Posted under American history & European history & GLBTQ & Gender & bad language & race & women's history
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 »





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.