Historiann

How long has it been since you heard someone called a “revisionist,” or heard someone muttering darkly about “revisionism” after a job talk or search committee meeting?  (For all of the non-historians out there who might still be reading:  “revisionism” was a charge thrown around a lot in the 1980s and 1990s by those historians who imagined that history is the pursuit of Unchanging Truth, and who were generally quite hostile to most of the new approaches to history since 1960 or so–social history, subaltern history, feminist history, queer theory–pretty much everything except political and intellectual history focused on DWEMs, that is, Dead White European/Euro-American Males.  Anyone who had different ideas or subjects in mind were called “revisionists,” which implied that we were doing Made-Up history, which was seen as an attack on the Unchanging Truth.)  I think it’s been nearly a decade since I’ve heard these terms in serious conversations. Continue Reading »

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He’s mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it any more!  (WARNING:  the language is NSFW or children.  Just sayin’.)  Via The Daily Beast:

How many of us can relate to the “expert” in this video?  “I spent my entire life attending the nation’s most prestigious schools to talk about bull$h!t like this.  I’m really just happy to be on TV.”  Awesome! Continue Reading »

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These boots were made for kicking some a$$!

Hiya, folks!  Hecksapoppin here–it’s warm and clear here on the High Plains Desert, so I have to pitch hay while the sun shines.  Here are some ideas to keep you occupied while I’m out.

• Isis the Scientist writes about the “Mythical Sunshine and Unicorns of University-Based Child Care.”  We see those little chain gangs of toddlers and preschoolers on campus–they must be somebody’s kids.  Why not yours? 
• The Mohegans have elected Lynn Malerba, a woman Sachem, for the first time since the eighteenth century.  In my book, I argued that the Algonquian Indians had no tradition of female political leadership, and that the so-called “squaw Sachems” of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were evidence of the stresses of colonialism on Indian peoples.  (And of course, having women leaders became further evidence in English minds that Indian peoples didn’t deserve political sovereignty.  Never mind Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Anne, of course.)
• It’s only March 6, but I think we already have our Mansplainer of the Month.  Of course, it makes perfect sense that one 40 year-old 14-page article probably would have changed my intellectual life.  How tragic for me that I missed this Rosetta Stone!  All is lost!  I’ve submitted my resignation letter to my department Chair already, and will go dark here at Historiann.com as of midnight Sunday.
• A former No Child Left Behind advocate changes her mind and decides that testing kids to death isn’t teh awesome:  Continue Reading »

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Katha Pollitt, in an article called “Whatever Happened to Candidate Obama,” writes this (emphases mine):

I’m still glad I supported Obama over Hillary Clinton. If Hillary had won the election, every single day would be a festival of misogyny. We would hear constantly about her voice, her laugh, her wrinkles, her marriage and what a heartless, evil bitch she is for doing something–whatever!–men have done since the Stone Age. Each week would bring its quotient of pieces by fancy women writers explaining why they were right not to have liked her in the first place.Liberal pundits would blame her for discouraging the armies of hope and change, for bringing back the same-old same-old cronies and advisers, for letting healthcare reform get bogged down in inside deals, for failing to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan–which would be attributed to her being a woman and needing to show toughness–for cozying up to Wall Street, deferring to the Republicans and ignoring the cries of the people. In other words, for doing pretty much what Obama is doing. This way I get to think, Whew, at least you can’t blame this on a woman.

Now, I’m actually sympathetic to Pollitt’s viewpoint that “at least you can’t blame this on a woman.”  If we had elected Hillary Clinton President of the U.S., I’m sure she’d be getting even less credit for things that had gone well and even more blame for things that had gone poorly than President Barack Obama.  But–did Pollitt or anyone else proofread this paragraph?  As my professors used to say in cultural studies seminars in the early 1990s–there’s a lot of ”slippage” here.

I’m sure everything will be so totally different when we have that perfect, unassailable, totally awesome female Presidential or Vice-Presidential candidate!  Instead of that unstable freak Victoria Woodhull, or the dangerously radical Shirley Chisholm, or that crooked, incompetent Geraldine Ferraro, or that unserious, stupid ”Caribou Barbie” Sarah Palin, or that old b!tch, Clinton.  (Or, as Pollitt calls her instead, “Hillary,” in a column in which she never refers to President Obama as “Barack.”  Not once.)  Continue Reading »

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Some of the left blogs are up in arms over a would-be production History Channel miniseries about the John F. Kennedy presidency.  (Here’s an overview of the controversy, and here’s the petition drive with the slick video protesting the Kennedy script.)  I utterly disagree, for three reasons.  First of all, the Kennedys, an immensely privileged, powerful, and wealthy family that has been prominent in American politics for sixty more than seventy years, are no one’s property.  They’re not the property of Democrats, of Irish-Americans, of Massachusetts residents, of Roman Catholics, or even of historians.  They were public figures, so even in life anyone was allowed to say anything about them, true or not, and they’re even entitled to call what they say “history.”  (It’s up to us readers to render our own judgment.) 

Secondly, great writers and artists throughout history have used real people and historical events as inspirations for works of art–”Richard III,” Jacques-Louis David’s portraits of Napoleon, “Nixon in China,” and even “Let Them Eat Jellybeans,” for example–most of which were not “historically accurate” because they were made or produced to make a larger point about human nature, the nature of power, and/or the power of the state.  I’m not saying this silly flick will amount to great art, since it’s just a made-for-cable miniseries, but the point is that no one owns American history.  Anyone can tell any stories they like about American history–some may find that disturbing, but that’s what I like about it.  It’s a free country.

Finally–have any of you ever tried actually watching the History Channel?  Continue Reading »

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Why do the Villagers hate politics?

I'll bust a cap in your a$$!

“The way Congress is working right now, I decided I could make a better contribution to my state and country on a smaller stage,” [Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan] Bayh told me Tuesday. “There are some ideologues in the Senate. There are some staunch partisans. The vast majority are good, decent people who are trapped in a system that does not let that goodness and decency translate itself into legislative accomplishments.”

When his father Birch Bayh was running for re-election in 1968, Bayh noted, Republican leader Everett Dirksen approached the Democrat on the Senate floor and asked how he could help. “It’s unthinkable today,” Bayh said. “One after another, the barriers to incivility get broken down.

Senators actively fundraise against their colleagues, they campaign against their colleagues and that is not conducive to consensus building if you know the people you have to work with want to do you in.”

Uhhh. . . call me crazy, but I don’t want Mitch McConnell raising money for Democratic Senators’ re-elections!  It seems like the very definition of politics is that “the people  you have to work with want to do you in.”  Continue Reading »

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I’m sure many of you get random e-mails from students in grades 5-12 asking you to enlighten them about a particular research topic.  These all have appeared to me to be fishing expeditions to see if I’ll do someone’s homework for hir.  (The “pilgrims” of Plymouth Plantation fame are big in the fall with elementary school students, and women’s history projects are popular in the winter and early spring with high school students, in my experience.)  Homostorian Americanist e-mailed me the following exchange from this weekend:

Hello,My name is XXXX XXXXXXX and I am a student at Redacted High School. I am doing a Project on Women’s Right’s / Women’s History, for National History Day. I saw that you teach a lot about Women’s History, and I was wondering if you could tell me anything you know about women in the U.S? How did women’s right’s come about?  Who was involved?  Were there any organizations for and/or against women’s rights? What is you opinion on women in politics today? Do you know anything about women’s rights in [my state]? Anything else would be very helpful.
Thank you for your time.
XXXX

Either the student wasn’t instructed properly how to ask more specific questions, or ze decided that ze didn’t need to make even a feint at asking for guidance in doing research, rather than filling in the blanks.  Homostorian Americanist and I disagree slightly:  ze thinks that secondary school teachers encourage students randomly to e-mail us, whereas I think that even if that’s the case, they get better coaching than this letter would indicate.  (Googling “expert in women’s rights/women’s history in [my state]” is as much research as this student did, I bet.)  As we all know, our students regularly fail to follow our carefully laid out, patiently and thoroughly explained instructions–we can’t blame the teacher for this.  (Probably.)

So, H.A. replied quite kindly: Continue Reading »

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Charles Estienne, 1545

Douche!  (Variants:  douchebag, douchenozzle).

It’s funny, right?  Calling someone–usually a man–a douche is funny, because it associates him with an unpleasant process, and it implies a weakness and/or stupidity that d!ck doesn’t.  (D!ck is still an insult, but because of its association with male genitalia, there’s a recognition of power in calling someone a d!ck that the other d-word doesn’t have.)  This is an insult that appears to have gained popularity in the past five or ten years, with people who are younger than me (20s and 30s, from what I can tell).

I don’t like it and I don’t use the word because it appears to me to get its insulting kick from its association with ladyparts, which we all know are nasty, smelly, leaky, and disgusting.  That’s what douching is for, right?  To attempt to manage or correct all of that nasty, smelly, leaking, disgusting mess.  Continue Reading »

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Well, it’s been quite a holiday here in the ancestral homeland–everyone got here safely for the holiday celebrations, but it looks like our ride home next week will be a little more complicated, thanks to the latest wannbe-Jihadi’s attempt on an American airliner.  Thanks a lot, a$$hole!  We still have to take our frakkin’ shoes off every time we go through airport security eight years after “shoe bomber” a$$hole Richard Reid tried to set his chucks alight.  I wonder what new meaningless ritual inconvenience awaits us now?  Let me guess:  no more pixie sticks and juice boxes allowed in our carry-on bags, because this a$$hole tried to mix a powder with a liquid.  (Does Homeland Security know about the explosive properties of Pop Rocks?  Because I don’t want to fly if anyone is carrying Pop Rocks.) 

On a happier note:  here are a few images from our Christmas here in the Northwest Territory: Continue Reading »

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(WARNING:  NSFW or small children.)  This guy has it exactly right:  Santa, or Satan?  I’ve long thought that the Santa in the Rankin-Bass claymation “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was a major-league jerk (or d!ck, or d-bag, as this video suggests.  H/t to commenter Mother of ALL for sending it along.)  Also, Donner is clearly a Hockey Dad who’s guaranteed to get evicted from the arena at least once a season.

I grew up watching this animated feature, I usually catch it when it’s on broadcast TV during the “Holiday Season,” and I’ve really wondered about the piling on by the adult figures in the first half of the show.  Then again, it’s probably on balance a good show for children, because it features a major hero in gay history, our pal Hermie, the aspiring dentist!  Hermie, Rudolph, and all of the “misfit toys” are clearly stand-ins for disabled, gay, fat, immigrant, or for any kid who gets teased about something on a regular basis.

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