macro view" of World History to its logical limit by placing human history in the context of cosmic time, is getting a lot of press these days. The newest issue of Historically Speaking is hosting a special forum on the topic of how Big History seeks to connect science and history. The one-line version of the new issue isn't up yet, but I expect it will be any day now.
All in all, this years WHA was a smashing success, and the conference reinforced my own belief that World History is where some of the most interesting thinking in current history scholarship and teaching is taking place.
Monday, June 27, 2005
Live from the Morocco WHA
Greetings from al-Akhawayn University, Morocco. I arrived two days ago, and after a whirlwind tour of al-Jibbia, Casablanca, and Rabat, I settled, winded but invigorated, at the campus here in Ifrane. The university here has been wonderfully accomodating to me and the other 150 or so World Historians who have traveled here from such far-flung points as Koula Lumpur and Northern Kentucky University. Their facilities are truely world class. The year's twin themes are "Africa in World History" and "The Mediterranean in World History" -- so Morocco and al-Akhawayn together made a perfect setting for the proceedings. Kudos all around to Morocco, the University, and the WHA
Given suitable breaks in the proceedings, I'll try to send back some quasi-regular updates regarding the conference proceedings. At the moment, however, let me just ruminate on what an amazing thing the academic life can be. What a fine yet bizarre thing it is to be whisked from the American midwest to the mid-Atlas mountains of Morocco, and find oneself in the company of such a lovely group of people. For lunch I strolled to the local marché with a Sudanese colleague currently teaching in Malasia. I speak French far worse than the locals, and he speaks Arabic far better, and together we were able to get by quite nicely -- all the while speaking English to one another. Certainly this is an example of the positive side of Globalization.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Cultural Epicureanism, Immigration, & Race in the US
Thanks to Ralph Luker's link below, I took the time out to read through Abdul-Walid of Acerbia's thought-provoking and occasionally disturbing essays on "Black Americans." As a pickup-truck driving southern White boy who plays the blues, has made a living off of studying and teaching African-American and African History, and who has married into an African family, I feel a bit like he and I are different actors in the same play.
Let me address only a couple of the things his essays made me think about. First is his lament that while "American Blacks" invest lots of energy in studying and "being Black," White folks seem to feel free to go study and be anything they darn well please. Over the past few years of teaching World History, I've developed a concept which I dubbed "Cultural Epicureanism." That is, some people, at various times and places, seem unusually willing to break out of the structures and communities that culture and ethnicity seek to impose. Some folks, such as long-distance traders and emigrants, tend to be particularly willing (or perhaps required) to play the role of Cultural Epicureans. Others, particularly those possessing identities fixed by fairly rigid orthodoxies (religious, political, racial, or whatever) resist, rather than embrace, the tendency to visit, sample, enjoy and embrace elements of other cultures.
Now, obviously, not all White folks are Cultural Epicureans. Indeed, until fairly recently, White conceptions of race and culture in the US actively mitigated against such behaviours. Resistance to Rock and Roll as "Black Music" would be only a tiny example. My own grandfather thought that eating Chinese food was basically un-American. And, when I announced my desire to go off and get my PhD in African History, more than a few friends (and a few family) were dismissive, derisive, or even downright hostile to the idea.
However, in recent years, it is clear that many, if not most, White Americans have mellowed out a good bit about such things. Part of this is, as Abdul-Walid rightly says, a recognition that many White Americans now look back with a bit of shame at the racist ways of our recent ancestors. Indeed, now that many students are actually taught about the very real history of racism and exploitation that has all-too-often defined the West's relations with other parts of the world over the past few centuries (despite the efforts of some conservatives to demand a return to nationalist "happy history") many White students are thus encouraged to be self-critical of their own culture and open-minded about others. Ironically, such a combination may be exactly what is necessary to function in an increasingly global and multicultural America.
The second point I would like to address is Abdul-Walid's recurring emphasis on just how differently African and West Indian immigrants see culture, race, and America than do African-Americans. The critical point here, methinks, is simply that the US has always favored immigrants -- and that recent African or West Indians are immigrants and African-Americans never were. Thus, recent African immigrants are self-selected Cultural Epicureans. Like immigrants throughout time they knew it was going to be hard and would demand cultural flexibility on their own part. As my African father-in-law says "If you move to a land where people cut off their own ears, take a sharp knife with you." Forced migrants, such as African Americans, were not even given such a choice for generations. And, not surprisingly, when such a choice was offered, it was not greeted with enthusiasm, and many who took the choice were denigrated as "sell-outs." It bears noting that the other main non-immigrant group in the US, Native Americans, have suffered even less success in this country than African-Americans -- more evidence of how the US favors the willing newcomer and stacks the deck against unwilling participants.
Thus, while I agree with Abdul-Walid that African-American investment in a constructed “Blackness” is all-too-often a serious hindrance to success in the US, I think it is important to recognize that it is to heap burden upon burden to ask non-immigrants to act like immigrants.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Why Bother?
Over on H World Fred Spier of the University of Amsterdam has asked one of those wonderfully obvious questions: "Why do members of this discussion group think it is it important to study history?" (Use the Next Message/Thread link to follow the resulting discussion). I like obvious questions of this sort because they encourage us to think about things we take for granted... as Jimmy Buffett sang: "So damn simple, like the Jitterbug, it plum evaded me." We are often so engrossed in doing history that we loose sight of why we bother. I won't attempt to summarize the points offered by the good and noble citizens of H-World -- just go read them for yourselves if you are curious. I will, however, offer up my own two cents worth. History for me is the best means we have available to understand our present. For my students, I often present this in the form of a metaphor: History is like a movie, and we were all got to the theatre late. Without being aware of the events so far, we are at a disadvantage in figuring out why anybody is doing anything. Now, we may piece it together eventually, but by then the movie will almost be over -- and we will still be left to guess about what happened before. History is the "backstory" the helps us to make more rapid sense of the unfolding action. Mighty useful, that.
Wednesday, March 2, 2005
Hell in Darfur
The Wilson Center has released a paper entitled "Resolving the Three Headed War From Hell in Southern Sudan, Northern Uganda, and Darfur" by John Pendergrast. While more than a bit light on background, it is unsparingly damning regarding the recent actions by the Sudanese Government and concurrent inaction of the international community. Here is an excerpt.
"In November, when the UN Security Council met in
Nairobi to push the IGAD process towards a swift
conclusion, the regime sensed an extraordinary
opportunity. By agreeing to sign a deal by the end of
the year, Khartoum effectively held the carrot of
peace in front of the noses of the international community while it wielded the stick in Darfur. In effect, the government had a free hand in Darfur in late November and throughout December, which it used
for offensive military operations. The extension of
this state of impunity was sought successfully
through the signing of the CPA. The regime hoped
for and received a measure of international goodwill,
and has used its new breathing space to increase
attacks in Darfur and to further undermine the activity
of opposition groups throughout the country."
Free Speech on Campus -- NKU style
Here is a fine bit of student journalism examining NKU's campus speech policy and also sampling student perspectives on the topic.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Development, Colonialism, Statism, and the Like
Over yonder in the blogosphere, James
Dunnigan is raising some relevant questions about NGO's and development. As an Africanist, a number of my fellow academics either chose career paths in development (including one close friend who
recently ended years of work in Angola and Serbia and made the wise move of taking a posting in Fiji) or frequently worked with NGO's or government agencies as a sideline.
By and large, most of them had to deal with a clash between their early sense of mission and idealism and the often gritty and heavily politicized reality of how development and peacekeeping projects
actually work. Many were unable to make the transition, and many others survived -- but at the cost of having their idealism replaced with cynicism. Perhaps the best work I've seen on the political
complexities of the system writ large is Ferguson's The
Anti-Politics Machine.
The lesson here is that development is far more complex than offering a helping hand to those in need. More significantly, the nature of
development work (handling large sums of other people's money for the benefit of yet another group of people) is itself a potentially corrupting influence -- leading at the very least to "institutional creep" and at the worst to
rampant graft and corruption. There should be a warning here for folks who think the US mission in Afghanistan and Iraq is somehow going to avoid exactly the sort of mayhem currently rife in NGOs and the United Nations. US administrators and military officials may have a degree of professionalism that render them resistant to such temptations... but they are certainly not immune. And the longer the process goes on, the more that resistance will probably wear down.
Believe it or not, this makes me think about Lindsay's Against the Dead Hand. Lindsay's basic argument is that an "industrial counter-revolution" of socialism, collectivism, and "statism" derailed capitalism and globalization in much of the world. As somebody who has spent rather a lot of time examining colonialism, however, I think that Lindsay far underestimates the impact of colonialism in creating "statism." Lindsay does mention imperialism as anti-globalist, but this is a different point. I think the creation of a large colonial bureaucracy may well have played a role in spreading a "statist" mindset in European governments. Let's face it, it is way easier to run things when you aren't bothered by the presence of citizens, and administrators familiar with the relative ease of telling people what to do in the colonies may well have developed a desire to wield similar influence back home. Mind you, I don't have the specific research to back it up, but call it a hunch that colonial administration styles could easily have "feedback" into home administrations in Europe. For example, much of what we think of as Nazism was fairly pedestrian German colonial policy -- and didn't raise many hackles until it was applied to other Europeans. Anyway, I think there is a dandy dissertation or monograph to be written on the subject.
Thus, the second warning here is that in addition to needing to fear "mission creep" and corruption in the course of the "rebuilding" of Iraq and Afghanistan, US citizens should also keep a very careful eye on leaders (or administrations) who have grown accustomed to the relative freedom of administering non-citizens. Many say that the reason to fight the war on terrorism abroad is to protect civil liberties at home. There is a logic to that argument, but I for one fear that the more entrenched our presence in overseas administration becomes, the more our political system risks being infected a quasi-colonial statism.
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Oh... the horror, the horror
I just finished grading a set of map quizes for my Freshman World History survey. They were, dare I say, a bit on the frightening side. The students were given a line-drawing world map (with political boundaries provided) and asked to place the following 20 items on the map. Note that there were multiple possible right answers for several of the items.
1)India 2)Somalia 3)Peru 4)Brazil 5)North Korea 6)Russia 7)Nigeria 8)Iraq 9)Libya 10)Great Britain 11)China 12)A Rain Forest 13)An Oil Exporting Country 14)A Major Desert 15)An Area of Very Dense Population 16)A Sparsely Populated Region 17)A Food Exporting Country 18)The South China Sea 19)The Persian Gulf 20) Northern Kentucky University.
The results? I don't have enough time to provide a complete breakdown of the grades by item, but here are a few highlights:
1) Size appears to matter. China and Russia were the only items that every student got right. Brazil was a close runner-up.
2) The Anglophone Connection. The small country with the highest number of correct answers was Great Britain, with a 76% accuracy rate. Notably, however, Peru was only a couple of percentage points behind.
3) Things that go might go BOOM. North Korea scored a 69% accuracy rate.
4) We support our troops.. wherever they are. 58% of students placed Iraq properly. For all the Iraq-is-another-Vietnam types, you will be interested to know that nearly half of the incorrect answers for Iraq placed it in Southeast Asia.
5) The already disappeared Rain Forest. This one had the highest "we give up factor" -- where students simply didn't even bother to try. A toxic meme of Chad being predominantly rain forest did spread through one corner of the classroom, but that is another matter, methinks.
6) All Those Pointless Little Countries. African items on the exam fared very poorly, with my dear adopted second-home of Nigeria finding only a 12% rate of correct answers -- the worst showing on the exam. Somalia managed only about 16%, despite being featured in a major motion picture while most of these students were in high school.
So little time, so much to teach...
Thursday, January 27, 2005
College Attendance and Public Ed.
A couple of weeks back, a student here at beautiful, scenic, Northern Kentucky University published a letter to the editor of our campus paper decrying any sort of attendance policy on campus. Yesterday's edition of the paper ran a response by me.
Nowadays, when faced with unapologetically absent students, I often find myself giving a mini-lecture on the subject, the key points of which more or less mirror the letter found above, and I figured that putting it into print might save me some precious time and breath over the next term or two. Notably, in the past, I didn't worry myself about such things. When I first started teaching, I never harassed students about attendance. If they didn't show it was their problem, and I figured it would almost certainly reflect in their final grade. And, in the vast majority of cases, it did.
I have, however, watched with some interest as I have become a bit more demanding about attendance every year. Part of this is because I have come to appreciate what public education means (especially as it gets less public every year), and also because I really hate to see students do poorly, and have seen the toll that the absence-ignorance-guilt-avoidance cycle takes on students who otherwise have no reason to do poorly in my classes. I guess in the end I would rather have them complain about attendance (which I calculate as part of the class participation grade) than about failing exams.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Drag Blogging?
It just seems that I don't have enough time to think deep (historical) blog thoughts these days... so to keep my hat in the ring, I'll go with yet another automotive theme: Drag Racing.
Drag racing is unusual in that it is both among the most technologically complex of motorsports and also has the most extensive level of grassroots participation. Thanks to John Mason, a brilliant Historian at UVA, we have some remarkable insights into how the sport also manages to break through color lines in rural/red America. Visit his excellent photo exposé The Democracy of Speed and enjoy.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Cary Christian School Bru ha ha.
It appears that Cary Christian School in North Carolina is getting some bad press for having used a short text entitled “Southern Slavery, as it Was” (by Steve Wilkins and Douglas Wilson) as part of the school’s curriculum. In light of the attention, the school has dropped the text. An on-line version of the pamphlet can be found here. You can also view some erudite comments on the issue here on HNN via William Ramsey.
For those familiar with the apologist or “redeemer” schools of southern historiography, there is nothing particularly new in the text. In a nutshell, “Southern Slavery” portrays slaveowners as kindly, slaves as happy, and everybody as way better off during slavery. Perhaps the biggest zinger in the text is when it allows that slavery in the South does actually deserve some condemnation. “The truth is, Southern slavery is open to criticism because it did not follow the biblical pattern at every point. Some of the state laws regulating slavery could not be defended biblically (the laws forbidding the teaching of reading and writing, for example).” Ohhh... I see. BIBLICAL slavery is fine, it’s that nasty UNBIBLICAL slavery that’s the problem.
What is always saddening, of course, is to find out that something as painful as this is being utilized in a classroom somewhere. However, I have to say that I’m not terribly surprised. When I was living in North Carolina and teaching at Livingstone College it was not unusual for me to meet folks who were eager to engage a white teacher of African-American history in an argument about the portrayal of slavery and the civil war. At times I felt I should carry around a copy of South Carolina’s declaration of secession just to be ready for the “the Civil War wasn’t about slavery” argument. I once had a 15 year old become enraged when I told him that it was a lie that “hundreds of thousands of Negroes” had fought for the confederacy, as he was learning from his home-schooling textbooks. I was far from shocked when I later found Salisbury (where I was living) featured in chapter two of Confederates in the Attic. This was a town that had, in the middle of the Civil Rights movement, put up a statue to commemorate Confederate dead, complete with the old Confederate slogan. Dio Vindice (God Vindicates).
Of course, I shouldn’t just pick on North Carolina or pro-Confederacy white folks. One of the interesting things about the Civil War (and it’s inseparable companion, American slavery) is that it so often fosters bad history. One of the few things that “Southern Slavery, as it Was” gets right its claim that there is a tendency to teach a rather oversimplified version of antebellum slavery in American and African-American History classrooms – though the text’s authors fail to realize that they are guilty of the same foible. Slavery in the US was a terribly complex and highly varied system, with a great variety of social, economic, and political permutations. The tendency of many teachers to site sources such as the Willie Lynch Letter, which is almost certainly a hoax is a case in point. Perhaps what the case of Cary Christian School points up is that the “Past is Always Political,” and that far too many teachers are still guilty of approaching history in ways that validate, rather than challenge, their own (and their audience’s) preconceived notions.
Thursday, December 23, 2004
By Popular Demand -- Meet the Vulcanizer
I have to say that I'm surprised by the response to the Tire-Changing Nigerian Style post -- but no more so than I am impressed with Manan Ahmed's own charming description of Uncle Billa the Tire Walla.
To add a face to the story, here is a photo I took a couple of years ago of the neighborhood vulcanizer who works in the neighborhood where my wife's family lives in Lagos, Nigeria. He is, like many Vulcanizers, a pleasant and easy-going guy. I love the fact that his work station is mounted on an old wheel rim -- functional and representative at the same time.
He is flanked, on each side, by Okadas , which deserve a post all their own at some point (and, eventually, a chapter in the someday-to-be-written book on West African Car Culture -- or perhaps I should say road culture??). For the moment, suffice it to say that the Okada's are Nigerian motorcycle taxis. They get their name from a Nigerian commercial airline. So, they are 'fast like jet planes.' They are also notoriously dangerous, with the drivers being both reviled and admired as representatives of modern urban youth. You can see an "Okada Man" peeking over the bike in the left-hand side of the photo.
On the occasions when I would use an Okada to get around Lagos, it never failed to be a source of great amusement for anybody who saw me go by. Pointing, laughter, and good natured yells of "Oyibo! (white person) Stay off Okada! TOO DANGEROUS!" were not uncommon.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Tire Repair -- Nigerian style
Phew... what a semester. Nothing like having a newborn and deciding to buy a new house to make finals extra-interesting. Just in case anybody was actually wondering why I haven’t posted in a while (aside from Ralph Luker, anyway) those are the reasons, in a nutshell. So, to get back into the swing of things, I’m choosing a somewhat offbeat topic: tire changing.
Hardcore blog-watchers may have noticed my dear brother actually blogged during a tire change a little while back. Of course, being the blog-o-maniac that he is, that is hardly a surprise. But, anyway, this is something of an example of brotherly synergy, since I have, for a while, been planning to do an essay on the differences between tire changes in the US and West Africa. Indeed, eventually I plan to write a book on West African car culture, but other commitments mean that will be a few years down the road (so to speak). In particular the whole tire change process seemed to me to highlight the contrast between life in these two global regions. Since most readers will be familiar with tire repair in the industrialized world, I won’t go into how tires are repaired in that “place.” Just note that you can usually sip free coffee, sit in climate-controlled comfort, and perhaps even Blog while somebody uses mega-expensive powered machinery to fix your tire. In the end you will pay anywhere from $10 to $30 for a plugged or patched tire.
First and foremost, flat tires are WAY more common in West Africa than they are in the US. For a region short of machine tools and their products, West African roads seem unusually well blessed with nails, screws, and other pointy paraphernalia. I once suffered a flat tire at the hands of an unusually large (and not very sharp) C-clip. Also, almost all West African tires are mounted using tubes. For those too young to remember the days of tubed tires, this means that when something pokes a hole in your tire it goes flat RIGHT NOW – not a few hours or days from now. No doubt the prevalence of tubes is a major contributing factor to the high rate of traffic accidents and fatalities on West African roads.
Given the frequency of flats (one a month is nothing odd, and I have gone through a couple of spells where I had several flats in a single week), tire repair establishments, known as “Vulcanizers” are also common. In a town or city one can be found on almost every block. Get a flat in town and you will almost certainly have a Vulcanizer come to you or an enterprising young lad will offer to run to one in return for a tip (“dash”). They are usually a two-man team, consisting of senior vulcanizer and an apprentice/assistant who is often a young boy or teenager. Their equipment generally consists of a scavenged AC compressor attached to a small motor to inflate tires, a really heavy bar used as a bludgeon to “break the bead” between the tire and wheel, and a lever-and-fulcrum assembly to pry the tire off the rim, if necessary. Usually, however, once the bead is broken, the tube is slipped out on its own so it can be patched.
The process of repair is undertaken by melting a patch over the section of the tube that has been punctured. Once the hole is located, the patching material is placed over the offending (offended?) section of the tube, and then both tube and patch are cranked tight between a board and an upside-down flat-topped piston. Kerosene is poured into the piston and set alight – thus producing the heat to melt the patch material – “vulcanizing” the patch into place. Within about 20 minutes the tube has a new patch (I’ve seen tubes with a couple of dozen such repairs). The tube is then slid back between the wheel and tire, the motor/AC Compressor is fired up, and the tire is re-inflated. Once the assistant has placed the wheel back on your car, you can pay the Vulcanizer for the work. In Nigeria this now runs about 20 to 30 Naira – or about 15-20 cents US. Then, off you go!
Of course, the question is why don’t West African drivers forego the use of tubes? The trick lies in the amount of air pressure available. To “seat” a tubeless tire on the rim requires a goodly volume of air delivered at about 100psi. The locally-produced compressors used by Vulcanizers simply can’t deliver such pressures. Tubes are thus considered a necessity. Mind you, there are upscale auto dealers in West Africa (Mercedes, Toyota and Nissan, mostly) who have equipment just like what you would find at a tire shop in San Diego or Tokyo, but the costs are also like those found in the industrialized world – putting tubeless tires out of the reach of most Africans.
I did, however, come to know one Vulcanizer who had a system for seating tubeless tires with his existing equipment. I had mentioned to a Nigerian friend (a mechanic) my desire to avoid using tubes in my tires. He then took me to a said Vulcanizer. I watched in amusement and admiration as he sent his assistant out for several servings of Gari – a casava-based foodstuff that has the consistency of really thick mashed potatoes. He then smeared the Gari around between the gap between each rim and tire... creating a seal tight enough to allow the tire to seat despite the slow delivery of the air. Within an hour or so I had four tubeless tires mounted and a spare in the hatch. The process cost about three times the normal rate (perhaps two dollars for the whole service), but I was most pleased with my increased security on the road.
Friday, November 19, 2004
History, Histories, and Global Perspective
A few days back, Ralph Luker, Brian Ulrich, and Timothy Burke spent some time discussing issues of periodization and "narrative threads" in African History. I was busy changing diapers at the time, but a (no doubt brief) lull in baby care provides me with the opportunity to call attention to an excellent set of essays and resources provided by a special issue on "Africa in World History" over at World History Connected. Essays and articles range from an informal interview with Christopher Ehret to a reading list from World History Association Primus Inter Pares David Northrup to a nuts-and-bolts how-to by R. Hunt Davis Jr. I, however, recommend that you read everything. It might even make you a better person.
Full and honest disclosure requires that I admit that I and my mega-cool co-author Erik Gilbert contributed essays to the issue. But, hey, we did recently publish a book entitled Africa in World History, after all. It would have hurt our feelings if they hadn't invited us to contribute. Anyway, both his essay and my own address the issue of African "History vs Histories" as raised by Ralph Luker. Also important, and running through all of the essays provided, is the issue of how placing Africa in the wider context of World History changes our notions of African periodization and units of analysis. Conversely, how does placing Africa in the World History story change our existing classical/post-classical/medieval/pre-modern/modern system of periodization? Candice Gaucher raises this question in her own contribution. If regions such as Africa, the Americas, and Australasia don't fit our system of periodization, it doesn't mean they are "outside" of history, it simply means that our system of periodization is as yet poorly (incompletely) conceived.
It is worth noting, however, that the issue of "history or histories?" could (and should) also be raised regarding European History. Years ago when I was strong armed into teaching a European History survey, I was shocked by the oppressive orthodoxy of the "standard model" of Euro/Western Civ history. The whole idea that history worked its way from east to west (Greece-Italy-Western Europe-England-USA) struck me as rather hackneyed and silly. As an Africanist, trained in a methodology that sees historical evidence in many forms (not just written documents), I wanted to hear something about what all those Angles, Saxons, or other folk were up to in the centuries before the Romans started to abuse them... but the silence of European History textbooks on the subject was quite profound.
Some Africanists and Afrocentrics have tried very hard to find or create a single coherent "story" for African history -- just like the one presented in Western Civ textbooks. I think doing so would be a mistake, because it oversimplifies and stultifies what is really a very complex and far more interesting human story. One of the great things about World History is that it gets us to question what we think we know about and how we think about our own areas of specialization. That is a very good thing.
Thursday, November 18, 2004
He's the Smart one...
Over in Instapunditland my dear brother has been spreading the scurrilous rumor that he is the good looking one and that I'm the smart one. He is mistaken, and I can prove it. If he were the smart one, he would be right about which one of us is which, and that would mean I would actually be the smart one, and, hence, couldn't be wrong. Thus, his own logic refutes his claim that I'm not the good looking one. It's really so simple that even I, the less intelligent one, can figure it out.
One might also note that he has taken a innocuous pastime and built a veritable blog empire -- bringing riches, power, and fame. I, on the other hand, tend to spend my free time fishing and playing guitar. Do people say "If you're so smart, then why ain't you fishing?" No, no they don't.
You could also just look for yourself:
I rest my case.
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Still more Veterans Day stuff
In honor of Veterans Day, I would like to throw out a plug for the Veterans History Project sponsored by the Library of Congress and the AARP. Not unlike the WPA Folklore Project of the 1930s, this is a major effort to collect the life histories of veterans and others whose lives were marked by the wars of the 20th century. The interviews (ideally recorded on digital video) are archived at the LOC for future use.
This is something of an "open source" project, with training and support materials being available on line, via participating AARP offices, and through many local groups and organizations. Here at Northern Kentucky University, one of our history majors, Elizabeth Comer (Graduate Admissions folks take note, she will be headed to some lucky grad school next fall) has almost single-handedly organized a group of students to provide training and undertake interviews.
This is a truly unique opportunity for students at the University (and even High School) level to DO history, not just study it -- and I recommend that interested faculty take time to look into the project and give serious thought to establishing or encouraging a local program.
Baby Stuff
On the behalf of Baby William and Mother Ngozi, let me take a brief (and somewhat sleep-deprived) moment to thank Ralph and all the others who sent well-wishes regarding William's birth. He and his mother are doing dandy, and the whole experience has left me with a profound respect for all things maternal, natal, and caffeinated.
Thursday, November 4, 2004
Intellectually tolerant, or just wishy-washy?
Daniel Drenzer has some interesting things to say about Fareed Zakaria's column "TV, Money, and 'Crossfire' Politics"..
There are some cogent points here about how hard it now is to discuss the complexity of political and moral decisions. Any hint that you can empathize or understand the other person's or group's decision is quickly labeled as some degree of intellectual weakness or even treason to your cause. Heck, I've even caught flack for making "reasonable liberal" style remarks in my short time here at Cliopatria.
I must say that I am dismayed at just how grumpy people feel free to be regarding their political opponents these days. I may not agree with all sorts of people on all sorts of things -- abortion rights, affirmative action, the death penalty, etc -- but this doesn't keep me from seeing them as perfectly intelligent human beings making their way through a complex and often frightening world. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't make them stupid or evil (although it is important to recognize that some folks manage to be one or both). As someone who has made a living out of crossing cultural boundaries I tend to be pretty tolerant of people thinking, believing, and acting in ways that are fairly "foreign" to me. Goodness knows that if I were to think of conservative Americans as irrational or barbaric, I would have a hard time not thinking similar thoughts about many of my Islamic or African friends.
Perhaps this situation is at the crux of what makes it hard to be a "liberal." The very perspective demands that one be tolerant of diversity -- but being tolerant of your political opponents places you at a decided disadvantage. On the other hand, "conservatives" have the advantage of just calling the other guys "wrong." Sure makes things easier.
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
Ruminations and Such
Well, at least it was over fairly quickly, and without a single mention of "chads." It is important that we have been spared another legal showdown over the presidency. For myself, I think we are better off with another four years of Bush & Co. than with another blow to public confidence in the electoral system. Likely Kerry was thinking in similar terms, and is also trying to establish a "noble loser" image to help lay the groundwork for another run (or an Edwards run) in 2008.
That said, I am not without my concerns about the current direction of American politics. First, the role of religion in the whole election was a bit spooky for a staunch secular humanist such as myself. The degree to which religious belief has fed into, for example, squashing civil rights for gay and lesbian Americans makes me quite sad. Religious factors have also deeply influenced the (now likely to continue) restrictions on stem-cell research and will likely fuel an even more staunch assault on the right to an abortion. Of course, many conservative and religious readers are likely to be happy about this. While I respect their right to be happy, I'm currently exercising my right to be bummed about it all.
Alternately, there is the whole Patriot Act and Homeland Security boondoogle. Frankly, I just don't think either one has done much good, and both have set frightening precedents for bureaucratic bloat and the erosion of civil rights. Next, there is the issue of the budget. Our current crop of un-tax and spend Republicans are digging a frighteningly deep deep hole for future generations. That is just plain bad.
And, of course, there is the war. Clearly, a majority of the American public aren't as upset about the economy and civil rights as they are concerned about security. Given 9-11 this is perhaps understandable. But, I remain deeply skeptical about whether the current "steady" course in Iraq and elsewhere is working to make us (or anybody else) more secure. Goodness knows the Russians have held the course "steady" in Chechnya for the past ten years, and have only experienced an ever-expanding spiral of violence and a consistently declining degree of civil liberties -- all in the name of increased security. Of course, America is not Russia and Bush & Co. are not Putin & Co. The Russians were shaky on the whole freedom and liberty thing even before they went into Chechnya. But the experience there has done them no good, and I hold very real fears that the longer the War on Terror continues, the more likely we are to lose what makes us special as a country.
There are no easy choices here, and we face very real threats. There are bad people out there who wish us harm, and we can't wish them away. Bombing them isn't always a bad idea. But, trying to protect ourselves in a ham-fisted way is all too likely to lead to any number of undesirable situations. What I fear most is that we breed a crop of leaders who owe their positions in power to maintaining a climate of fear. Here's to hoping we are smart enough not to let that happen.
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
Voter Turnout
I've now heard several sources remarking on the high rates of voter turn-out countrywide. Here in beautiful, scenic Southgate (KY), the poll workers stated that as of noon today, they had seen three times as many people vote as during the entire day in 2000. That strikes me as quite significant.
Election Victory!
The polls may not have closed yet, but here in Southgate Kentucky I'm happy to announce a victory. My charming wife, who grew up under military dictatorships in Nigeria (but became an American Citizen last year) has cast her vote for the first time. In her own words "I feel special and privileged to have the opportunity to vote." As a witness, I can also attest to the fact that she managed a small dance on exiting from the voting booth. No small trick for someone who is due to give birth at any moment.
Monday, November 1, 2004
252,000 years in 56 Pages
In recent years I have watched with a mix of wonder and trepidation as I've been transmogrified into a World Historian. As if all of Africa wasn't enough, I had to take on the world, too.
World History is a particularly daunting field, with the art being in making sense of the world without going on forever (a-la Will & Ariel Durant). David Christian (advocate and defender of "Big History" ) now seems to have raised (shortened?) the bar by having written a 56 page survey of human history entitled
"This Fleeting World," ( free pdf download) which is part of the soon-to-be available Berkshire Encyclopedia of Word History. (Full disclosure -- I contributed an essay on "Africa as a Concept in World History" to the volume, which, along with many other letter-A articles, is available as a free pdf sample .).
Some historians may take exception to the fact that Christian doesn't exactly plumb the depths of the many controversies raised in his tour of world history, but doing so would have rendered the exercise impossible. As it stands, it makes a dandy overview and should serve to help bring potential instructors of World History up to speed on "Grand Narratives" in minimal time. A doff of the cyber-cap to Dr. Christian, with bonus points for sheer historical chutzpah.
Sunday, October 31, 2004
"Defining Europe" and History itself
In a post titled "Defining Europe" over on H-World, Alexander Engel of Goettingen University raises some oh-so-interesting questions about the current debates on the past and future of Europe. In a nutshell, he points up that the historical construction of Europe is increasingly at odds with the move to include Turkey and other more "eastern" (dare I say Oriental?) states. He includes several interesting excerpts from the Draft Constitution of the European Union -- among which is the geographically erroneous notion that Europe is a "continent."
This brings up a wider point that I've been mulling over for some time -- regarding our tendency to use modern constructions (such as "Europe") and impose them upon our analyses of the past. Goodness knows the neither the Ancient Greeks nor the Romans ever thought of themselves as "Europeans" as we understand the word's meaning today. Indeed, if either group had been forced to identify a "world" to which they belonged, it would have almost certainly been built around the Mediterranean... and thus included many "non-European" regions. Thus, because we (or certain groups of us) tend to invest identity and meaning in these more modern constructions -- be they "Europe" or even "Africa" -- we then impose that identity upon the past. Such a situation suggests that our current meta-organization of knowledge in the form of "Area Studies" and "Ethnic Studies" programs does much to obscure the reality of history by imposing modern boundaries on the pre-modern world.
"Dwarves" and Folktales
In reply to my fellow Jonathan below, there was a brief thread on H-Africa a few months past regarding folktales of "Mysterious Dwarves" in various parts of Africa.
Saturday, October 30, 2004
Thank you kindly
Let me initiate my posting here at HNN with a short word of thanks to Ralph and the rest of the Cliopatrians for inviting me to take part in this fine and scholarly blog. It is indeed an honor and a pleasure, and I look forward to what the process may bring.
While much of my historical career to date has reflected a fairly “traditional” approach to scholarship (study – research – think – teach – write – publish), I have also been deeply impressed by how new forums, such as H-Net (“the conference that never ends”) and such on-line journal/resource centers as World History Connected can enhance scholarly exchange and growth. The Center for History and New Media and the History News Network provide academics with a valuable means with which to engage one another and the wider public – and do so in increasingly critical “Internet time.” Again, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to contribute to this venture. My own contributions may be infrequent over the next few weeks, as my wife and I are expecting a child in the near-term, but I will see what I can manage nonetheless.
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