"Perhaps the
most remembered
and quoted (pdf) woman in Indian
history is a sixteenth century
poet,
singer and
saint called Mirabai, or Meera.
Versions of
her songs are sung today
all over India,
and she
appears as a
subject in
films,
books,
dances,
plays and
paintings. Even Gandhi
promoted her, seeing Mira as a
symbol of a woman who has
the right to
choose her own path, forsake a life of luxury, and in
nonviolent resistance
find liberation (pdf)." ~
Women in World History
posted by infini
on Nov 18, 2012 -
5 comments
Hosted by three professors of US history (one a specialist in the 18th Century, one in the 19th, and one in the 20th), each episode of the radio show and podcast
Backstory takes a subject from the news and looks at the American history behind it.
[more inside]
posted by ocherdraco
on Nov 17, 2012 -
34 comments
What was Of Grammatology about? When Madeleine, the heroine of Jeffrey Eugenides's campus novel The Marriage Plot, asks a young theory-head this question, she is immediately set straight: 'If it was "about" anything, then it was about the need to stop thinking of books as being about things.' That's not so far off. In all three books, Derrida's argument was that Western thought from Plato to Rousseau to Lévi-Strauss had been hopelessly entangled in the illusion that language might provide us with access to a reality beyond language, beyond metaphor: an unmediated experience of truth and being which he called 'presence'.
—
Not in the Mood by Adam Shatz is an essay in The London Review of Books about a
new biography of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. The review does a good job of explaining Derrida's theories in simple language and putting it in the context of his life, from his childhood as French Jew in Vichy-controlled Algeria to his later years as a globetrotting academic star. For a complimentary perspective on Derrida, you can do worse than starting
with these thoughts on his relevance for historians and progressives.
posted by Kattullus
on Nov 14, 2012 -
36 comments
Obama won Ohio by two points, and Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown won by five, but Democrats emerged with just four of Ohio’s 16 House seats. In Wisconsin, Obama prevailed by seven points, and Democratic Senate candidate Tammy Baldwin by five, but their party finished with just three of the state’s eight House seats. In Virginia, Obama and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tim Kaine were clear victors, but Democrats won just three of the commonwealth’s 11 House seats. In Florida, Obama eked out a victory and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson won by 13 points, but Democrats will hold only 10 of the Sunshine State’s 27 House seats. The Revenge of 2010:
How gerrymandering saved the congressional Republican majority,
undermined Obama's mandate,
set the terms of the sequestration fight, and
locked Democrats out of the House for the next decade. It's
not a new problem. But if the Supreme Court guts the
Voting Rights Act, it could get
a whole lot worse. And the electoral college
may be
next.
(What's gerrymandering, you ask? Let the animals explain. Meet the Gerry-mander. Peruse the abused. Catch the movie. Or just play the game. Previously.)
posted by Rhaomi
on Nov 14, 2012 -
137 comments
"The word reclaim came up more than once to describe the rising tide. It is a revealing word, more narrative than simply descriptive: it hints at some larger backstory, some plot twist in a longer saga about our claims and the water’s counterclaims to the earth.… This story was already ancient when it was adapted for the biblical text—which is to say, it records a very old fear. Like all old fears, it has the uncanny feel of a vivid memory. It may be a memory of an actual flood in an actual Sumerian city, Shurrupal, ca 2800 B.C.E. In fact, it may be even older than that."
posted by the mad poster!
on Nov 13, 2012 -
21 comments
Are you enthusiastic (
"pertaining to possession by a deity," from Gk. enthousiastikos "inspired," from enthousiazein ) about Etymology? (
ethimolegia "facts of the origin and development of a word," from O.Fr. et(h)imologie (14c., Mod.Fr. étymologie), from L. etymologia, from Gk. etymologia, properly "study of the true sense (of a word)," Then why not explore (
1580s, "to investigate, examine," a back formation from exploration, or else from M.Fr. explorer (16c.), from L. explorare ) the vast resources (
1610s, "means of supplying a want or deficiency," from Fr. resourse) of the
ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY [more inside]
posted by The Whelk
on Nov 12, 2012 -
30 comments
The permanent collection of the (US) National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago contains more than 2,500 pieces of art by 250 artists, all of which can be seen at
NVAM Collection Online. The site includes biographical material on the artists who created the work.
Featured Artwork.
A small selection.
(Via. Images at links in this post may be nsfw, and/or disturbing to some viewers.)
posted by zarq
on Nov 12, 2012 -
1 comment
Anyone familiar with the contemporary Russian humorous folklore (jokelore, or in Russian anekdoty) knows that one of the most popular series of such jokes revolves around the Chukchis, the native people of Chukotka, the most remote northeast corner of Russia. These jokes, especially popular in 1990s and 2000s, fit the international genre of ethnic stupidity jokes . . .
posted by jason's_planet
on Nov 10, 2012 -
17 comments
However long it takes for a real victory to be certified—no matter what happens on Election Day, it will be too early to unfurl a "Mission Accomplished" banner—the once ragtag march of lovers has acquired an air of inevitability. Edith Eyde's prophecy is almost fulfilled: gays are more or less regular folk. All the same, many who came out during the Stonewall era are wondering what will be lost as the community sheds its pariah status. They are baffled by the latter-day cult of marriage and the military—emblems of Eisenhower's America that the Stonewall generation joyfully rejected. The gay world is confronting a question with which Jews, African-Americans, and other marginalized groups have long been familiar: the price of assimilation.
—
Love on the March by Alex Ross.
[more inside]
posted by Kattullus
on Nov 7, 2012 -
60 comments
OMNI Magazine delighted, informed, and even confused geeks of many flavours, and is now available to be
downloaded from the Internet Archive.
[previously]
posted by batmonkey
on Nov 1, 2012 -
86 comments
In the first years of the Fifteenth Century Henry III of Castile sent Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo as his ambassador to Samarkand. His journey introduced him to
giraffes and many other sights unknown to Europeans of the time. Samarkand was then the center of the largest empire in the world, that of Tamerlane the Great (a.k.a Timur), the
last of the nomad conquerors. His capital began as a city of the
Sogdians, which became an important center of culture and trade, as is
recorded in these 7th Century wall paintings. Samarkand was refashioned by
Timur and his descendants, the most famous being
the astronomer Ulugh Beg, and the Timurid legacy
is still visible in Samarkand. After Timur's death, his empire disintegrated, and soon fell into decline, but left enough of a mark to inspire both
Christopher Marlowe and
Edgar Allan Poe. The Russian Empire conquered Samarkand in 1868, and the city was documented in the early 20th Century in
color photograhs by Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii (
this one's a favorite) and remained an out of the way place
in the Soviet era.
posted by Kattullus
on Oct 27, 2012 -
15 comments
A family friend, Susi, just turned 90. Since I’m home in Oregon, I attended the B-Day party. Her Jewish family got out of Germany in ’39 and she found herself a teenager in the US. Got an education, got married, raised a family. She was — is — an artist, and she ended up teaching. But she worked as a gag strip cartoonist in New York, from ’46 to ’50. I’m interested in the history of comics, so she loaned me a rather large file box (which I am being very careful with!) Lots of old clippings, old battered bristol board with typed captions taped on. Neat!
posted by latkes
on Oct 27, 2012 -
3 comments
In the Shadow of Wounded Knee. Along the southwestern border of South Dakota is one of the most poverty-stricken places in the United States—the Pine Ridge Reservation, home of the Oglala Lakota people. After 150 years of broken promises, they are still nurturing their tribal customs, language and beliefs.
Via [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Oct 25, 2012 -
32 comments
The argument over whether photography should be considered an art form seems laughable to us today. Yet, beginning in the 1880s and lasting into the 20th century, members of amateur photographic clubs and societies the world over deemed the topic of artistic photography worthy of a decades-long shouting match.
PhotoSeed, representing an evolving online record of this early fine-art photography movement, is a
rich collection of photographs representing numerous vintage processes. From delicate platinum to exquisite hand-pulled photogravures, images produced singularly or published in portfolios and journals, as well as vintage source material, investigate the roots of the online galleries with the
PhotoSeed Highlights.
posted by netbros
on Oct 25, 2012 -
26 comments
The Onion's great for a witty skewering of current events. But its historical editions, as collected in the book
Our Dumb Century, are a gem all their own, full of razor-sharp satire, trenchant social commentary, period-accurate advertisements, running gags, historical irony, photoshoppery, and even some editorial cartoons for every year of the twentieth century. Luckily for history (and humor) buffs, nearly the whole run of the series is available piecemeal on their website. Click inside for an organized timeline of links to all the front pages from this brilliant work (plus a bonus!).
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Oct 25, 2012 -
52 comments
In the first decade of the 20th Century, a German Chief Justice was asked to hear the case of a man who had recently been found guilty according to a law code enacted in the last years of Napoleon's short-lived empire. No state in Europe still used that exact set of laws, but in one small part of the continent, there was an 850 acre plot of land which no state had claimed since the final defeat of Napoleon: Neutral Moresnet, also known as Kelmis, La Calamine or Amikejo. In
To Govern, or Not to Govern: Prussia, Neutral Moresnet [pdf, click 'Download This Paper'] Steven Michael Press explains how Neutral Moresnet came to be, and how the Chief Justice ruled in the case. For more information, visit the
Neutral Moresnet website. For an account by a visitor, read
Unvisited Places of Old Europe by American travel writer Robert Shackleton
[starts on page 157]. Finally, here's a podcast lecture by journalist and historian Neal Ascherson called
Memories of Amikejo [iTunes link] reflecting on Neutral Moresnet's short existence and whether it tells us something about modern Europe.
[Neutral Moresnet previously on MetaFilter]
posted by Kattullus
on Oct 24, 2012 -
21 comments
Put another way, the historian is the ‘Internal Affairs guy’. This is a well-known figure in popular TV ‘cop shows’ and rarely a ‘good guy’. He or she is there to suppose that the hero has lied or done something wrong and that the villains might have been wronged or be telling the truth. The character rarely turns out to be as unsettling as that but it works as an analogy. For me, the historian is not there to provide comforting truths but to question them. The historian must always be prepared to wonder whether the ‘heroes’ of history are not, in fact, the villains,
[more inside]
posted by MartinWisse
on Oct 16, 2012 -
23 comments
During the Golden Age of Hollywood and until 1967, mainstream movie studios were
banned by the Production Code from depicting taboo topics like drug addiction, explicit murder and venereal disease, or even showing explicit nudity. But in the 1930's and 1940's, films marketed as "educational" could and did fly under the radar, and three of the best known 'educational' propaganda exploitation films are:
Sex Madness (1935),
Reefer Madness (1936) and
The Cocaine Fiends (1938).
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Oct 15, 2012 -
30 comments
Ephemeral New York 'chronicles an ever-changing, constantly reinvented city through photos, newspaper archives, and other scraps and artifacts that have been edged into New York’s collective remainder bin.'
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Oct 11, 2012 -
5 comments
