Happy Election Night! I hope everyone got out and voted today, and if Facebook statuses are any indication, it seems that people my age aren’t as apathetic as we are stereotyped to be. But that’s not what I’m here to ponder this lovely night.
I’m taking the History of Western Art with Dr. McColl this semester, and about a month ago, the Art, German Studies, and Gender Studies departments sponsored a lecture given by Dr. Jeffrey Hamburger, a medieval art historian at Harvard University, on text and image in medieval religious books. Dr. Hamburger was one of Dr. McColl’s professors in graduate school, so Dr. McColl required our class to go (not that I wouldn’t have gone anyway, the medievalist that I am). In this talk, Dr. Hamburger stressed the symbolic and practical importance of the codex form and the new possibilities that the act of opening a codex created. For medieval Christians, the open book represented salvation, illustrated in the Lamb’s ability to break the seven seals in chapter five of the book of Revelation. I found the manuscript images of this scene interesting in that they depicted the book as a codex, as the modern Biblical translations with which I am familiar describe this object as either a book in general or a scroll. This is an important distinction, as scrolls were used in medieval art to represent the Old Testament Law and prophets, while codices represented Christ, and the new covenant. The codex appeared in the fourth century AD, but it was this symbolic value to Christians that accelerated its adoption. Dr. Hamburger also pointed out the practical considerations that popularized the production of codices: they were more convenient and more comprehensive than scrolls and allowed scribes and patrons to add images to texts and to exploit facing pages to show two images that complimented or juxtaposed one another. While scrolls were still used for public documents and oral readings, codices came to be associated with silent reading and with a transition from an aural culture to a visual culture in which seeing was more important than hearing. Dr. Hamburger chose a variety of images from many different times and places during the Middle Ages to illustrate the various purposes of images in books and the different techniques artists used to achieve their desired effect., which demonstrated the breadth of his analysis.
At that point in the semester, we hadn’t moved past Hellenistic and Greek art in class, but Dr. Hamburger’s presentation touched on several concepts that we had already discussed. In some of the works we examined, such as Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Knidos, we considered the role of the viewer in the meaning of the image; in this case, the pose of Aphrodite implies that the viewer interrupted her bath. The relationship between the viewer and the image was also an important element in understanding medieval images such as those in a certain Carolingian gospel book that bring the reader into the world of the four evangelists as they composed their gospels. We also looked at the interaction between text and image in works such as the Palette of Narmer and the Stele of Hammurabi, and this interaction was much more developed in medieval books, as images communicated ideas contained in texts or created new meanings for images by associating them with certain texts, as was the case with the images of Jesus and Mary surrounded by verses from the Song of Solomon. In ancient art, we looked at various representations of the relationship between humans and deities, and this tradition continues in the medieval images we saw during Dr. Hamburger’s presentation. Some prayer books showed different images of the ruler humbling himself before Christ, while others, such as one image of an emperor and the Virgin Mary, give humans the same status as important religious figures in a way that is very similar to images such as the Stele of Hammurabi. The media, iconography, and function of these medieval images are very different from the ancient and classical works that we discussed in class, but the presence of these themes illustrates that there are elements of continuity that transcend time and space and to connect people and the images they create.
Not only was this a really fascinating talk, but Dr. Hamburger has a great sense of humor, which he showed throughout his talk. He passed around a wax tablet and stylus to show everyone what one medieval writing tool was like, and he used now obsolete printer paper and a stapler to illustrate differences between scrolls and codices. We also learned the complete history of the bookmark: it was an important readers’ tool in breviaries and other books that frequently made use of cross-referencing. They were also important to copyists who needed to mark their places as they worked through manuscripts. After the talk, the audience asked some excellent questions, and Dr. McColl said in class that Dr. Hamburger was very impressed with the audience and the students who asked questions—apparently that doesn’t happen often in the Ivy League.
It’s been a really good semester for lectures, as there have been a lot of really interesting speakers. Brenna went to a history lecture last week about swearing, and there’s a talk next week about Jewish roots in Germany and the week after on the Whiskey Rebellion. I’m glad that there have been a variety of speakers and that I’ve been able to go; when I first came to college, I went to a lot of lectures my first semester and I thought they were each great opportunities for students. In the past couple of years, there haven’t seemed to be as many and my schedule has made it more difficult for me to go, but I’m hoping that I’ll still be able to catch lectures like these wherever I end up after graduation.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
The Educational Side Effects of YouTube
This is me babysitting the computer lab in Goldstein after having realized that I cannot do homework, because I am ahead on my homework. This means that the only books I have were for class today, and for Friday's class, we've moved on. Oh well. The problems of being an overachiever. So, I am taking the opportunity to finish a blog post I started last semester about the educational benefits of YouTube.
Yes. You read that correctly. YouTube as education. YouTube as a valuable teaching aid. YouTube making class a heck of a lot more fun. You may be scratching your head in disbelief or you may be laughing at me, but I am dead serious, and I will tell you why.
It began, for me, early last school year. In my class on ancient Roman history (which those of you who read this blog last year might recognize), we discussed the various Roman emperors, including Augustus Caesar. Well, there happens to be a wonderful mini-series about said emperors called I, Claudius. Dr. Sorrentino (my wonderful professor) was able to go on to YouTube and find a wonderful clip from the series which she showed us in class. We got to watch as Augustus walked down a line up of approximately 20 men, asking each of them whether they'd slept with his daughter, eventually asking if anyone in Rome had not had sex with her. It really added to our appreciation of just how screwed up some of these Roman emperors were.
Then, last semester, we were discussing whether TV shows from the 60's truly represented life. Dr. Sorrentino found clips from some of the shows discussed, including I Love Lucy and The Honemooners, which gave those students who were not familiar with these shows a chance to see what they depicted. We then watched clips of movies when we were discussing movies about the Vietnam War.
Just last week, Dr. Black showed us clips of a few Russian movies to illustrate points about Ivan the Terrible. One clip was from some Russian slapstick comedy about an inventor who creates a time machine that sent two guys back in time and brought Ivan the Terrible forward in time. The other one was a little more valid, showing Ivan's coronation from a movie about his reign.
What, might you ask, is the point of professors using YouTube? Personally, I think that it is a wonderful way to help the students to connect with and remember the material. I came back to the dorm and promptly showed the clip of Augustus and the line up of guys to my friends. It also provides a nice change in how class is run. Class is usually based on lecture with discussion mixed in to keep things interesting. YouTube allows professors to break up the routine, to prove to their students that they actually are a part of the 21st century. YouTube is basically a staple of life for many college students, and I think that it helps to make their classes seem a little more relevant.
So, the next time you sigh because of all the random YouTube videos that people you know watch, just remember that somewhere out there, lucky college students are benefiting from all of its wonderful educational attributes. I know I have.
That's all, folks!
Brenna
Yes. You read that correctly. YouTube as education. YouTube as a valuable teaching aid. YouTube making class a heck of a lot more fun. You may be scratching your head in disbelief or you may be laughing at me, but I am dead serious, and I will tell you why.
It began, for me, early last school year. In my class on ancient Roman history (which those of you who read this blog last year might recognize), we discussed the various Roman emperors, including Augustus Caesar. Well, there happens to be a wonderful mini-series about said emperors called I, Claudius. Dr. Sorrentino (my wonderful professor) was able to go on to YouTube and find a wonderful clip from the series which she showed us in class. We got to watch as Augustus walked down a line up of approximately 20 men, asking each of them whether they'd slept with his daughter, eventually asking if anyone in Rome had not had sex with her. It really added to our appreciation of just how screwed up some of these Roman emperors were.
Then, last semester, we were discussing whether TV shows from the 60's truly represented life. Dr. Sorrentino found clips from some of the shows discussed, including I Love Lucy and The Honemooners, which gave those students who were not familiar with these shows a chance to see what they depicted. We then watched clips of movies when we were discussing movies about the Vietnam War.
Just last week, Dr. Black showed us clips of a few Russian movies to illustrate points about Ivan the Terrible. One clip was from some Russian slapstick comedy about an inventor who creates a time machine that sent two guys back in time and brought Ivan the Terrible forward in time. The other one was a little more valid, showing Ivan's coronation from a movie about his reign.
What, might you ask, is the point of professors using YouTube? Personally, I think that it is a wonderful way to help the students to connect with and remember the material. I came back to the dorm and promptly showed the clip of Augustus and the line up of guys to my friends. It also provides a nice change in how class is run. Class is usually based on lecture with discussion mixed in to keep things interesting. YouTube allows professors to break up the routine, to prove to their students that they actually are a part of the 21st century. YouTube is basically a staple of life for many college students, and I think that it helps to make their classes seem a little more relevant.
So, the next time you sigh because of all the random YouTube videos that people you know watch, just remember that somewhere out there, lucky college students are benefiting from all of its wonderful educational attributes. I know I have.
That's all, folks!
Brenna
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Strange Fruit
Greetings, folks! Brenna and I sort of resolved to return to the land of blog once school started, so I thought I’d take a moment and report on this year’s George Washington Book Prize celebration. You might remember that last year’s prize went to Charles Rappleye’s Sons of Providence, which I read over winter break last year. It was pretty interesting, and it started a chain of thought that brought me a summer research project this year, but more on that another day. This year, the prize went to Dr. Marcus Rediker of the University of Pittsburgh for his book The Slave Ship: A Human History. Brenna started reading it, and she’s really enjoying it so far, except that the topic is rather depressing. The title of Rediker’s social history explains it all—the book is about the international slave trade and the experiences of the 12.5 million Africans carried to North America and the various other people involved in the slave trade over four centuries. As Dr. Rediker said at the beginning of his presentation, this isn’t a part of our history that we are comfortable discussing, but “we’ve got to face our past.”
During his talk, Dr. Rediker called the slave trade “a human drama” featuring people of many different cultures and ethnicities who were brought from the interior of Africa, made to endure “humiliating medical inspections,” and directed aboard slave ships, which he called “chambers of horrors.” Because the Africans would cry out as the ship pulled away from the coast, these ships often left port during the night while its cargo was sleeping, leaving the Africans to awake and discover they were in the middle of the ocean. On the other side of the Atlantic, “you could smell a slave ship before you could see it” as a result of the heat, seasickness, and death that took their toll on the ship’s passengers. Dr. Rediker also explained the captains’ use of terror to control the Africans and prevent them from rebelling; he repeated one story that he included early in his book about a woman who was lowered overboard to the sharks that followed the slave ships. When she was removed from the water, her lower half was gone.
One of the most interesting parts of Dr. Rediker’s presentation was his explanation of how Africans resisted aboard slave ships, demonstrating the agency Africans had. Africans engaged in hunger strikes, completed suicide (sometimes en masse), and attempted insurrection (although insurrections were not often successful). Africans also, in Dr. Rediker’s view, showed creativity as they built new cultures, new communities, and new languages during the voyage across the Atlantic, and these mark the slave ships as the start of African-American culture. Bethel AME Church, which is located a block south of our campus, provided a beautiful venue for the lecture, and as a part of the presentation, a woman named Karen Somerville performed songs that described different elements of the slave ship experience. One of these songs mourned the Africans’ departure from Africa and the fact that they were a long way from home, another was a later song about lynching called “Strange Fruit” that they used to highlight the experience of the woman dangling above the sharks, and the final song celebrated the end of slavery and the humiliations of the auction block but lamented and honored the thousands that perished over the course of the slave trade.
After the talk, Brenna and I went to the dedication of the Patrick Henry Fellow’s residence and then to the reception at the Hynson-Ringgold House. The dedication was exciting, especially when Adam Goodheart (director of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience) brought out a large 18th century sword and used it to open a bottle of champagne (a moment I watched from next to/in a nearby bush to escape the splash zone, as Brenna and I had been right in the front talking with Dr. Miller and his friend, who teaches at the College of William and Mary), and between the dedication and the reception, we were able to catch up with several of our professors. Like last year, there was a public conversation with Adam Goodheart and Dr. Rediker, but Brenna and I both had class, so we weren’t able to attend (which is a shame now that I’m looking back at my notes and the questions I had written down). Nevertheless, a good time was had by all, and I’m going to have to read The Slave Ship over winter break.
Until next time (to quote The Phantom of the Opera), I remain your obedient servant, Ten Page.
During his talk, Dr. Rediker called the slave trade “a human drama” featuring people of many different cultures and ethnicities who were brought from the interior of Africa, made to endure “humiliating medical inspections,” and directed aboard slave ships, which he called “chambers of horrors.” Because the Africans would cry out as the ship pulled away from the coast, these ships often left port during the night while its cargo was sleeping, leaving the Africans to awake and discover they were in the middle of the ocean. On the other side of the Atlantic, “you could smell a slave ship before you could see it” as a result of the heat, seasickness, and death that took their toll on the ship’s passengers. Dr. Rediker also explained the captains’ use of terror to control the Africans and prevent them from rebelling; he repeated one story that he included early in his book about a woman who was lowered overboard to the sharks that followed the slave ships. When she was removed from the water, her lower half was gone.
One of the most interesting parts of Dr. Rediker’s presentation was his explanation of how Africans resisted aboard slave ships, demonstrating the agency Africans had. Africans engaged in hunger strikes, completed suicide (sometimes en masse), and attempted insurrection (although insurrections were not often successful). Africans also, in Dr. Rediker’s view, showed creativity as they built new cultures, new communities, and new languages during the voyage across the Atlantic, and these mark the slave ships as the start of African-American culture. Bethel AME Church, which is located a block south of our campus, provided a beautiful venue for the lecture, and as a part of the presentation, a woman named Karen Somerville performed songs that described different elements of the slave ship experience. One of these songs mourned the Africans’ departure from Africa and the fact that they were a long way from home, another was a later song about lynching called “Strange Fruit” that they used to highlight the experience of the woman dangling above the sharks, and the final song celebrated the end of slavery and the humiliations of the auction block but lamented and honored the thousands that perished over the course of the slave trade.
After the talk, Brenna and I went to the dedication of the Patrick Henry Fellow’s residence and then to the reception at the Hynson-Ringgold House. The dedication was exciting, especially when Adam Goodheart (director of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience) brought out a large 18th century sword and used it to open a bottle of champagne (a moment I watched from next to/in a nearby bush to escape the splash zone, as Brenna and I had been right in the front talking with Dr. Miller and his friend, who teaches at the College of William and Mary), and between the dedication and the reception, we were able to catch up with several of our professors. Like last year, there was a public conversation with Adam Goodheart and Dr. Rediker, but Brenna and I both had class, so we weren’t able to attend (which is a shame now that I’m looking back at my notes and the questions I had written down). Nevertheless, a good time was had by all, and I’m going to have to read The Slave Ship over winter break.
Until next time (to quote The Phantom of the Opera), I remain your obedient servant, Ten Page.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Profiles In History: Olga of the Rus
Hi everyone! Do you remember us? I know, it has been quite a long time since we have written. Well, it's the beginning of a new school year, so I am going to attempt to rectify that situation. I'm taking a class on early Russian history right now, and we've read quite a variety of documents about the early princes and princesses of the Rus lands (what Russia used to be called). Well, the coolest of these (in my eyes) was Olga. Let me share her story with you:
Olga's husband, Igor, was killed by the Derevlians. Why? Well, he'd gone with a bunch of his men to collect tribute. After they were done and were riding away from the city, Igor decided that they hadn't quite gotten enough, so he rode back to take even more from them. Understandably, they were a little pissed off about this. Their response? They killed him.
Well, after this, the Derevlians send emissaries to Olga. They told her that they had killed her husband because he was bad, but their prince was good, so she ought to marry him. Well, Olga told them to go back to their ship. The next day, she would send her men down to them and they should demand to be carried to her hall in their boat. She would then have a celebration for them. Well, they go back to their boats and do everything as she suggested. However, when they get to her hall, it turns out that she had told her men to dig a pit over night. She then has the Derevlians dropped in to the pit. She then basically looks down at them and asks them how they like that. She then has them buried alive.
But it doesn't end there. She then sent her own emissary to the Derevlians. She tells them that she would love to marry their prince, but that her people won't let go of her that easily, so the Derevlians need to send a group of their greatest men to come and convince her people. The Derevlians happily oblige. When this new group shows up, Olga tells them that she has prepared a bath house for them. Pleased by her kindness, the Derevlians all happily trot in to the bath house. Olga promptly locks it behind them and lights it on fire.
But wait, there's more! She takes an army with her and rides off to Dereva, ostensibly to visit her husband's grave. She goes, and mourns, and the Derevlians ask where the men they sent to her were. She tells them that their men are following behind with her husband's body guards. She then lays siege to the town. After a short while, the Derevlians ask her if they could make peace with her. They tell her they will pay her all sorts of great tribute. She says that they can't because they've been under siege. However, she will accept tribute of a few small birds from each house. They happily oblige. Well, she has her soldiers tie incendiary devices of some sort to each bird and lets the birds go. They all promptly fly back to the houses from whence they came, thus burning the city down.
What happens to the survivors of all of this? Olga levies a heavy tribute on them and happily trots back home.
I feel as though there ought to be a moral to this story, but there isn't. Also, to make everything more complicated, Olga is apparently a saint of the Eastern Orthodox Church because she was a convert to Christianity before the Rus were officially converted.
I hope you all enjoyed that story as much as I did!
Until next time,
Brenna
Olga's husband, Igor, was killed by the Derevlians. Why? Well, he'd gone with a bunch of his men to collect tribute. After they were done and were riding away from the city, Igor decided that they hadn't quite gotten enough, so he rode back to take even more from them. Understandably, they were a little pissed off about this. Their response? They killed him.
Well, after this, the Derevlians send emissaries to Olga. They told her that they had killed her husband because he was bad, but their prince was good, so she ought to marry him. Well, Olga told them to go back to their ship. The next day, she would send her men down to them and they should demand to be carried to her hall in their boat. She would then have a celebration for them. Well, they go back to their boats and do everything as she suggested. However, when they get to her hall, it turns out that she had told her men to dig a pit over night. She then has the Derevlians dropped in to the pit. She then basically looks down at them and asks them how they like that. She then has them buried alive.
But it doesn't end there. She then sent her own emissary to the Derevlians. She tells them that she would love to marry their prince, but that her people won't let go of her that easily, so the Derevlians need to send a group of their greatest men to come and convince her people. The Derevlians happily oblige. When this new group shows up, Olga tells them that she has prepared a bath house for them. Pleased by her kindness, the Derevlians all happily trot in to the bath house. Olga promptly locks it behind them and lights it on fire.
But wait, there's more! She takes an army with her and rides off to Dereva, ostensibly to visit her husband's grave. She goes, and mourns, and the Derevlians ask where the men they sent to her were. She tells them that their men are following behind with her husband's body guards. She then lays siege to the town. After a short while, the Derevlians ask her if they could make peace with her. They tell her they will pay her all sorts of great tribute. She says that they can't because they've been under siege. However, she will accept tribute of a few small birds from each house. They happily oblige. Well, she has her soldiers tie incendiary devices of some sort to each bird and lets the birds go. They all promptly fly back to the houses from whence they came, thus burning the city down.
What happens to the survivors of all of this? Olga levies a heavy tribute on them and happily trots back home.
I feel as though there ought to be a moral to this story, but there isn't. Also, to make everything more complicated, Olga is apparently a saint of the Eastern Orthodox Church because she was a convert to Christianity before the Rus were officially converted.
I hope you all enjoyed that story as much as I did!
Until next time,
Brenna
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Much Ado About Term Limits
Hello all!
I am blogging to take a break from working on my pesky thesis introduction. Now, just to reassure some of you: yes, I love my topic. It is difficult enough, however, to write a one paragraph introduction to a 8-10 page paper, much less an 8-10 page introduction for a 50 page paper. Anyway, on to the point of this post.
Elections. That wonderful democratic procedure which we adore in this country. We love electing people. We love complaining about election fraud. We love complaining about the people we elected once they are securely in office. However, once you start elections, you fall pray to If-you-give-a-mouse-a-cookie Syndrome. A.k.a. If you give someone an office, they will want to be reelected (now, this is not always true, just as I'm sure not every mouse wants a glass of milk with his cookie...). Which is why I would like to tell you a little story about term limits:
Once upon a time, there lived a great and glorious man named George Washington. This brilliant general led our country through the Revolution and then admirably steered its course for years to come as its President. When just a lad, he cut down a cherry tree, but, since he could not tell a lie...Nope. Just kidding, I'm not Parson Weems or George Bancroft. Just an FYI, GW did not chop down that cherry tree. It just didn't happen. We do, however, have a few things to thank good old George for in terms of the presidency. First, because of George, we do not have a king. I'm not kidding. Washington was asked to be the king of the new United States. Thankfully, the man said no. Secondly, the two term presidency. George could have easily gotten elected to a third, or even fourth, term in office. After all, the country felt that it had a lot for which to be grateful and Washington had been doing a pretty good job. But, alas, Washington stepped down and created the precedent for two term presidencies.
Then, many, many years later (so many, in fact, that it was a different century), along came a man named Franklin Delano Roosevelt (for the sake of my typing speed, I will refer to him as FDR). FDR entered the White House at a time when the country was in sad shape. The Great Depression was in full swing and Herbert Hoover had done little to help it. But what truly differentiated FDR from his presidential predecessors? He was elected president four times. Yes, he knowingly broke the precedent laid down by none other than George Washington. What prevented FDR from being elected a fifth time? Only his death early in his fourth term (an event the tragic repercussions of which I will save for a future post). FDR's political opponents were so pissed off that, when they got the chance, they passed a law which capped the presidency at ten years or two terms. Naturally, this would come back to bite them in the butt later on, but that's beside the point.
The moral of the story is that we now have legally mandated term limits on the Presidency. Now at this point, you are probably wondering why I told you all of this (or you are still wondering who Weems and Bancroft are. Maybe you are still recovering from the disillusionment over the cherry tree. I guess I don't really know). Well, there are two reasons.
1) George W. Bush. I don't think I have ever heard so much excitement over a President's un-reelectability (yes, I did just make that word up) due to term limits. Trust me, people are psyched. I'm sure some of you who are reading this are probably doing a happy dance that Bush cannot get reelected. Personally, I would like to think that if a president had screwed up enough that people were this excited to get rid of him that he would not get elected again, term limits or no. However, I will turn your attention to a British newspaper headline when Bush last got elected: "How Can 59,000,000 People Be So Dumb?" Not that I'm saying Americans are stupid. I'm just repeating the British (and we all know what they think of us, those poncy tossers).
2) Spencer Dove. Non WaC attenders will most likely have no idea who this is. And that's fine. Like most other schools in the country, WaC is a democratic sheep and, as such, we dutifully hold elections every year for positions in the SGA (Student Government Association). These elections have never been quite as controversial as they were this year. The president of the SGA for this past year was Spencer Dove, a junior and ex-president of the Class of 2009. When he ran for SGA office last year, he promised that he would not seek reelection. Allow me to say that this was a poor move on his part. Promises not to seek reelection do not end well. Teddy Roosevelt made that promise at the beginning of his second term as President, which created problems with getting anything done and prevented him from ever successfully obtaining a third term.
Anyway, back to WaC. Spencer got elected and served as SGA pres. for the 2007-2008 school year. About a month ago, it's election time again and, who's running? Spencer Dove. This ticked a lot of people off. His opponent's platform rested on her belief in upholding the tradition of a one term junior as SGA president. Well, Spencer won reelection and we have precedent breaking second term senior as our president for next year. This was such a major event that it spawned an article in The Cherry Tree (the April Fool's edition of The Elm) as well as an actual article in The Elm. For those interested, you can find The Elm article here: Dove Wins Second Term. I can only hope that my classmates will eventually take as much interest in state and government politics as they did in school politics.
That is my story on term limits. I hope you all enjoyed reading it. I know I enjoyed writing it. I cannot guarantee that I will post again before the end of the semester. There are, at present, three long papers and two short papers between me and going home. As soon as my Method paper (a.k.a thesis intro) is in, however, I will feel much better.
This is Brenna, signing off.
Then, many, many years later (so many, in fact, that it was a different century), along came a man named Franklin Delano Roosevelt (for the sake of my typing speed, I will refer to him as FDR). FDR entered the White House at a time when the country was in sad shape. The Great Depression was in full swing and Herbert Hoover had done little to help it. But what truly differentiated FDR from his presidential predecessors? He was elected president four times. Yes, he knowingly broke the precedent laid down by none other than George Washington. What prevented FDR from being elected a fifth time? Only his death early in his fourth term (an event the tragic repercussions of which I will save for a future post). FDR's political opponents were so pissed off that, when they got the chance, they passed a law which capped the presidency at ten years or two terms. Naturally, this would come back to bite them in the butt later on, but that's beside the point.
The moral of the story is that we now have legally mandated term limits on the Presidency. Now at this point, you are probably wondering why I told you all of this (or you are still wondering who Weems and Bancroft are. Maybe you are still recovering from the disillusionment over the cherry tree. I guess I don't really know). Well, there are two reasons.
1) George W. Bush. I don't think I have ever heard so much excitement over a President's un-reelectability (yes, I did just make that word up) due to term limits. Trust me, people are psyched. I'm sure some of you who are reading this are probably doing a happy dance that Bush cannot get reelected. Personally, I would like to think that if a president had screwed up enough that people were this excited to get rid of him that he would not get elected again, term limits or no. However, I will turn your attention to a British newspaper headline when Bush last got elected: "How Can 59,000,000 People Be So Dumb?" Not that I'm saying Americans are stupid. I'm just repeating the British (and we all know what they think of us, those poncy tossers).
2) Spencer Dove. Non WaC attenders will most likely have no idea who this is. And that's fine. Like most other schools in the country, WaC is a democratic sheep and, as such, we dutifully hold elections every year for positions in the SGA (Student Government Association). These elections have never been quite as controversial as they were this year. The president of the SGA for this past year was Spencer Dove, a junior and ex-president of the Class of 2009. When he ran for SGA office last year, he promised that he would not seek reelection. Allow me to say that this was a poor move on his part. Promises not to seek reelection do not end well. Teddy Roosevelt made that promise at the beginning of his second term as President, which created problems with getting anything done and prevented him from ever successfully obtaining a third term.
Anyway, back to WaC. Spencer got elected and served as SGA pres. for the 2007-2008 school year. About a month ago, it's election time again and, who's running? Spencer Dove. This ticked a lot of people off. His opponent's platform rested on her belief in upholding the tradition of a one term junior as SGA president. Well, Spencer won reelection and we have precedent breaking second term senior as our president for next year. This was such a major event that it spawned an article in The Cherry Tree (the April Fool's edition of The Elm) as well as an actual article in The Elm. For those interested, you can find The Elm article here: Dove Wins Second Term. I can only hope that my classmates will eventually take as much interest in state and government politics as they did in school politics.
That is my story on term limits. I hope you all enjoyed reading it. I know I enjoyed writing it. I cannot guarantee that I will post again before the end of the semester. There are, at present, three long papers and two short papers between me and going home. As soon as my Method paper (a.k.a thesis intro) is in, however, I will feel much better.
This is Brenna, signing off.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
“Behold, your king comes to you…”
-Matthew 21:5, better known as the perspective of Parson Weems and George Bancroft on the Founders
Yes, it has been a long time since either of us has written, and you have our sincere apologies. We have been suffering from blogger’s block and more urgent historical matters have also captured our attention (like thesis prospectuses and outlines and other papers…..) But I had some thoughts on our studies in Historical Method that I wanted to share.
Historical Method is a class required of all history majors in which we study the history of the art and science of researching and writing history. We have readings from various historical works written throughout history, (fascinating) case studies in United States history that illuminate various points and problems in researching the past, and lectures from all the members of the department on historiography as it relates to their fields of specialization. About a month or so ago, in anticipation of Dr. Miller’s lectures on Early American historiography, we read excerpts from Parson Mason Weem’s Life of Washington and George Bancroft’s History of the United States. They were pretty amusing, to say the least. Parson Weems struck me as part historian, part hagiographer, and part Dr. Spock; his biography, as Dr. Miller explained, served to create the larger-than-life Founding Father that we know and love and was part of the general atmosphere of idolizing all of the founders. Weems was pretty clear in his writing that one should follow George’s father’s parenting techniques if one wants to raise children who are as virtuous as the great George Washington, and as an example of this great virtue, Weems provides the anecdote of George chopping down the cherry tree and then owning up to it when questioned by his father. This incident, along with many of Weem’s other mythic episodes, didn’t actually happen. This ideal continued throughout the 19th century, and even into our own day, and is present in art as well as writing. Dr. Miller showed us some pretty amusing images extolling George Washington, Brenna and I thoroughly enjoyed The Apotheosis of Washington (check it out here. You can also see it illustrating an article in the issue of Newsweek dated March 17, 2008). If you look closely at the left side of the picture, you can see the Virgin Mary looking on. It also looks like George is rising in glory out of a tomb while soldiers look on (sound familiar, especially this weekend?). Don’t get me wrong, I admire George Washington a lot, and there is definitely a lot we can learn from him, but the cult of George Washington and of the other Founders can be slightly over the top. And it’s still alive and well today.
George Bancroft was even more interesting than Parson Weems. He wrote about how every event during the entire 300 year history of colonial America was moving toward the revolution, and even the early 17th century settlers had freedom on their minds in some way. I was most amused when he started talking about freedom as “the breath of life,” how “a band of exiles, keeping watch by night, heard the glad tidings” brought by the revolution, and the prophets declaring these ideas. His idea of the revolution is a divinely ordained event that he likened to the coming of Messiah, and the language he used illustrated this belief even more than what he said about it. Bancroft did make some good points about how the colonial leaders believed that the British Parliament did not have the knowledge or the ability to govern the colonies by the 1760s and 1770s, which are points that I think most historians would consider valid and relevant; unfortunately, these kernels of substance are generally lost among his messages of deliverance through Washington and the other Founders. When discussing the Bible, the term “typology” refers to the study of events that prefigure the coming of and ministry of Jesus as the Messiah, especially His death and resurrection, like the deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt can be understood as a type of the salvation of mankind won by Jesus. Apparently, in the minds of Bancroft and his ilk, Jesus was a type of George Washington.
So that’s a sampling of Historical Method. We’ve also heard lectures about Hegel, Ranke, Marx (the best explanation of Marxism that Brenna and I have ever heard), how history came to be a profession, and twentieth-century debate between Consensus and New Left/Revisionist historians. We’ve also discussed the use of psychological analysis, interviews, and photographs in history, and we will soon have our exam and write our introductory thesis chapters. In other news, there was an article in the Baltimore Sun this past week about a recent survey that concluded that college students experience a lot of stress. It’s a pretty funny article and my classmates and I can attest to its accuracy, although we’re shocked that it seems to have taken this long for someone to declare that which is incredibly obvious. To read it, click here.
Hopefully one of us will write again soon about a conference we went to a few weeks ago and the lecture we will attend this coming Tuesday, but until then, have a very happy Easter!
Yes, it has been a long time since either of us has written, and you have our sincere apologies. We have been suffering from blogger’s block and more urgent historical matters have also captured our attention (like thesis prospectuses and outlines and other papers…..) But I had some thoughts on our studies in Historical Method that I wanted to share.
Historical Method is a class required of all history majors in which we study the history of the art and science of researching and writing history. We have readings from various historical works written throughout history, (fascinating) case studies in United States history that illuminate various points and problems in researching the past, and lectures from all the members of the department on historiography as it relates to their fields of specialization. About a month or so ago, in anticipation of Dr. Miller’s lectures on Early American historiography, we read excerpts from Parson Mason Weem’s Life of Washington and George Bancroft’s History of the United States. They were pretty amusing, to say the least. Parson Weems struck me as part historian, part hagiographer, and part Dr. Spock; his biography, as Dr. Miller explained, served to create the larger-than-life Founding Father that we know and love and was part of the general atmosphere of idolizing all of the founders. Weems was pretty clear in his writing that one should follow George’s father’s parenting techniques if one wants to raise children who are as virtuous as the great George Washington, and as an example of this great virtue, Weems provides the anecdote of George chopping down the cherry tree and then owning up to it when questioned by his father. This incident, along with many of Weem’s other mythic episodes, didn’t actually happen. This ideal continued throughout the 19th century, and even into our own day, and is present in art as well as writing. Dr. Miller showed us some pretty amusing images extolling George Washington, Brenna and I thoroughly enjoyed The Apotheosis of Washington (check it out here. You can also see it illustrating an article in the issue of Newsweek dated March 17, 2008). If you look closely at the left side of the picture, you can see the Virgin Mary looking on. It also looks like George is rising in glory out of a tomb while soldiers look on (sound familiar, especially this weekend?). Don’t get me wrong, I admire George Washington a lot, and there is definitely a lot we can learn from him, but the cult of George Washington and of the other Founders can be slightly over the top. And it’s still alive and well today.
George Bancroft was even more interesting than Parson Weems. He wrote about how every event during the entire 300 year history of colonial America was moving toward the revolution, and even the early 17th century settlers had freedom on their minds in some way. I was most amused when he started talking about freedom as “the breath of life,” how “a band of exiles, keeping watch by night, heard the glad tidings” brought by the revolution, and the prophets declaring these ideas. His idea of the revolution is a divinely ordained event that he likened to the coming of Messiah, and the language he used illustrated this belief even more than what he said about it. Bancroft did make some good points about how the colonial leaders believed that the British Parliament did not have the knowledge or the ability to govern the colonies by the 1760s and 1770s, which are points that I think most historians would consider valid and relevant; unfortunately, these kernels of substance are generally lost among his messages of deliverance through Washington and the other Founders. When discussing the Bible, the term “typology” refers to the study of events that prefigure the coming of and ministry of Jesus as the Messiah, especially His death and resurrection, like the deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt can be understood as a type of the salvation of mankind won by Jesus. Apparently, in the minds of Bancroft and his ilk, Jesus was a type of George Washington.
So that’s a sampling of Historical Method. We’ve also heard lectures about Hegel, Ranke, Marx (the best explanation of Marxism that Brenna and I have ever heard), how history came to be a profession, and twentieth-century debate between Consensus and New Left/Revisionist historians. We’ve also discussed the use of psychological analysis, interviews, and photographs in history, and we will soon have our exam and write our introductory thesis chapters. In other news, there was an article in the Baltimore Sun this past week about a recent survey that concluded that college students experience a lot of stress. It’s a pretty funny article and my classmates and I can attest to its accuracy, although we’re shocked that it seems to have taken this long for someone to declare that which is incredibly obvious. To read it, click here.
Hopefully one of us will write again soon about a conference we went to a few weeks ago and the lecture we will attend this coming Tuesday, but until then, have a very happy Easter!
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The Power of the Press
With my apologias out of the way, allow me to actually blog. That is, if you are not completely shunning us by this point, and act for which I would definitely not blame you.
Over the weekend, I had two interesting run in's with good journalism. The first was via a clipping from the Chicago Tribune which my mother sent me last week. The article was deploring the sad state of historical education in both the United States and England. Apparently, 23% of British teenagers do not believe in Winston Churchill. I'm not even sure how that is possible. How do you not believe in Winston Churchill? That would be like an American teenager not believing in FDR. That goes beyond the kind of ignorance that leads many U.S. teens to be unable to identify the three branches of American government. At least they are not claiming that our government does not exist. They simply feel that knowing the names of the Three Stooges is more important. Having that sort of arcane knowledge myself, how can I possibly blame them? But Winston Churchill is not Santa Claus. I have an image in my head of some proper British mother sitting down her 10 year old daughter and saying, "I'm sorry Sally, but Winston Churchill is not real." My hope is that the poor child would cry. She should cry. Because it is a lie.
Now, 47% percent of these same British teens believe that Richard the Lionheart is a fictional character. This one, I can understand. Richard lived an extremely long time ago. He spent very little time in England and could not even speak English. As my roommate said, "Someone in the Robin Hood stories has to be fictitious, and it isn't going to be Robin Hood." And it is through the Robin Hood stories that most of these teens probably know who Richard is. So I don't blame them so much for this one, though the part of my heart that belongs to medieval England is crying a little.
For anyone who is interested, you can find the article here.
My other run in with wonderful journalism was because of assigned reading for school. Let me first say that this has been a banner semester for academic reading. Not only am I reading The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings, I have also been reading fantastic novels for both my Modern German history class and for Latin American Literature as History. However, I am beginning to appreciate breaks from the novel reading,and one came when we began to read a new book for Modern Germany, called What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-1933. It is a collection of newspaper columns about Berlin by an Austrian journalist named Joseph Roth, and it has been translated from the original German.
Aside from the historical interest I have in the articles, I cannot get over the fact that they represent damn good writing. In his descriptions of everything from really large department stores (as opposed to simply large department stores) to the local homeless shelter, he uses turns of phrase that ring of poetry. He also brings a new prospective to everything, such as how God must have invented sand just for the enjoyment and education of children and how it must have been a whim of fate that made such a disorganized city as Berlin capital of the whole German Reich.
Whether or not any of you care about German history, if you simply enjoy reading (as I know many of you do), you will be doing yourself a major favor if you read this book. I cannot do justice to it in my description.
Well, that is my blog for the day. We are presenting papers at the Phi Alpha Theta conference this Saturday, and I imagine that one of us will want to blog about that. So keep checking back and, with luck, we will be back with you soon.
Brenna
Over the weekend, I had two interesting run in's with good journalism. The first was via a clipping from the Chicago Tribune which my mother sent me last week. The article was deploring the sad state of historical education in both the United States and England. Apparently, 23% of British teenagers do not believe in Winston Churchill. I'm not even sure how that is possible. How do you not believe in Winston Churchill? That would be like an American teenager not believing in FDR. That goes beyond the kind of ignorance that leads many U.S. teens to be unable to identify the three branches of American government. At least they are not claiming that our government does not exist. They simply feel that knowing the names of the Three Stooges is more important. Having that sort of arcane knowledge myself, how can I possibly blame them? But Winston Churchill is not Santa Claus. I have an image in my head of some proper British mother sitting down her 10 year old daughter and saying, "I'm sorry Sally, but Winston Churchill is not real." My hope is that the poor child would cry. She should cry. Because it is a lie.
Now, 47% percent of these same British teens believe that Richard the Lionheart is a fictional character. This one, I can understand. Richard lived an extremely long time ago. He spent very little time in England and could not even speak English. As my roommate said, "Someone in the Robin Hood stories has to be fictitious, and it isn't going to be Robin Hood." And it is through the Robin Hood stories that most of these teens probably know who Richard is. So I don't blame them so much for this one, though the part of my heart that belongs to medieval England is crying a little.
For anyone who is interested, you can find the article here.
My other run in with wonderful journalism was because of assigned reading for school. Let me first say that this has been a banner semester for academic reading. Not only am I reading The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings, I have also been reading fantastic novels for both my Modern German history class and for Latin American Literature as History. However, I am beginning to appreciate breaks from the novel reading,and one came when we began to read a new book for Modern Germany, called What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-1933. It is a collection of newspaper columns about Berlin by an Austrian journalist named Joseph Roth, and it has been translated from the original German.
Aside from the historical interest I have in the articles, I cannot get over the fact that they represent damn good writing. In his descriptions of everything from really large department stores (as opposed to simply large department stores) to the local homeless shelter, he uses turns of phrase that ring of poetry. He also brings a new prospective to everything, such as how God must have invented sand just for the enjoyment and education of children and how it must have been a whim of fate that made such a disorganized city as Berlin capital of the whole German Reich.
Whether or not any of you care about German history, if you simply enjoy reading (as I know many of you do), you will be doing yourself a major favor if you read this book. I cannot do justice to it in my description.
Well, that is my blog for the day. We are presenting papers at the Phi Alpha Theta conference this Saturday, and I imagine that one of us will want to blog about that. So keep checking back and, with luck, we will be back with you soon.
Brenna
I Guess I Lied
Hello all. It looks as though I was overly optimistic when I announced that our blogging hiatus was over. It apparently was not. That might have something to do with the fact that we have been having one busy semester. We're taking a class called Historical Method in which we are begining to write our senior theses and I know that I have been doing a lot of reading and writing for my classes, as has Gillian.
I hope that we will finally start blogging again. We'll see how it goes this time...
I hope that we will finally start blogging again. We'll see how it goes this time...
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Hiatus Over
Hello to all of our lovely blog reading community. Now that Winter Break is over, we are back. We have not, however, completely settled on a blogging schedule for this semester so, when we do (which should be by the end of this week) we will let you know what it is. Until then, we appreciate that you are all still reading and we promise to bring some exciting history factoids your way this semester.
Just to add something historically fun, on this day in 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell was awarded her M.D., thus becoming the first female doctor in the United States.
Brenna and Gillian
Just to add something historically fun, on this day in 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell was awarded her M.D., thus becoming the first female doctor in the United States.
Brenna and Gillian
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