Archive for the ‘Europe’ Category
December 5, 2011
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. (more…)
Tags:afro-caribbean, anthropology, anti-immigration, blackface, Canada, Dordrecht, Dutch tradition, Holland, Netherlands, Paramaribo, post-colonialism, protest, PVV, race, racism, right-wing politics, Sinterklaas, slave trade, slavery, Suriname, UNESCO, Vancouver, Zwarte Piet
Posted in Europe, General, Latin America and Caribbean, North America | 1 Comment »
October 20, 2011
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 (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.
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Tags:Academic Conference, British History, Early modern Ireland, European History, History Compass Exchanges, Ireland, Natives and newcomers, Tudor-Stuart Ireland
Posted in Britain and Ireland, Conferences, Europe, Podcast | Leave a Comment »
April 8, 2011
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)
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. (more…)
Tags:Academic Conference, conference, education, European History, globalization, historical research, historiography, History Compass, History Compass Exchanges, history of science, humanities, methodology, World History, writing
Posted in Conferences, Europe, General, North America, World | 2 Comments »
March 24, 2011
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)
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.
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Tags:British History, History Compass Exchanges, humanities, Ireland, oliver cromwell, radio history, talking history
Posted in Britain and Ireland, Europe, General, Podcast | Leave a Comment »
February 25, 2011
With the German winter semester drawing to a close, the members of the Graduiertenkolleg Freunde, Gönner, Getreue (Friends, Patrons, Clients) gathered last weekend in the village of Altglashütten along with some guests. The topic of the weekend was ‘Methodological approaches to friendship and patronage’, with the main attention being focused on discourse analysis and network analysis. The variety in the weather (overcast on Friday, sunny on Saturday and a blizzard on Sunday) was matched by the diversity of approaches and perspectives at what proved to be a very worthwhile event.
A snowy Sunday at Altglasshütten (image by author)
The key ingredient here was time.
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Tags:Academic Conference, European History, Friendship, globalization, Graduate School, historical research, History Compass Exchanges, Interdisciplinary, methodology, Patronage, philosophy, Popular Culture, Postgraduates, social sciences, technology, University of Freiburg, World History
Posted in Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference, Conferences, Europe, General, North America, Online Resources, World | Leave a Comment »
February 14, 2011
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Of course, not all historians have this strange a way of showing love, but should you be on the receiving end of a getaway like this, let me assure you that it was meant to be both romantic and beautiful.
Besides, who turns down free photocopying at an archive?
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
Tags:archival research, historians in love, History Compass Exchanges, history of St. Valentine, love, love and the archive, relics, saints, St. Valentine, travel, Valentine's Day
Posted in Europe, HCE Comics | 2 Comments »
February 10, 2011
As I write, I can hear voices coming through the wall. In the coffee room, two postgraduates from the Freunde, Gönner, Getreue Research Group are passionately discussing their work.
In recent months, I have been fortunate to occupy an office within the research space which is home to Graduiertenkolleg 1288, Friends, Patrons, Clients, at the University of Freiburg. The work of this interdisciplinary PhD group, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, is focused on the ‘practice and semantics of friendship and patronage in historical, anthropological and cross-cultural perspectives’. Within these broad parameters, there is a great deal of varied and exciting work happening. Students sitting side by side investigate issues as far apart, chronologically at least, as ‘Revenge as social practice in Archaic and Classical Greece’ and ‘The Internet and Egyptian concepts of friendship in transition’. If those topics don’t appeal to you, how about the Maori and Pakeha in New Zealand, Seneca, Qing-China, or the punk and hardcore-scene in Buenos Aires? (more…)
Tags:Academic Conference, China, European History, Graduate School, historical research, History Compass Exchanges, Interdisciplinary, methodology, World History
Posted in Asia, Australasia and Pacific, Europe, General, Latin America and Caribbean, World | Leave a Comment »
November 25, 2010
These are strange times for Ireland, as it makes front pages across the globe and grabs the spotlight on international news channels. Meanwhile, an exhibition entitled ‘Ireland in Turmoil’ will run until April at the Long Room of the Trinity College Library in Dublin. Yet the crisis referred to in the latter instance is not the current mess we find ourselves in, but the 1641 rebellion. A visit to http://1641.tcd.ie/ reminds us that turmoil and Ireland are old and intimate acquaintances. (more…)
Tags:archives, British History, database, digital humanities, digitization, historical research, History Compass, History Compass Exchanges, humanities, Ireland, publishing, technology
Posted in Britain and Ireland, digital humanities, Europe, General, Online Resources, World | Leave a Comment »
November 5, 2010
One of my responsibilities as a postdoc at the University of Saskatchewan is to teach one course per year. This isn’t entirely new to me. I TAed for a dozen years, and was the instructor of record for a course last year at the University of California. But I’m still pretty junior in terms of running my own classes.
In anticipation of teaching a course in twentieth-century European history this coming term, I’m thinking about how I want to structure the course, organize themes, and what I want to impart to my students. Essentially, the purpose of the course will affect its structure. But what is the purpose of the course? Why do we teach history? And how does this affect our delivery?
How can we use this space most effectively? (Wikimedia Commons)
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Tags:classroom, European History, history, History Compass, History Compass Exchanges, humanities, lecture, purpose of history, seminar, teaching, teaching methods, value of humanities
Posted in Europe, General | 3 Comments »
September 16, 2010
It’s that time of year. Shellen Xiao Wu posted here recently regarding her experience of ‘Transitioning from Student to Teacher’, while Justin Bengry has told us ‘It’s a Post-Doc Life’ in Saskatchewan. I’m happy to see fellow News Editors taking steps forward in their careers, and I am glad to report that it’s a post-doc life for me too.
Within the next few days, I will find myself at a new university in a new city; Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, to be precise. Naturally, therefore, Shellen’s and Justin’s reflections are of particular interest to me. Justin’s point about the need to ‘hit the ground running’ is, I think, crucially important. Although post-docs are not quite in the position of ‘higher authority’ that Shellen now luckily finds herself in, it is most definitely a situation very different from the early stages of graduate study. There is an immediate expectation that we will give seminar presentations and produce publications, and rightly so. Embracing these early challenges can help to ensure that we do hit the ground running, and help to make us aware of the extent to which the ground itself is, perhaps, moving too.
Homer and Aristotle at Uni Freiburg (Wikimedia Commons)
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Tags:European History, funding, History Compass Exchanges, IRCHSS, Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, University of Freiburg, writing
Posted in Britain and Ireland, Europe, General | 3 Comments »
July 15, 2010
As an historian I’ve probably gained more sympathy and understanding of the importance of my discipline from my travels and experiences outside the classroom. There are moments of sudden and profound understanding that have given me chills. I first experienced this on my first trip to Germany. Walking among the trees down the former East Berlin’s Unter den Linden I was overwhelmed by history, the power of space, and the profound social and cultural transformations that this street had seen and now represented.
National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Photo: Justin Bengry)
With many more trips to Europe, and the experience of many more sites of historical unrest and change, I thought I had become dulled to such emotive responses to history. And then I took a week-long road trip across the Balkans in a rented Fiat.
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Tags:bosnian war, European History, history, History Compass, History Compass Exchanges, identity, memory, place, politics, sarajevo, space, war
Posted in Europe, General | 3 Comments »
July 8, 2010
South African fan in Johannesburg during World Cup 2010 (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
As with the Beijing Olympics, the South African World Cup has shone a spotlight onto its host country, highlighting its diverse history for the world to see. While South Africa has traditionally been known for apartheid, the World Cup has successfully illuminated all parts of the nation’s history. For many in the world, the World Cup served as the first introduction of not only South Africa’s apartheid past, but also of a nation’s ability to take steps necessary to repair itself from a damage many historians have called “irreparable.”
One needs only to plug “South Africa” and “World Cup” into any search engine in order to find out more about South Africa’s struggle with racism and fledgling democracy. Alongside the report of each goal scored by Tshabalala is a history lesson of how such a thing would not have been possible a short generation ago when South Africa’s team barred blacks from playing. One article even claims that it was soccer that defeated apartheid! (more…)
Tags:apartheid, FIFA, football, history and sports, history of sport, Jesse Owens, Olympics, soccer, South Africa, sports, teaching, world cup
Posted in Africa, Europe, General, Latin America and Caribbean, World | 3 Comments »
June 23, 2010
Check to see if photography is allowed in the archive. (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
While some of us are lucky to have digitized access to all the sources we need, and can search them online from the convenience of home or an air-conditioned office, many more will be heading out to the archives this summer. Some archives, like the British National Archives/Public Records Office, are pristine and equipped with amenities like climate control, a snack bar, secure lockers for storage, and an internet café. Others consist of little more than a stack of unorganized papers inside of a sweltering one-room shack without electricity or running water.
Fortunately, most fall somewhere in between, and you can have a successful research trip with some beforehand preparation. There are many comprehensive lists of archival tips available online, so below I will list a few that tend to be neglected or underemphasized.
- Every archive has different rules regarding photography, photocopying, and what you may or may not bring into the document room with you. Find out beforehand so you can best formulate a plan of attack. There’s nothing worse than buying a new camera only to find out that photography is not allowed, or depending on typed transcription only to discover that computers are banned from the room.
- Be aware of hidden costs. Many archives are free to use, but this varies and some charge a small fee to join, an additional fee to use a camera, and most charge above-average rates for photocopies. In addition, some may charge for parking, for storing your belongings not allowed in the documents room, or for the rental of tools like dust masks, gloves, pencils, magnifying glasses, etc.
- Find out beforehand the names of archivists working there and make it a point to introduce yourself. They know much more than you ever will about what is in their archive and a polite word can save you a lot of time or help you find something you overlooked. The importance of this varies by country, and in some places, can literally be the difference between being allowed to see what you came to see, and being denied access.
- If you come across images, find out before you leave how to obtain copyrights for them for inclusion in your next book. It may not be possible to do this once you leave, and you’ll regret it forever. (Just ask my committee…)
- If one of the document/s you need is/are currently in use, try to be excited instead of annoyed. If you can find the person working in the same collection of documents as you, make it a point to speak with them (just not in the documents room). Get to know their project so you can keep them in mind for future panels or joint projects. Ask them what they have seen regarding your topic while working in the collection. It’s amazing what someone else’s fresh perspective on a topic close to yours will do for the way you think about your documents. If they are affable, you may want to work out the most efficient system for sharing the documents so no one has to be inconvenienced.
Feel free to add anything else you can think of, or to share anecdotes of you archival experience below.
Tags:archives, document collections, photography
Posted in Britain and Ireland, Europe, Online Resources | 5 Comments »
May 26, 2010
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
Picking the right title for your dissertation, article, or book can seem daunting. Of course a title is important for many purposes, from helping to orient readers to reasons related to search engine optimization. Unfortunately, we are never taught how to name our work, and everybody has a different opinion on what makes a good title.
We all know, however, that a good title is essential. It’s not that a good title can sell a shoddy book, but a bad title will turn readers off or cause your book to be overlooked by readers less savvy in their use of search engines and card catalogs.
In a dissertation seminar at Vanderbilt University, early modern historian Dr. Katherine Crawford once said that good titles contain not only important keywords, but also the argument of the book in some way.
Of course it’s tough to condense a paragraph or more of argument into a snappy title, but it’s been done before and can be done again. Here are three great examples:
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Tags:age of revolutions, argument, atlantic creoles, atlantic slave trade, early modern, history, History Compass Exchanges, keywords, nationalism, search engine optimization, titles
Posted in Africa, Europe, General, Latin America and Caribbean | 4 Comments »
May 12, 2010
Aside from adding a splash of color to one’s dissertation or latest book, there are many ways using old maps can enhance one’s historical project. While many look to maps to understand how borders and boundaries evolve, to determine the environmental changes that affect our history, or to deconstruct world-processes like colonialism and empire, Dr. Helmut Walser Smith, Vanderbilt’s Martha Rivers Ingram Chair of History and Director of the Max Kade Center for European and German Studies, has found unusual and innovative ways to use early maps to shape and further his understanding of European intellectual history.
Etzlaub's RomeWay Map, 1500. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
As an avid collector of old maps, Smith came across an upside-down (or South-oriented) map of what was essentially Germany from 1500 that captured his imagination—the Romeway Map. It was titled so because Rome is at the very top, and it was intended for millennial pilgrims to make their final voyage there before the end of the world. As a modern historian of nationalism, Smith knew little about why such a map existed, and started looking into the origins of it.
In addition to his answers, Smith found that investigating the Romeway map raised a whole host of new questions about concepts that had been taken for granted. Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm argue that nations are products of modernization, and yet here was a map that suggested conceptions of the nation were more complex, with roots that reach into the early modern. Smith’s research of 16th century mapmaking led him to think about what nation meant in the early modern period; namely that it was a more cohesive cultural idea than he had assumed. Smith discovered that these maps (which often came with descriptions from the makers) are just one cultural product among many that encouraged him to question in which terms early modern people conceived of their nation(s).
It was this thinking that created the framework for Smith’s latest book The Continuities of German History: Nation, Religion, and Race Across the Long Nineteenth Century. In the first chapter (“The Mirror Turn Lamp: Senses of the Nation Before Nationalism”), Smith argues (more…)
Tags:Atlantic History, atlas, Cartography, early modern Europe, European History, German History, History Compass Exchanges, Mapmaking, maps, Maritime History, national identity, religious history, Western Civilization
Posted in Europe, General, World | 5 Comments »
