Santa’s Helper in Blackface: An Interview with Dutch anthropologist Pooyan Tamimi Arab about Racism and the history of Zwarte Piet

December 5, 2011 by

On November 13, 2011, a group of Afro-Caribbean Dutch protestors were arrested in the city of Dordrecht, Netherlands for protesting figures associated with the Dutch holiday tradition of Sinterklaas. (You can see a play-by-play of the protests and arrests here) These figures, deemed Santa’s helpers, are called Zwarte Pieten (or Black Petes), and they arrive  on a steamboat alongside Sinterklaas (or St. Nicholas, the Dutch Santa) dressed in Shakespearean clothing and wearing wooly black afro, braided, or dreadlock wigs, bright red lipstick, golden earrings, and blackface. The Zwarte Pieten are the comedians of Sinterklaas who cheerfully play brass instruments, throw sweets, play tricks, and often end up as the butt of practical jokes throughout the holiday season.

Two Zwarte Pieten, courtesy of Wiki Commons

People from outside of the Netherlands are often shocked when confronted with the Zwarte Pieten. They associate these figures with  the American tradition of blackface minstrel-shows which contributed to the proliferation of racist stereotypes, attitudes, and perceptions within a racially divided society. The Dutch are aware of this issue, and how it looks to outsiders. This year, Vancouver’s cancellation of the Sinterklaas celebration due to Zwarte Piet made it into the Dutch news. The organizer of the festival said “We will have to teach the Canadians and the entire North-American population what Zwarte Piet really is.” This attracted much commentary and criticism from the Netherlands. But foriegn outrage and rejection to the Zwarte Piet isn’t new to the Dutch:  In 2008, Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, made the decision to remove Zwarte Piet  from its holiday lineup in response to tourist and layover flyers’ protest. Yet despite criticism from the outside world, Zwarte Piet remains a popular figure whom the vast majority of Dutch people want to keep at the center of Sinterklaas festivities. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s happening in the history of early modern Ireland?

October 20, 2011 by

Anybody seeking an answer to the question posed above could do worse than to check out the podcasts now available from the Tudor-Stuart Ireland Conference held last month at University College Dublin.

They are available here.

Map of Ireland from 1592 by Abraham Ortelius
Map of Ireland from 1592 by Abraham Ortelius (Wikimedia Commons)

This two-day event brought together a large number of Irish history scholars, from the postgraduate to the professor. Judging from the number of speakers and the attendance levels, the organisers were right to assume that there was a need for such a conference, and plans are already afoot for a further instalment next year.

Read the rest of this entry »

History Around the Compass: Aspects of the Occult

October 20, 2011 by
ParanatellontaSource: Wikimedia Commons
(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paranatellonta.jpg)

History Compass is pleased to present a Special Virtual Issue on the Occult in History, freely available until the end of the year.

Table of contents as follows:

Astrology in the Middle Ages
Hilary M. Carey

Magic in the Middle Ages: History and Historiography
David J. Collins

Magic and Impotence: Recent Developments in Medieval
Historiography

Catherine Rider

Kabbalah: A Medieval Tradition and Its Contemporary Appeal
Hava Tirosh-Samuelson

Magic and Divination in the Medieval Islamic Middle East
Edgar Francis

Traditions and Trajectories in the Historiography of European Witch
Hunting

Thomas A. Fudge

A New Trumpet? The History of Women in Scotland 1300–1700
Elizabeth Ewan

Deference and Dissent in Tudor England: Reflections on
Sixteenth-Century Protest

K. J. Kesselring

Sexuality, Witchcraft, and Honor in Colonial Spanish America
Nicole von Germeten

Vaya con Dios: Religion and the Transnational History of the
Americas

Pamela Voekel, Bethany Moreton and Michael Jo

The History of Prophecy in West Africa: Indigenous, Islamic, and
Christian

Joel E. Tishken

The Missionary Impact: The Northern Transvaal in the Late Nineteenth
Century

Alan Kirkaldy

Travel Course: Chicago

September 19, 2011 by

Chicago Skyline
Last night there was informal junior faculty mixer at a local restaurant in the old train depot that’s near our campus. Since I do love me some trains, I was thrilled with the venue. And at one point in the evening when my social veneer had dropped a bit, I began to reveal just how fascinated I am by railroads (for those of you who don’t know me, let’s just say that when I bought my kids a toy wooden train set it was probably more for me than for them–and I won’t reveal here how much I enjoyed setting up elaborate railway systems around our living room)…

In the midst of my railroad enthusiasm a colleague mentioned to me that I should construct a ‘travel course’ around the theme of 19th-century American railways (my university offers many very popular travel courses during the interterm and summer) with Chicago as the ‘hub’ of the course.  In that vein, here’s my idea: Read the rest of this entry »

McArts Degree

September 15, 2011 by

A McArts degree? NO! (Wikimedia Commons)

Throughout the fall term last year, every time I entered the Arts Building of my campus I had to walk over the words “McArts Degree.” In the first week of term someone had painted them in two-foot-high, whitewashed letters at the entrance to the building. They were impossible to miss. It dominated the small outdoor plaza. These words remained there, confronting me and everyone else who entered the building, until they were finally obliterated by the snow and cold.

This message affected me every day that I went to the university.

Read the rest of this entry »

History Compass Exchanges Comics: Summer Research: The Fantasy & The Reality

June 27, 2011 by

 

If you have a funny/poignant/thought-provoking/etc.  idea for a history cartoon, please send it to Angela.C.Sutton[at]Vanderbilt[dot]edu.  If I use your idea I will give you credit here.

 

The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats: on Tour

June 24, 2011 by

The Department of English at the University of Freiburg recently hosted a travelling exhibition on the Life and Works of William Butler Yeats. This is an offshoot from the award-winning Yeats exhibition at the National Library of Ireland. My trips to the NLI are usually in pursuit of a manuscript, a microfilm or a rare book, so I had not previously gotten around to paying visit. Having studied his work in a final year undergraduate course, having visited his grave in Drumcliff, having seen the statue in Sligo (demolished by a drunken driver in 2005, but since repaired), and having attended a ‘master class’ by Terry Eagleton on the poem Easter 1916, perhaps I felt I had had enough of Yeats. Still, when the Irish ambassador to Germany showed up around the corner from my office to launch the exhibition, I thought I had better take a look.

William Butler Yeats by John Butler Yeats (1900) (Wikimedia Commons)
William Butler Yeats by John Butler Yeats (1900) (Wikimedia Commons)

The highlight of this occasion was the lecture on Yeats given by His Excellency Ambassador Dan Mulhall to a room packed full of university staff and students. Mulhall has both researched and taught extensively on the period during which Yeats lived. His extensive knowledge of his subject and his experience in giving poetry readings duly lent assuredness and clarity to what he had to say.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bringing Academics and Practitioners Together: The Britain-Zimbabwe Society Research Day on Education in Zimbabwe

June 21, 2011 by

Last Saturday, I attended the Zimbabwe Research Day at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford on the topic of education. Put together by the Britain-Zimbabwe Society, the day brought together academics, activists and others involved in education in Zimbabwe. Speakers came from Zimbabwe, South Africa, the United States, Belgium and the United Kingdom. The wide range of presentations provided an insight into the history of education in Zimbabwe from Barbara Muhamba’s talk on the gendering of education at Catholic missions in the colonial era, to Joanne McGregor’s discussion of the political activism of Zimbabwean students and others in the 1960s and 1970s. The combination of these talks with others which had a more contemporary focus resulted in a broad-ranging discussion of the challenges facing education in Zimbabwe today. Some speakers tackled education including Ngwabi Bhebe, the vice-chancellor of Midlands State University in Zimbabwe, Gerry Mazarire of the University of Zimbabwe, Bruce Mutsvairo of Amersterdam University College and Blessing Makwambeni of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology addressed issue in higher education. Others tackled primary and secondary education includingTerri Barnes of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign who examined the teaching of Zimbabwean history in high schools, Cathy Campbell of the LSE who spoke about a larger project which seeks to help schools provide support to children affected by HIV/AIDS and Pat Akhurst and Pam Stuart who spoke on a long-running link between the towns of Stevenage in the United Kingdom and Kadoma in Zimbabwe. Taking a broader view, Dennis Sinyolo of Education International in Belgium placed the situation of Zimbabwean educators in a global context. Others spoke about education projects that did not necessarily fall within the formal schooling problem: Lee Taylor and Maggie Coates presented a case study on Hlekweni, an adult education program that provides its students with the skills needed to begin their own small businesses, such as carpentry and agriculture, while Chipo Chung described Envision Zimbabwe’s peace education initiative. Just as when I went to the Children and War conference last year, I was struck by the vibrance that this combination of academic historians, activists and social scientists provided and also the opportunity to meet people in different fields who share my interest in Zimbabwe.

Why Canceling Fulbright-Hays Matters

May 22, 2011 by

The first responses to the announcement that the Fulbright-Hays program is cancelled have come from “area studies” scholars who have benefited–or hoped to benefit–from the program. This is understandable, since American researchers who need to work abroad are the most directly affected. But all scholars–and US residents–have a stake in this decision.

According to a post on H-Asia, the Ohio State University is collecting statements from faculty that will be passed on through the University’s government affairs office. In private emails and on Facebook, established scholars and grad students have acknowledged the utility of the DDRA program, and lamented its sudden departure for this year. But so far I haven’t seen much public comment, beyond this post, and an eloquent post on China Beat, in which Maura Cunningham makes the point that we can ill afford to lose area studies specialists at this geopolitical moment.

“By not providing the funding necessary to support this year’s crop of applicants, the government is implying that such work isn’t important, that we can exist in a global community but don’t need to understand it.”

This year’s cancellation is devastating to the research plans of a particular cohort of graduate students. Cruel as it is, the loss of one year of research will not cripple a field. But if the program is suspended for several years, or indefinitely, then scholarship that requires specific language training and long in-country research will be restricted to private universities with endowments to support such research.

I trained at a public university, and benefited from the Fulbright-Hays DDRA program for a year of work split between South Africa and the Netherlands, a trajectory I could not have self-financed, and that would not have been possible only with the support of the African Studies Center at UCLA. My research—and more importantly, my teaching of hundreds of undergraduates a year at a public university—would not be possible without the foundation I received in a year of overseas research as a graduate student.

While it is unlikely we can affect the decision to suspend the Fulbright-Hays program for 2011, concerned scholars need to let decision-makers in Washington know that this funding is crucial for what we do now as teachers and researchers, for how we can educate graduate students, and how we can effectively teach undergrads—who deserve to learn about places outside the US from people with a deep first-hand understanding of other cultures. Without ongoing new research, the significant body of knowledge created from the rich history of Fulbright-Hays grants will soon be out of date, and we will have no way to know it.

Urge your university to make a response. Contact your campus Fulbright-Hays coordinator and ask him or her to object (and to contact this year’s applicants so they don’t hear this news through the grapevine first). Write to your congressional representative and senators, letting them know there is a constituency for informed study and teaching about the world beyond America’s shores.

The global financial crisis is real, and its consequences grave. It should not, however, be reason for the US government to retreat from global engagement.

New issue of History Compass out now! (Vol 9, Issue 5)

May 6, 2011 by
Cover image for Vol. 9 Issue 5

History Compass

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Volume 9, Issue 5 Page 351 – 453

The latest issue of History Compass is available on Wiley Online Library

Africa

The End Conscription Campaign in South Africa: War Resistance in a Divided Society (pages 351–364)
Janet Cherry
Article first published online: 2 MAY 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00768.x

Britain & Ireland

‘I mak Bould to Wrigt’: First-Person Narratives in the History of Poverty in England, c. 1750–1900 (pages 365–373)
Alannah Tomkins
Article first published online: 2 MAY 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00774.x

Caribbean & Latin America

Sexuality, Witchcraft, and Honor in Colonial Spanish America (pages 374–383)
Nicole von Germeten
Article first published online: 2 MAY 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00777.x

Europe

Narrative, Experience and Class: Nineteenth-century Social History in Light of the Linguistic Turn (pages 384–396)
Andrew August
Article first published online: 2 MAY 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00770.x
Vegetius’De re militari: Military Theory in Medieval and Modern Conception (pages 397–409)
Christopher T. Allmand
Article first published online: 2 MAY 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00775.x
Magic in the Middle Ages: History and Historiography (pages 410–422)
David J. Collins
Article first published online: 2 MAY 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00776.x

North America

Shooting the Archives: Document Digitization for Historical–Geographical Collaboration (pages 423–432)
Arn Keeling and John Sandlos
Article first published online: 2 MAY 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00771.x
The Fertility of Scholarship on the History of Reproductive Rights in the United States (pages 433–447)
Joyce Berkman
Article first published online: 2 MAY 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00772.x

Teaching & Learning Guide

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Men, Women and an Integrated History of the Russian Revolutionary Movement (pages 448–453)
Katy Turton
Article first published online: 2 MAY 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00773.x

History Compass Exchanges Comics: Summer Research Grants

April 12, 2011 by

We’ve all applied for them, and we all love them: Summer Research Grants.  There are few things better than getting paid to visit a new part of the country or the world in search of the Holy Grail of documents for your latest project.

Yet sometimes, it can feel as if the cycle of applying for these grants and fellowships is endless.  That’s where this comic comes in:

 

 

For those of you waiting to hear back from your summer grant application process, good luck!

If you have a funny/poignant/thought-provoking/etc.  idea for a history cartoon, please send it to Angela.C.Sutton[at]Vanderbilt[dot]edu.  If I use your idea I will give you credit here.

Globalization and Time

April 8, 2011 by

 The conference ‘Breaking up time: setting the borders between the past, the present and the future’ is currently ongoing at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies. It has been a real privilege to attend this event, which has brought together historians, philosophers and others from all over the world to speak on a diverse range of topics focused around the issue of time.

The papers presented are of the sorts that really force the historian to think and rethink about what exactly s/he is doing when doing history, and that can only be a positive thing. As Professor Jörn Leonhard noted at the opening of the proceedings, the existence of historical time is perhaps the one thing all historians agree upon.  Yet, at the same time, they rarely historicize time.   

Freiburg Münster (Wikimedia Commons)

Freiburg Münster (Wikimedia Commons)

The keynote lecture on ‘Globalization and Time’ was presented last night by Professor Lynn Hunt of UCLA. It is possible to draw attention here only to some of what Professor Hunt had to say. Read the rest of this entry »

New issue of History Compass out now! (Vol 9, Issue 4)

April 7, 2011 by
Cover image for Vol. 9 Issue 4

History Compass

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Volume 9, Issue 4 Page 231 – 350

The latest issue of History Compass is available on Wiley Online Library

Australasia & Pacific

Beyond the Ivory Tower – Higher Education Institutions as Cultural Resource: Case Study of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music (pages 231–245)
Peter Roennfeldt
Article first published online: 3 APR 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00762.x

Britain & Ireland

Money and the English Economy in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (pages 246–256)
Paul Latimer
Article first published online: 3 APR 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00760.x

Europe

Between Czechs and Hungarians: Constructing the Slovak National Identity from 19th Century to the Present (pages 257–268)
Adam Hudek
Article first published online: 3 APR 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00759.x
Beyond the Military State: Sweden’s Great Power Period in Recent Historiography (pages 269–283)
Erik Thomson
Article first published online: 3 APR 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00761.x
Material Culture and Popular Calvinist Worldliness in the Dutch ‘Golden Age’ (pages 284–299)
Tony Maan
Article first published online: 3 APR 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00765.x
History by Parliamentary Vote: Science, Ethics and Politics in the Lumumba Commission (pages 300–311)
Berber Bevernage
Article first published online: 3 APR 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00766.x

Middle & Near East

Recent Perspectives on Christianity in the Modern Arab World (pages 312–325)
Laura Robson
Article first published online: 3 APR 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00767.x

North America

Andrew Jackson, Slavery, and Historians (pages 326–338)
Mark R. Cheathem
Article first published online: 3 APR 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00763.x
Travel Writing as Evidence with Special Attention to Nineteenth-Century Anglo-America (pages 339–350)
Daniel Kilbride
Article first published online: 3 APR 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00764.x

School’s Out: A Postdoc’s Life (Year I)

March 31, 2011 by

Wow, is it really the end of the (Canadian) semester? Well, almost. Classes end next week, my students’ final is a week later, I’m at a conference by the end of the month, a stop at home, and then Europe one more week after that. Whew…not a moment too soon!

Everyone here is feeling the strain, and straining for the relief that the end of term promises. The winter has been unseasonably cold and long in Saskatoon. Many of us are looking forward to research trips abroad. And of course, grading responsibilities and other duties tend to hit hardest at the end of the term.

University of Saskatchewan's Thorvaldson Building (Wikimedia Commons)

Reflecting on the year behind me though, I’ve gained so much at the University of Saskatchewan. I’m surrounded by generously supportive colleagues who have never wavered in helping me adjust to the unfamiliar life of a junior scholar. I can’t speak highly enough of our Chair, support staff, History Department faculty and grad students, and my fellow postdocs, all of whom have welcomed me and answered innumerable questions and requests with poise and kindness. My postdoc supervisor, a kind and gentle elder scholar, has become a mentor and friend. And with their collective help I’ve gained professional experience, credibility, increased my publishing output, and laid the foundations for a potential future in academia. I owe them more than I can express, and this blog post is in part a thank-you.

Read the rest of this entry »

Radio History: Cromwell in Ireland

March 24, 2011 by

 A fifty-minute radio programme which mentions Hiroshima, antichrist, massacres, war criminals, Afghanistan, 9/11, ethnic cleansing, Nagasaki, enslavement, bigotry, racism, military dictators, lunacy, zealousness and Adolf Hitler ought perhaps to be of interest to a wide audience. In this case, the subject was Oliver Cromwell, a name which on its own is sufficient to attract considerable attention in Ireland.  

Radio history, like television history, is difficult to get right and is rarely satisfactory for the specialist. But specialists need to remember that these programmes are not particularly designed for them, and that for the duration they ought perhaps to exchange their shoes or shades for those worn by the ‘ordinary’ public.

Oliver Cromwell (Wikimedia Commons)

Oliver Cromwell (Wikimedia Commons)

 

Dr Patrick Geoghegan’s   Talking History  on Newstalk is one of several history-focused programmes regularly broadcast nationwide in Ireland. Topics of discussion in recent weeks have included the Battle of Waterloo, Mark Anthony, the American Civil War and George Bernard Shaw. On 14 March, the programme took the form of a debate about Cromwell in Ireland, focusing on his nine-month campaign in Ireland in 1649-50 and its legacy.

Read the rest of this entry »


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