Departments

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Cliopatria

  • Mar 6, 2005

    Colorado Politics

    by Cliopatria

    Last November, I'd say there were two states that were bright spots for Democrats--Illinois, where Barack Obama was elected to the Senate and the also very-talented Melissa Bean scored an upset bid to get elected to the House; and Colorado, where Ken Salazar picked up a GOP Senate seat, his brother John captured a GOP House seat, and the state Dem Party successfully fought off a GOP gerrymander of the state's congressional districts that would have placed another district, the ultra-competitive
  • Mar 6, 2005

    Bush, Visas, and the American Mind

    by Cliopatria

    A vigorous, if polemical debate is being waged over diversity among America’s tenured. In this context it should be noted that the Bush Administration has come down firmly on the side of reducing diversity.

    The exclusion of Dora Maria Tellez, noted at HNN, but at far too few other news venues, continues the administration misuse of laws against terrorists to suppress voices it does not. It does so from barring
  • Mar 5, 2005

    Playthings or Blasting Caps?

    by Cliopatria

    I have an odd affection for Ward Churchill.  I've never met this embattled fellow professor.  I doubt I ever will.  I doubt even more that he has any affection for me, odd or otherwise.

    I'm a military historian.  Sure, I could tell you that one of my specialties is the ethics of war, and that my current research d
  • Mar 5, 2005

    Why I Agree with Everything that You Say and with Nothing that You Say ...

    by Cliopatria

    The Ward Churchill story and the larger, on-going debate about intellectual diversity on American campuses are never resolved for me by intellectual abstractions. Instead, they summon to mind the story of a remarkable moment in 1965. I was then a senior in the theological school at Drew University, president of its student body, and about to return briefly to the South to represent our faculty and students on the Selma to Montgomery March. This week is the 40th anniversary of those remarkable da
  • Mar 5, 2005

    The Filtered Professor

    by Cliopatria

    Yesterday's Pasadena City College Courier reports on the new Internet filters that have been installed on our faculty computers.  Amusingly enough, the student computers in the library and other computing labs have unfiltered access to the Internet.

    In an attempt to curb recreational use of the Internet, a filtering system has been installed on staff and faculty computers to eliminate visits to

  • Mar 4, 2005

    UNC's Group of 71

    by Cliopatria

    Today’s Daily Tar Heel published the letter from the 71 North Carolina faculty members demanding that the UNC administration suspend negotiations with the Pope Foundation about funding an enhanced Western Cultures initiative at the university. (The paper has also run an article and a
  • Mar 4, 2005

    Herodotus would be.... bemused

    by Cliopatria

    For your consideration:
    THE ALAMO, TROY, KING ARTHUR, ALEXANDER and THE AVIATOR will compete for the seventh annual HARRY AWARD. This year's nominees were selected from among all the historical films of 2004. The HARRY AWARD, named after Herodotus, Greek Father of History, is awarded annually by The History Channel® to the film of the previous year that contributed the most to the public's understanding and appreciation of history. The winner will be announced on Sunday, Marc
  • Mar 4, 2005

    Western Cultures at UNC

    by Cliopatria

    Interesting story from the University of North Carolina, where 71 professors have signed a letter criticizing the university for its negotiations with the Pope Center about a sizable donation to establish a Western Cultures program at UNC. As sketched out, the foundation would contribute up to $700,000 annually to help fund the program, which would create a new minor i
  • Mar 3, 2005

    Jon Stewart's Short-Term Memory

    by Cliopatria

    Jon Stewart seems worried that Bush et al may actually have been right about the Middle East. Very short-sighted. Does he think that the insurgency will go away? It took 30 years for us to see the result of the Mossadegh coup. And as others have pointed out, there's a line that can be drawn from 1953 to 1979 and 2001. It's not a straight line in my opinion. Other factors account for the rise of extreme Islamism. But without the victory of the Ayatollahs in Iran in 1979 the Islamists would
  • Mar 3, 2005

    Putin's Version of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939

    by Cliopatria

    From the London Financial Times (2-25-05):

    US president George W. Bush promised to relay the concerns of the three Baltic states to Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart, at their summit in Bratislava yesterday.

    Putin himself added to those concerns in an interview with Slovak radio this week in which he offered an inventive interpretation of the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939, which agreed Russia should annex Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

    Putin claimed th

  • Mar 3, 2005

    Inquisitorial Historiography

    by Cliopatria

    Christine Caldwell Ames' article in the latest AHR [AHA membership required] tackles a very interesting question of disciplinary boundary and historical self-definition:

    The Catholic Church's recent frank apologies for inquisition—its blunt assertion that the office"sull[ied] ... the face of the church"—have reversed centuries of defensiveness that likewise sprang from sixteenth-century, interconfessional
  • Mar 3, 2005

    Columbia Law

    by Cliopatria

    In further testimony to why the intellectual diversity issue isn't one that should be politically divisive, Daily Kos endorses the statement of Columbia Law School dean David Schizer, who has discussed the balance that needs to be struck between academic freedom and academic responsibility.
  • Mar 2, 2005

    Race and Progress (But also: Past and Prologue)

    by Cliopatria

    A colleague was doing research in the library today, and she ran across a couple of articles that she thought might be of interest to me. Both come from the Austin Daily Statesman. The headlines tell the story:

    The first is from Friday, June 21, 1901

    NO PERCEPTIBLE EXCITEMENT

    Two Negroes Lynched Without the Least Ruffle of a Village Calm

    THEY WERE NEGROES WHO CAUSED TROUBLE

    Hence a Lawless Mob Had the Right and Privilege to Take Them Out and Quietly