This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: AHA Blog
2-13-12
Julia Brookins AHA Special Projects Coordinator Washington, D.C.—The American Historical Association (AHA) is initiating a nationwide, faculty-led project to articulate the core of historical study and to identify what a student should know and be able to do at the completion of a history degree program. Professors Anne Hyde (Colorado College) and Patricia Limerick (University of Colorado Boulder) will lead accomplished faculty from more than sixty colleges and universities across the country to frame common goals and reference points for post-secondary history education. The project will engage employers, alumni, students, and others in exploring and enhancing how the study of history provides the foundation for a life of active citizenship, continued learning, and successful employment.
Source: NYT
2-13-12
Week seven of Melissa Harris-Perry’s introductory course in African-American studies at Tulane University includes a lecture about “the hollow prize” — a theory that African-Americans tend to be elected as mayor only after a city has tipped into economic decline.One day last summer, when Ms. Harris-Perry was filling in for Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, she recast the class lecture as a television segment, invoking Detroit; her adopted home, New Orleans; President Obama; and tax policy.“I’ve given that lecture a million times — a million times,” Ms. Harris-Perry said in a recent interview. “But I do it once on Rachel’s show, and it was everywhere the next day. It was up on Web sites, people were e-mailing me — that, for me, was a really clear indication of how powerful television is.”Now, MSNBC is about to introduce a progressive talk show called “Melissa Harris-Perry” on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Ms. Harris-Perry will be the only tenured professor in the United States — and one of a very small number of African-American women — who serves as a cable news host....
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
2-12-12
Three weeks before the history department at Rutgers University began making decisions about whom to admit to its doctoral program this year, about one-quarter of its faculty gathered over lunch to talk about the employment crisis, the future direction of their field, and all the things they don't know about their recent Ph.D.'s.Some participants voiced frustration because the department does not have comprehensive data on how many graduate students entered the program, how long they stayed, and where they eventually found jobs.The department keeps a good list of contacts of graduates for an annual newsletter, and a department administrator has undertaken the arduous task of locating former students, but some faculty members say the results are still well short of a complete record of what Ph.D.'s have or have not done. Rudolph M. Bell, a Rutgers professor who specializes in Italian history, says that tracking Ph.D.'s is a matter of quality control. Being able to provide accurate data, he says, is important for making the case to potential donors and foundations that a department is worthy of their support.But fear and faculty resistance, he says, have hampered the collection of data in some programs, including at Rutgers.
Source: Mother Jones
2-11-12
When Marine investigators learned last November that a scout sniper platoon in Afghanistan was using a Nazi "SS" flag as its standard, it wasn't a member of the unit who told them. It was Iraq war veteran Waitman Beorn, a visiting history professor at Loyola University New Orleans, also a Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowship recipient who teaches at the National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Dr. Beorn's research on Nazis and genocide is informed by his military background: He is a West Point graduate and former officer who served as a scout platoon leader in Iraq from 2003-2004. Through his work he seeks to teach "ethical decision-making in a military context using the Holocaust as a vehicle."
Source: Asia Times
1-26-12
Admiral Zheng He's armadas sailed from Nanjing to as far as East Africa over eight voyages between 1405-1433. Most Chinese lionize the Muslim eunuch as a peace loving ambassador of peace and friendship. But Australian historian Geoffrey Wade tells Victor Fic the admiral was a Ming military commander pursuing gunboat diplomacy, and indicts the commodore for war crimes.A senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, based in Singapore, Wade's interests include Sino-Southeast Asian historical interactions and related issues such as Chinese expansions and early Islam in Southeast Asia. Wade's work includes an online database [1] that provides English translations of over 3,000 references to Southeast Asia...Victor Fic: Geoff, how did you become fascinated with Zheng He?Geoffrey Wade: I have long been interested in how China and Southeast Asia interacted and did my PhD on Southeast Asia as represented in the Ming reign annals. A key element was the Ming maritime missions to Southeast Asia. China's commemorations of Zheng He in 2005 further piqued my interest.VF: Summarize the orthodox Chinese claim that he was a peaceful seafarer.GW: Within Chinese societies, one finds "popular" perceptions of Zheng He. One tribute translates as:
Source: Radio Australia
2-10-12
In the early 18th Century, Makassar, a city in the south of Indonesia's Sulawesi Island, was renowned as a major regional trading hub.Seafarers from as far as China and the Gulf came to the port-city to trade for spices and precious metals.The Macassans also had close links with northern Australia where they were attracted by its vast supply of lucrative sea cucumbers or trepangs.But little else is known about the links between Macassan fishermen and indigenous Australians from the north.In fact, those links are still evident today in the form of art, language and even architecture and were the subject of a major symposium at the Australian National University in Canberra....
Source: David A. Walsh for HNN
2-10-12
A history professor at Texas A&M University—Central Texas has filed a petition to release sealed testimony from the very first Watergate trial, which he hopes will shed light on the motivation for the infamous break-in.Luke Nichter, who runs the website nixontapes.org (which deals primarily with the non-Watergate aspects of the Nixon presidency), made the initial move to unseal the material in 2009, when he wrote to Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the District Court for the District of Columbia expressing his desire to unseal testimony from the first Watergate court case, United States v. Liddy. On Tuesday, Lamberth, who in July 2011 ordered Richard Nixon’s Watergate grand jury testimony released, gave the government thirty days to object to Nichter’s request.Nichter believes that the sealed testimony from U.S. v. Liddy may shed new light on the Watergate case. “Watergate has been the subject of innumerable books, articles, and movies,” he said in an interview, “but there are still unanswered questions.” The sealed materials, he wrote in a letter to Lamberth, “may be the key to determining why the Watergate break-in occurred, who ordered it, and what the burglars were looking for….”
Source: PanArmenian
2-9-12
PanARMENIAN.Net - Taraf newspaper published an article by Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, Taner Akcam, who argues that Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink’s murder was orchestrated as revenge for the assassination of Talat Pasha, the mastermind of the Armenian Genocide, The Armenian Weekly reported.“Hrant Dink was murdered in order to avenge Talat Pasha’s murder,” Akcam believes.“Everything, and I mean everything, was organized in a way to seek revenge for the assassination that occurred in 1921. Upon his release after serving time in prison for his role in the McDonalds bombing of 2004 in Trabzon, Yasin Hayal, the person who planned Hrant’s murder, spoke about Talat Pasha with his father. He asked his father, “Dad, do you know how Talat Pasha was killed?” Yasin Hayal himself knew a thing or two about it, and added, “Did you know that the man who killed Talat Pasha was never punished, and that he was released?”...
Source: NPR
2-9-12
Historian Noah Andre Trudeau is known for uncovering secrets of the Civil War. His previous books, Bloody Roads South and Gettysburg, have unveiled information about Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's march to the sea in 1864, and the legacy of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Now, in preparation for a book about a largely unexamined period of President Abraham Lincoln's life, Trudeau is in search of witnesses.At the end of the Civil War, between March and April 1865, Lincoln went to Northern Virginia to meet with his generals. He shook hands with thousands of Union soldiers and visited the former confederate capital in Richmond, Va. But little is known about the last week of his life before his assassination on April 14, 1865. Trudeau is seeking diary entries, letters or stories of people who encountered Lincoln at the time. If you have information that could be helpful, Trudeau wants you to contact him.Trudeau talks with NPR's Neal Conan about his quest and the information he's collected so far....
Source: ABC News (Australia)
2-10-12
An Australian historian has uncovered hidden documents which reveal that African American troops used machine guns to attack their white officers in a siege on a US base in north Queensland in 1942.Information about the Townsville mutiny has never been released to the public.But the story began to come to light when James Cook University's Ray Holyoak first began researching why US congressman Lyndon B Johnson visited Townsville for three days back in 1942.What he discovered was evidence detailing one of the biggest uprisings within the US military."For 70 years there's been a rumour in Townsville that there was a mutiny among African-American servicemen. In the last year and a half I've found the primary documentation evidence that that did occur in 1942," Mr Holyoak told AM....
Source: BBC News Magazine
2-7-12
From the orphan begging for more in Oliver Twist to the heartless Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens highlighted poverty and squalor. But did he really help change things?It's an adjective that still echoes down the ages. Need to emphasise the filth and squalor of a rundown housing estate or prison? It's Dickensian...."Although in his journalism and novels he attacked specific targets - Poor Law legislation in Oliver Twist, the brutal Yorkshire schools in Nicholas Nickleby, the law [Pickwick Papers and Bleak House], government bureaucracy, lethargy and nepotism in Little Dorrit, extremist utilitarianism in Hard Times - it's hard to trace any direct consequences on reformist legislation in any of those areas to Dickens's influence," argues Prof Malcolm Andrews, editor of the Dickensian, journal of the Dickens Fellowship.Charles Dickens was born in 1812 into a volatile period often referred to as the Age of Reform, where industrialisation was rapidly reshaping Britain, and legislators were - more than ever - struggling to adapt to the demands of a changing population.He was born in the era of the stagecoach, but when he died in 1870 had witnessed the birth of the railways, the telegraph and the steamship.
Source: WaPo
2-7-12
WASHINGTON — A history professor from Texas is seeking access to long-sealed court records that he believes may help explain the motivation behind the Watergate break-in that ultimately drove President Richard Nixon from office.Luke Nichter of Texas A&M University-Central Texas in Killeen, Texas, is seeking the release of potentially hundreds of pages of documents. On Tuesday, a judge in Washington gave the government a month to object to the request.Nichter wants to unseal records that were part of the court case against seven men involved in the 1972 burglary.He said the documents originally were sealed because they were seen as unnecessary to proving the group, which was tied to Nixon’s re-election campaign, was responsible for the break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington....
Source: Inside Higher Ed
2-7-12
Between gainful employment, talk of revamping the role of accreditation, interminable budget wrangling over Pell and student loans, and President Obama's State of the Union declaration that colleges and universities are "on notice" with regard to costs and outcomes, the complex and evolving relationship between higher education and the federal government is more visible than ever -- though on the question of what exactly that relationship ought to be, no consensus seems imminent.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
2-5-12
Academics at Oxford University are reportedly divided over a proposed plan to name a new building at the varsity after one of its most illustrious alumnae - the first woman Prime Minister of Britain, Lady Margaret Thatcher.Wafic Said, the 72-year-old Syrian-born billionaire, has donated some 15 million pounds for a new facility at Oxford's Said Business School, due to open in autumn, and has indicated he wants to name it after the "Iron Lady" of Britain.But the proposal has divided the university....Prof Robert Gildea of Worcester College said: "I voted against giving an honorary degree to Mrs Thatcher in 1985 and my views have not changed since then."...
Source: Missoulian
2-5-12
During an open forum on the University of Montana campus recently, a professor asked new Commissioner of Higher Education Clay Christian whether his appointment would help or hurt the faculty's contract negotiations with the state."I'm hopeful it will help," Christian replied. "I hope it's a smooth transition. There is no hindrance."...In September, the state settled contracts that cover most other employees at campuses statewide. But four months later, there is still no agreement with UM's faculty, as well as professors at the University of Montana Western in Dillon and Montana State University-Northern in Havre.All university employees statewide received the same compensation deal: a 1 percent raise in the first year of the biennium and a 2 percent raise in the second year, as well as a $500 flat fee each year. The money for those raises came from increases in student tuition after the 2011 Montana Legislature chose not to fund pay hikes....Twenty years ago, history professor Michael Mayer applied for a tenure-track job at a public university out of state and had to provide his salary information. The school called later that week and asked Mayer for his current salary, not his starting salary."That was no mistake," he said. "That was my current salary at that time. It was embarrassing."
Source: The Grio
2-6-12
Scholar, historian, black culture enthusiast, author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America and recently appointed director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York; Dr. Khalil Muhammad exemplifies the pure essence of Black History.theGrio's Wanjira Banfield sat down with Dr. Muhammad to get an uncensored account of his love affair with black culture, his unwavering desire for a conscientious America and his commitment to the global advancement and experience of African-Americans.theGrio: What led you to this journey to becoming a leader of black history preservation and eventually the director of the Schomburg Center?Dr. Muhammad: I wanted to know black history for my own personal growth. When I was in college, there was a lot of controversy surrounding African-Americans, as well as debate about whether black students were qualified to be in well known prestigious universities such as my alma mater; the University of Pennsylvania. I didn't personally feel equipped to understand those arguments. This began with me deciding that I needed to get more familiar with African-American history. I needed to learn my history, my culture.
Source: Applachian State University News
2-6-12
BOONE—An actor’s quest to learn about his ancestors took him to La Coruña, a port city in northern Spain, where Dr. Edward Behrend-Martinez’s expertise in Spanish trials helped provide the dramatic conclusion in the television program “Who Do You Think You Are?”Behrend-Martinez is an associate professor and assistant chair in Appalachian State University’s Department of History.The series follows celebrities – from sport figures and actors to musicians – who visit archives, libraries and other sites as they trace their family tree as far as records allow, all with the help of historians. The season opener, which aired Feb. 3 and is available on the program’s website, www.nbc.com/who-do-you-think-you-are, featured actor Martin Sheen who learns details about his Irish-Spanish heritage.Behrend-Martinez had never watched the television program before being called by producers to provide historic insight regarding a trial that Sheen’s great-great-great-great-grandfather presided over....
Source: Arutz Sheva
2-7-12
The Iranian Threat is like the Arab world’s threat to destroy Israel in 1967, and Israel must attack Iran now, a Harvard University history professor told Newsweek. He said the he biggest danger is Western complacency.The magazine,which last week published a scenario of how Israel till attack Iran if it decides to do so, featured on its website on Monday an article by Prof. Niall Ferguson.He pooh-poohed five arguments why Israel should not stage a military strike on Iran: Iranian retaliation, new Arab Spring rebellion, a recession caused by doubling of the price of crude oil, boomerang support for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad within Iran, and the ability to live with a nuclear Iran....
Source: WaPo
2-7-12
BALTIMORE — A memorabilia collector and self-styled expert on presidential history pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to steal thousands of documents signed by leaders throughout U.S. history.Barry Landau, whose knowledge of the White House earned him appearances on network morning shows, admitted in the plea to taking documents from the Maryland Historical Society and conspiring with his assistant to steal documents from several institutions with the intention of selling them.Thousands of documents were seized by authorities over the summer from the 63-year-old Landau’s artifact-lined Manhattan apartment. Prosecutors say he schemed for years, if not decades, to steal valuable documents.The assistant pleaded guilty in October to the same charges: theft of major artwork and conspiracy to commit theft of major artwork....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
2-7-12
A leading academic has sparked outrage after comparing the Holocaust that killed six million Jews to Britain's colonisation of New Zealand.Language lecturer Keri Opai claimed that New Zealand's native indigenous Maori were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder following the 'holocaust' of British rule. But last night the President of the New Zealand Jewish Council slammed the Maori academic for 'trivialising state sponsored genocide'.During the New Zealand Wars of 1845-1872, which saw the Maori defended their tribal lands from British colonial forces, 20,000 Maori were killed while hundreds of thousands more were driven from their homes.Lecturer Opai told the Radio New Zealand programme what had happened to Maori during colonisation could be forgiven - but not forgotten. He said: 'If you really knew what went on, all the awful stuff, that really does break down to a holocaust....
