Departments

;

Cliopatria

  • Jan 7, 2006

    Portrait of a Liberator

    by Cliopatria

    Remarkable letter in today's edition of Stars and Stripes:
    The bottom line up front (BLUF) is this: If the United States leaves Iraq before the job is at least 90 percent done, it would be catastrophic on a biblical scale ("War based on a lie," letter, Nov. 28). First, you would have civil war and ethnic strife. Then would come the genocide — if I offended anyone, I apologize; I meant"ethnic cleansing."
  • Jan 6, 2006

    David Kyvig: Why 2nd Term Presidencies Often Go Wrong

    by Cliopatria

    David Kyvig is Distinguished Research Professor at Northern Illinois University and a recipient of the Bancroft Prize for Explicit and Authentic Acts: Amending the U.S. Constitution, 1776-1995.

    He was interviewed by HNN's Rick Shenkman at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association on January 6, 2006.
  • Jan 6, 2006

    Jack Censer: The Media and the DC Sniper Case

    by Cliopatria

    Jack Censer is the chairman of the History and Art History Department at George Mason University.

    He was interviewed by HNN's Rick Shenkman at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association on January 6, 2006.
  • Jan 6, 2006

    Questions for Samuel Alito

    by Cliopatria

    The confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito are coming up next week. I assume there will be much posturing, but it is hard not to wish for honest and substantive exchanges.

    With that noble end in mind, I am soliciting questions that you would like to see asked. Here is mine.

    “Judge Alito. Many of the most heated judicial disputes today concern, in one way or another, the rights of women. In the 1970s and 80s, an Equal Rights Amendment was submitted to the states but not ratified. H

  • Jan 5, 2006

    Five O'Clock Follies Redux

    by Cliopatria

    U.S. Department of State International Information Program, Dec. 29:
    Insurgents in Iraq are showing little capacity to keep up numerous and persistent attacks, a senior U.S. general in Baghdad says.

    At a briefing December 29, Air Force Brigadier General C.D. Alston said there are three reasons for the diminishing capability of the insurgents to keep up attacks...

    The secur
  • Jan 4, 2006

    NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE (Vol. 12, #1; 4 JANUARY 2006)

    by Cliopatria

    by Bruce Craig (editor) NATIONAL COALITION FOR HISTORY (NCH) Website at http://www.h_net.org/~nch/


    1. SENATE CONFIRMS BRUCE COLE FOR SECOND TERM AS NEH CHAIR
    2. NEH ANNOUNCES $12 MILLION IN AWARDS AND GRANTS
    3. BITS AND BYTES: Preserve America Grants; SAA Call for Awards Nominations
    4. ARTICLES OF INTEREST: No posting this week

    1. SENATE CONFIRMS BRUCE COLE FOR SECOND TERM AS NEH CHAIR On 21 Decemb
  • Jan 4, 2006

    PA-NY Battle

    by Cliopatria

    The New York Republican Party has been doing its best to make itself irrelevant--most recently when state Senate majority leader Joe Bruno floated the name of Donald Trump as a possible gubernatorial candidate this fall. Trump quickly shot down the idea.

    Now, from PA, comes news that Lynn Swann is seeking the GOP nomination for governor. The GOP isn't exactly bringing its"first team" against incumbent Ed Rendell--the frontrunne

  • Jan 4, 2006

    Collegiality 102

    by Cliopatria

    A few weeks ago, I responded to part one in a series of essays advocating an increased use of “collegiality” in training graduate students. In part two, out today in IHE, author Donald Hall, a professor of English at West Virginia and a specialist in specialist in British studies, queer theory, and cultural studies, takes his thesis to even more alarming degrees.

    Collegialit

  • Jan 4, 2006

    Colorado and Tenure

    by Cliopatria

    Very interesting article in this morning's Chronicle about the University of Colorado's decision to institute a general review--under strong political pressure--of its tenure process. The subtext question: was the decision to hire and tenure Ward Churcill an anomaly, or a signal of a broader problem in the system? The university has hired a retired Air Force general, Howell Es
  • Jan 4, 2006

    Cliopatria Does Philadelphia

    by Cliopatria

    The American Historical Association convention meets this week in Philadelphia, beginning on Thursday and concluding on Sunday. It's the rare occasion when the Cliopatricians can gather in one place. About half of us will be there, a larger gathering and somewhat different mix of us than last year. Here are some places where we'll be found:

    Jonathan Reynolds is bringing a group of students from Northern Kentucky University t

  • Jan 3, 2006

    Baptist museum 'a teaching gallery'

    by Cliopatria

    When offered a deal that would get him out of jail, Baptist preacher John Waller refused to budge.

    Waller, imprisoned in Middlesex County in the early 1770s for his beliefs, would have to agree to stop spreading his Baptist message because the only accepted church at the time was the Church of England.

    Waller and three other preachers refused the deal and spent 46 days behind bars. In a letter to the judge, Waller explained that he would be "sinning against God&quo
  • Jan 3, 2006

    Exactly how many words did the Sage of Baltimore write?

    by Cliopatria

    Today's New York Times reports that H.L. Mencken was "among the most prolific" American writers and social critics.

    "In a career of almost 50 years, Mencken wrote more than 70 million words—many intended to expose hypocrisy, debunk received wisdom and take on all manner of sacred cows," writes Thomas Vinciguerra.

    But not even Mencken could have produced that many words! Composing copy at that rate would have required him to pound out more than 1.4 mi
  • Jan 3, 2006

    The Holocaust, From a Teenage View

    by Cliopatria

    Sixty years ago, Imre Kertész emerged as an emaciated Jewish teenager from the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald. Thirty years later, he relived his deportation, imprisonment and survival in a novel called "Fateless." Now, at 76, the amiable Hungarian finds himself revisiting the experience as the writer of the script for a movie, also "Fateless."

    "How can you not be touched by seeing your own story?" asked Mr. Kertész, who won the 2002 Nobel prize
  • Jan 3, 2006

    SWEENEY TODD: FACT OR FICTION?

    by Cliopatria

    'He kept a shop in London Town /Of fancy clients and good renown/And what if none of their souls were saved?/They went to their maker impeccably shaved.'

    So goes 'The Ballad of Sweeney Todd' in Stephen Sondheim's popular musical.
    For two centuries, newspaper-readers, theatre-goers and young children have been repelled and entranced by the exploits of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street; a mass murderer who slit the throats of his clientele as they relaxed in the barber's chair.
  • Jan 3, 2006

    More Noted Things

    by Cliopatria

    Daniel Mark Epstein,"Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman: War's Kindred Spirits," Civil War Times, February 2006. In difficult times, Lincoln and Whitman bid farewell to 1862.

    Last year, David Brooks created an award for best essays of the year. Named for Sidney Hook, it was called"the Hookies." That seemed undignified, so he's renamed them"the Sidneys" and

  • Jan 3, 2006

    Ten Events to Understand Contemporary France

    by Cliopatria

    High school kids know or don't know important things about history, and I'd give myself a concussion every day if I banged my head on my desk in disbelief. I might be happy if they knew of the revolution, that it had something to do with defining democracy and liberty. Undergraduates should know more; too bad the university won’t always compel them to learn it. David Gelernter has more faith in ou