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Cliopatria

  • Feb 3, 2005

    Writing as if the malevolent read.

    by Cliopatria

    The “Churchill incident” raises some “interesting” (as in, “may you live in interesting times”) questions for bloggers and academics alike. If you believe in the centrality of free speech to academic life, hell, to American life, the backlash against Ward Churchill has become far more offensive and frightening then anything he did or said.

    I know that was not the intent of some of his critics. (See
  • Feb 3, 2005

    Brown

    by Cliopatria

    From Brown president Ruth Simmons, a call for greater intellecual diversity on campus, given that"the lack of diversity of opinion on campus." Students have told her of a" chilling effect caused by the dominance of certain voices on the spectrum of moral and political thought," which is not conducive to a quality education.

    Extraordinary.

  • Feb 3, 2005

    Cliopatria Welcomes Mark Grimsley and Caleb McDaniel ...

    by Cliopatria

    It's an enormous pleasure to welcome Mark Grimsley and Caleb McDaniel to Cliopatria. At the same time, it is almost redundant, because I've recently recommended their work to you so often. It's a bit like discovering that your second cousins are, in fact, your brothers.

    Caleb McDaniel was born and raised in Texas, where he did his undergraduate work and earned an M. A. in philosophy at Texas A & M. From his National Merit Sch

  • Feb 3, 2005

    Stumbling to Glory

    by Cliopatria

    When an antiquated and undemocratic regime falls quickly, those who follow it often do so with little firm idea what they want or how they will achieve it. Slogans --"progress,""prosperity,"" catching up with the rest of the world,""freedom" -- and a sense that there are places in the world where life is better -- though those societies threaten the sovereignty of a nation in flux, while they inspire its inchoate leadership -- are all the plan that really exists. Or perhaps it would be more a

  • Feb 3, 2005

    A bad taste of Malkin in my mouth

    by Cliopatria

    I finally had a debate with Michelle Malkin face-to-face, and now she has quickly taken to her blog www.michellemalkin.com to complain of being victimized and slam me and everything connected with it. The facts, briefly, are that she was invited to speak at Emory some time ago by the College Republicans, as can be deduced by the publicity for her appearance that can still be seen on websites like that of Young Americans for Freedom. The College Democr
  • Feb 2, 2005

    Contrasting Hamilton and Colorado

    by Cliopatria

    The furor regarding Hamilton College's decision to invite as a speaker Colorado professor Ward Churchill, who ruminated about the 9/11 attacks that"if there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it,” continues to intensify. In the process, we’ve seen commendable conduct by the officials at Hamilton, and a
  • Feb 1, 2005

    Historiographical Triangulation

    by Cliopatria

    This could be good, or it could be awful. Or it might be a good first draft, but the effort certainly seems worth noting (emphasis added):

    A middle school history textbook jointly written by scholars, teachers and historians of China, Japan and South Korea will be published in May, according to the Asahi Shimbun on Saturday.
    ...
    The committee has been engaged in compiling the work since
  • Jan 31, 2005

    The Sudan, Blogs, and Williams College

    by Cliopatria

    Rebunkers by now know what I think and have thought about Sudan for some time. We’ve cried “Never Again!” with regard for genocide, and then watched it happen again due to our fecklessness, cluelessness, and callousness. In the past year much of the world until very recently fiddled while Darfur burned, and bureaucrats debated whether the human rights atrocity in Sudan amounted to genocide. Someday maybe we will realize that beyond the human rights and fundamental justice arguments, there are co
  • Jan 31, 2005

    Some Notes and Carnivals ...

    by Cliopatria

    My favorite meal at the SHA convention in Memphis last year was one I shared with Leon Litwack of UC, Berkeley, his lovely wife, and Bill Scarborough of the University of Southern Mississippi. You couldn't imagine two more unlikely companions over a meal than Litwack and Scarborough. Litwack is a"red diaper baby" and, into his seniority, remains a stalwart of the academic Left. Scarborough, on the other hand, is a tough old right-winger, who has written admiringly of the slave managers on the ol
  • Jan 31, 2005

    Iraq's Elections: First Impressions

    by Cliopatria

    The elections have gone off in Iraq with few hitches. Yes, it will be easy to find some imperfections. Yes, there was violence. But the imperfections do not amount to enough to invalidate what a remarkable event this is, and the violence is far less than what the naysayers expected. In sum, this is a victory for the Iraqi people.

    As a consequence, this is a victory for the Bush administration. This puts many liberals in a tough position, of course. It also points out to the problems inhere

  • Jan 30, 2005

    Run Arnold Run

    by Cliopatria

    I'm in DC this weekend. One thing I always enjoy when coming to the Capitol is to see which group will be staging a weekend protest march. Having just come from Union Station, I noticed a group of around 20, with placards, congregating. The message?"Get Pumped Up" and"Run Arnold Run." The cause? A constitutional amendment to allow foreign-born citizens to run for President.

    Speaking of quixotic crusades . . .

    My favorite Illinois Republican is back in the

  • Jan 30, 2005

    Kuznicki on Artichokes and States

    by Cliopatria

    Jason Kuznicki's first post at L&P is actually a teaser for a longer essay at his own blog in which he argues that the command economies of modernity are more equivalent to the absolutist regimes of early modernity than usually credited (and he's asking for historians to comment, so here goes). A second thesis -- though he recognizes that he's just e

  • Jan 29, 2005

    The Vote

    by Cliopatria

    I cannot help but be excited about the vote in Iraq. I will try not to sound like a Friedman column but a new social memory is about to be constructed in Iraq. A memory of pollstations, of registers, of lists of names, of celebrations after victory. A memory that will prove a strong tonic against the oppression of the past decades. Amid the violence, amid the chaos, amid the harsh conflict for power, some Iraqis will cast their vote, voice their opinion, and elect someone else to stand as their
  • Jan 29, 2005

    Looking Ahead

    by Cliopatria

    The other day, a couple of students asked me about the likelihood of a"six-year itch" for the Repubs in 2006. With the occupation of Iraq growing increasingly unpopular yet no signs existing that it will end soon, and as increasing deficits at least raise the possibility of an economic downturn, the Republicans would seem vulnerable. In the last five sixth-year midterm elections (1958, 1966, 1974, 1986, and 1998), only in 1998 did the out-of-power party not score well. And 1998 was clearly a his
  • Jan 29, 2005

    Reinterpreting 9/11

    by Cliopatria

    Interesting controversy developing at Hamilton College, which invited Ward Churchill, chairman of Colorado's Ethnic Studies Department, to lead off the spring lecture series of the Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture's spring lecture series. The Kirkland Project touts its commitment to"intellectual inquiry and social justice," seeking"to bui
  • Jan 29, 2005

    Dumbest Headline Contender

    by Cliopatria

    I promise I am not here to pick on the New York Times. Really, I'm, not. Usually I am inclined to defend the right's favorite whipping boy. But apparently they have placed their eye solidly upon Rebunk's Dumbest Headlines of 2005 Award and want to get a stranglehold on the nominations. And the sports section wants to carry the Old Gray Lady's water. Here is today's laugher:

    In New England's Dictionary, There

  • Jan 29, 2005

    Narrowing the Definition of Plagiarism ?...

    by Cliopatria

    At my age, the familiar often looks pretty good and the innovative is often suspect. So, I look on the American Historical Association's new Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct with some skepticism. It comes in the wake of headlining scandals several years ago and the decision by the AHA's Professional Division that its energies are better directed at education than at adjudicating charges of professional misc