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Cliopatria

  • Jun 27, 2005

    Friends of Peter D'Agostino ...

    by Cliopatria

    Professional colleagues and friends of Peter D'Agostino of the University of Illinois, Chicago, are still in shock from his murder in Oak Park on Thursday. Peter was the husband of another historian, Mary Mapes, and the father of an 18 month old daughter, Rita. David Chioni Moore who teaches International Studies at Macalester College says in comments here at Cliopatria:
    Peter D'Agostino was my freshman hall counselor at
  • Jun 27, 2005

    The Rosa Parks Effect

    by Cliopatria

    Today, Mukhtar Mai appeared in front of the Pakistan Supreme Court to plead the case against her rapists. Here is a very good timeline/background of her case. Briefly: in 2002, she was gang-raped on the command of the village elders. Instead of committing suicide or staying silent, she pursued justice in the court of law. Six of her rapists were convic
  • Jun 27, 2005

    Cabbage Now Illegal in South Korean Baseball

    by Cliopatria

    How is this for your weird baseball story of the week (courtesy of Peter Gammons' latest column for espn.com):

    According to the Korean News Bureau, South Korean Doosan Bears' pitcher Park Myung-hwan twice lost his cap while delivering a pitch and each time frozen cabbage leaves fell off his head twice in a game on June 19. The frozen cabbage leaves inside the cap were used to
  • Jun 27, 2005

    Live from the Morocco WHA

    by Cliopatria

    Greetings from al-Akhawayn University, Morocco. I arrived two days ago, and after a whirlwind tour of al-Jibbia, Casablanca, and Rabat, I settled, winded but invigorated, at the campus here in Ifrane. The university here has been wonderfully accomodating to me and the other 150 or so World Historians who have traveled here from such far-flung points as Koula Lumpur and Northern Kentucky University. Their facilities are truely world class. The year's twin themes
  • Jun 26, 2005

    Durbin, Rove, Limbaugh, Amnesty International, and Selective Outrage

    by Cliopatria

    I would like to be clear on something. I think that it is always wrong to use the Nazi analogy (or the Communist/Stalinist/Fascist ones) especially when labeling someone. It is easy, it is cheap, it is tawdry. Thus in the past week, when I found myself defending Richard Durbin, (On Big Tent and the main comment pages at HNN) it was probably fair to ask why I seem to have exempted him from my argument. I think it is a legitimate point, and one about which I want to be clear. This is especially so
  • Jun 26, 2005

    Rhetoric and Outrage

    by Cliopatria

    Brian Leiter's "outrage" at Juan Non-Volokh's critique of Leiter's impeachment posting would have been laughable had it not contained the (since repudiated) threat to"out" Non-Volokh through solicitation of anonymous e-mails. Can you imagine Leiter's real--and justified--outrage had, say, David Horowitz issued a public call for anonymous e-mails to"out" a leftist blogger who had criticized the Academic Bill of Right
  • Jun 26, 2005

    Here We Go Again?

    by Cliopatria

    While courts have, for the most part, upheld the use of" collegiality" in academic personnel processes, I don't think any institution of higher learning that claims to be interested in quality should use the concept. A test of" collegiality" too often serves as a club to punish ideological dissenters among the untenured faculty.

    This morning's Indianapolis Star has a column on the case of Indiana Law School

  • Jun 26, 2005

    Personal Rugby Reflections

    by Cliopatria

    Nothing brings people together like sports. This is especially true if alcohol is involved. Thus this morning I woke up on a Saturday before 8:00 to go to a pub to catch the New Zealand-British Lions rugby match that was played in Wellington. Waking up at 8 was tough enough for me, but I was carrying the handicap of having been up until after 3:00 am to follow not only the end of the Red Sox game (an 8-0 win over the Phillies) but also the finals of the Yankees-Mets (Pedro pitched 8 innings of I
  • Jun 24, 2005

    Faculty Reps Declare War on Their Students

    by Cliopatria

    CUNY has witnessed some peculiar thinking on “academic freedom” over the past few weeks. First, Barbara Bowen, head of the faculty union (which was last heard from claiming that “academic freedom” applied to adjuncts charged with, or convicted of, terrorist crimes associated with ideological causes the union favors) issued a “public letter" asserting that academic freedom was “under attack” at CUNY. She demanded that Chancellor Matthew Gold
  • Jun 24, 2005

    Changing Congress

    by Cliopatria

    For those who missed it, an important study in this morning's Times on the changing nature of Congress. Tracking roll-call votes, social scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal note the dramatic decline in centrists in both the House and the Senate over the last half-century. The figures in the House: a drop from 33 percent in 1955 to 8 percent in 2004. The plunge in the Senate is from 39 senators in 1955 to just
  • Jun 24, 2005

    The Newest Horse in the Rebunk Stable

    by Cliopatria

    We at Rebunk are happy to introduce our newest (and youngest) blogger, Marc Bacharach, a PhD student in political science at Miami University of Ohio. Although he continues the Ohio pipeline, this is the first appointment based solely on merit and not on a personal connection to me. Basically, we’re classing up the joint.

    You all know Marc, you just do not realize that you do. He is, hands down, one of the most thoughtful participants on the comment boards at History News Network. But when

  • Jun 23, 2005

    African-American History and Philadelpha's Schools

    by Cliopatria

    Back from a long trip, I read with interest in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer of a debate over the plan to make African-American history a requirement in Philladelphia's high school curriculum. The debate has been particularly ignited by the release of criticism from the Pennsylvania Speaker of the House, who observes,"most of these kids will never go to Africa".

    The year-long course is supposed to begin with African history, which is one of the things that is creating a