In the early 19th century as Americans became more democratic, consumer-driven, and individualistic they turned away from the eighteenth-century Calvinism of their fathers and turned toward a free-will (Arminian) theology that fit better with the culture in which they lived.
This was a time of unprecedented choice. All men could vote for their choice of political candidates. Consumers were empowered to choose products and churches. And in religion, one could choose to accept or reject the gospel. If you didn't want to get up from your seat and respond to the altar call during a Charles Finney revival you had the power to just say no to the gospel message he was preaching and stay seated. As Wilfred McClay put it in his Merle Curti Prize winning book The Masterless:
...the era was marked by the emergence of a restless, individualistic, egalitarian, wide-open, romantic, liberatory, antinomian, and anti-authoritarian spirit...All these elements seem to merge and coalesce into a heroic fantasy of boundless individual potential, a vision of personal infinitude that impatiently brushed aside the severe and impassible limits imposed by custom, by history, by the accidents of birth, or even by the venerable doctrine of original sin.
Calvinism was simply out of place in this era. It taught that the "restless" should find "rest in Thee." It taught that the individual was only important in relation to the sovereign God who created him. God was in control--humans were not. The Calvinist God was an unwelcome symbol of authority in a democratic society teeming with self-interest and civil liberty.
Calvinism has taken a back seat to free will American religion ever since. But according to a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, old-fashioned Calvinism is making a comeback. It is appealing to Christians who are sick and tired of the kind of therapeutic, feel-good religion that places no demands on one's life or fails to recognize the sinfulness of the world and the limits of this world:
Today, [John Calvin's] theology is making a surprising comeback, challenging the me-centered prosperity gospel of much of modern evangelicalism with a God-first immersion in Scripture. In an age of materialism and made-to-order religion, Calvinism's unmalleable doctrines and view of God as an all-powerful potentate who decides everything is winning over many Christians – especially the young.
Move over Joel Osteen. Here comes John Piper and Mark Dever.
More from the Christian Science Monitor:
By most logic, the stern system of Calvinism shouldn't be popular today. Much of modern Christianity preaches a comforting Home Depot theology: You can do it. We can help. Epitomized by popular titles like Joel Osteen's "Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential," this message of self-fulfillment through Christian commitment attracts followers in huge numbers, At the same time, a strict following of the Bible, which Calvinists embrace, hardly resonates the way it once did in American society. The Barna Group, a California-based research firm, recently did a survey to find out how many US adults hold a "biblical worldview" – for instance, believe that the Bible is totally accurate, that a person cannot earn their way into heaven simply by doing good, that God is the all-powerful creator of the universe.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Letters to Obama
Did you know that Barack Obama reads ten pieces of mail a day?
The blog of the American Social History Project reports:
At more than one workshop with teachers, we have used letters written by Americans to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to illuminate the successes and limitations of New Deal programs and the ways that the events of the 1930s prompted a fundamental change in the relationship between citizens and their government. The letters are notable for the personal connection their authors so evidently feel with FDR. I speculated that President Obama was engendering a similarly personal connection with many people, and this article from today’s Washington Post confirms that hunch. From it I learned that Obama reads ten pieces of mail per day, and he has specifically requested that they be representative rather than universally laudatory. The article details the procedures by which 20,000 pieces of mail (snail and electronic) are processed and profiles one letter writer whose missive was included in the president’s nightly selection.
The blog of the American Social History Project reports:
At more than one workshop with teachers, we have used letters written by Americans to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to illuminate the successes and limitations of New Deal programs and the ways that the events of the 1930s prompted a fundamental change in the relationship between citizens and their government. The letters are notable for the personal connection their authors so evidently feel with FDR. I speculated that President Obama was engendering a similarly personal connection with many people, and this article from today’s Washington Post confirms that hunch. From it I learned that Obama reads ten pieces of mail per day, and he has specifically requested that they be representative rather than universally laudatory. The article details the procedures by which 20,000 pieces of mail (snail and electronic) are processed and profiles one letter writer whose missive was included in the president’s nightly selection.
Texas Lawmakers Getting Involved in Social Studies Curriculum
From the Texas Freedom Network:
Today Texas lawmakers picked up a bigger megaphone to get the attention of a bitterly divided, out-of-control State Board of Education. At a Capitol press conference, members of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC) announced that they are scheduling a public hearing for April 28 to examine how and why the state board has run off the tracks and what the Texas Legislature should do about it.
Today Texas lawmakers picked up a bigger megaphone to get the attention of a bitterly divided, out-of-control State Board of Education. At a Capitol press conference, members of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC) announced that they are scheduling a public hearing for April 28 to examine how and why the state board has run off the tracks and what the Texas Legislature should do about it.
Calling the board a “national circus,” MALC Chairman Trey Martinez Fischer (photo), a Democratic state representative from San Antonio, said the hearing will focus on the board’s badly broken process for developing curriculum standards and adopting textbooks. The hearing will also look at the highly controversial decisions the board has made in the development of new social studies standards this year.
The announcement comes after two state board meetings in which board members vandalized nearly a year’s worth of work by classroom teachers, scholars and others in drafting new social studies curriculum standards. The result has been a series of absurd changes that have turned a curriculum document almost into a political manifesto promoting ideological agendas of the board’s powerful far-right faction.
See the whole article here.
Authors of Amish Grace on Lifetime's Portrayal of Nickel Mines
Did you see "Amish Grace" last Sunday? The movie was based on the 2006 Nickel Mines Amish school shooting and took the same title as the best-selling book on the subject. It appeared last Sunday night on the Lifetime Movie Network and starred Kimberly Williams-Paisley. I did not see it.
On Faith, a website sponsored by Newsweek and The Washington Post, is running a short piece by the authors of Amish Grace reflecting on how the movie captured the spiritual dimensions of the 2006 shooting. According to the authors, which include my Messiah College colleague David Weaver-Zercher, the movie misses the point. Here is a taste:
Scapegoating may be irrational, but it's understandable and also very common. Perhaps that's why the upcoming movie on the 2006 Nickel Mines Amish school shooting, set to air this Sunday on the Lifetime Movie Network, adopts that story line. The movie's trailer portrays an Amish mother showing up at the deceased gunman's home the day after the shooting to "confront" his devastated wife, holding her responsible for her husband's deeds.
On Faith, a website sponsored by Newsweek and The Washington Post, is running a short piece by the authors of Amish Grace reflecting on how the movie captured the spiritual dimensions of the 2006 shooting. According to the authors, which include my Messiah College colleague David Weaver-Zercher, the movie misses the point. Here is a taste:
Scapegoating may be irrational, but it's understandable and also very common. Perhaps that's why the upcoming movie on the 2006 Nickel Mines Amish school shooting, set to air this Sunday on the Lifetime Movie Network, adopts that story line. The movie's trailer portrays an Amish mother showing up at the deceased gunman's home the day after the shooting to "confront" his devastated wife, holding her responsible for her husband's deeds.
Only it didn't happen that way. True, Amish people did show up at gunman Charles Roberts' home within hours of the shooting that left five girls dead. They also visited his parents and parents-in-law, all of whom lived within a few miles of the West Nickel Mines School.
But the Amish people didn't go there to express rage or sling blame. They visited the Roberts family because of their compassion for his kin--victims of the tragedy who were also suffering immense emotional pain. One Amish neighbor consoled Charles Roberts' father with a hand on his shoulder and four simple words: "We love you, Roberts." A few days later, at Roberts' burial, parents of some of the Amish girls he had killed showed up and hugged his widow. It was, said one Amish man, "simply the right thing to do."
Read more of the article here.
Sean Wilentz on the Return of Nullification
"The current rage for nullification is nothing less than another restatement, in a different context, of musty neo-Confederate dogma."
So concludes Sean Wilentz in a recent article in The New Republic about the revival of the idea of "nullification" in American political life. He offers a short history of the idea and then brings it to bear on our current political situation.
Here is more:
Historical amnesia is as dangerously disorienting for a nation as for an individual. So it is with the current wave of enthusiasm for “states’ rights,” “interposition,” and “nullification”—the claim that state legislatures or special state conventions or referendums have the legitimate power to declare federal laws null and void within their own state borders. The idea was broached most vociferously in defense of the slave South by John C. Calhoun in the 1820s and 1830s, extended by the Confederate secessionists in the 1850s and 1860s, then forcefully reclaimed by militant segregationists in the 1950s and 1960s. Each time it reared its head, it was crushed as an assault on democratic government and the nation itself—in Abraham Lincoln’s words, “the essence of anarchy.” The issue has been decided time and again—not least by the deaths of more than 618,000 Americans on Civil War battlefields. Yet there are those who now seek to reopen this wound in the name of resisting federal legislation on issues ranging from gun control to health care reform. Proclaiming themselves heralds of liberty and freedom, the new nullifiers would have us repudiate the sacrifices of American history—and subvert the constitutional pillars of American nationhood...
...That these ideas resurfaced 50 years ago, amid the turmoil of civil rights, was as harebrained as it was hateful. But it was comprehensible if only because interposition and nullification lay at the roots of the Civil War. Today, by contrast, the dismal history of these discredited ideas resides within the memories of all Americans who came of age in the 1950s and 1960s—and ought, on that account, to be part of the living legacy of the rest of the country. Only an astonishing historical amnesia can lend credence to such mendacity.
So concludes Sean Wilentz in a recent article in The New Republic about the revival of the idea of "nullification" in American political life. He offers a short history of the idea and then brings it to bear on our current political situation.
Here is more:
Historical amnesia is as dangerously disorienting for a nation as for an individual. So it is with the current wave of enthusiasm for “states’ rights,” “interposition,” and “nullification”—the claim that state legislatures or special state conventions or referendums have the legitimate power to declare federal laws null and void within their own state borders. The idea was broached most vociferously in defense of the slave South by John C. Calhoun in the 1820s and 1830s, extended by the Confederate secessionists in the 1850s and 1860s, then forcefully reclaimed by militant segregationists in the 1950s and 1960s. Each time it reared its head, it was crushed as an assault on democratic government and the nation itself—in Abraham Lincoln’s words, “the essence of anarchy.” The issue has been decided time and again—not least by the deaths of more than 618,000 Americans on Civil War battlefields. Yet there are those who now seek to reopen this wound in the name of resisting federal legislation on issues ranging from gun control to health care reform. Proclaiming themselves heralds of liberty and freedom, the new nullifiers would have us repudiate the sacrifices of American history—and subvert the constitutional pillars of American nationhood...
...That these ideas resurfaced 50 years ago, amid the turmoil of civil rights, was as harebrained as it was hateful. But it was comprehensible if only because interposition and nullification lay at the roots of the Civil War. Today, by contrast, the dismal history of these discredited ideas resides within the memories of all Americans who came of age in the 1950s and 1960s—and ought, on that account, to be part of the living legacy of the rest of the country. Only an astonishing historical amnesia can lend credence to such mendacity.
The Moderate Tradition in American Politics
I want to call your attention to Mark Noll's recent review of Robert Calhoon's Political Moderation in America's First Two Centuries. Despite the workmanlike title, the book is a wonderful study of the idea of moderation in early American life. Here is a snippet of Noll's review:
By moderation, Calhoon does not mean simply a search for the middle, but rather the capacity to discern critically and act boldly for the sake of checking extremism of action or thought. One of Calhoon's key moderates is John Witherspoon, president of the College of New Jersey at Princeton, who was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. After examining a famous sermon that Witherspoon preached in May 1776 on the rule of God's providence, Calhoon calls Witherspoon's moderation "a compound of caution and risk"—that is, Witherspoon spoke boldly about the dangers of British policy, but did so in such a way as to promote careful reflection rather than impetuous action. The lengthy chapter on other Revolutionary-era moderates is especially good in its treatment of John Dickinson (who protested against British policy, but also criticized the move for independence) and John Adams (who supported independence, but also criticized excesses of democracy in the new United States). Calhoon is similarly illuminating on lesser-known figures like Thomas McKean of Pennsylvania, who convinced most of his colleagues that conciliation was a better long-term strategy than revenge when trying to re-integrate Loyalists into American society. Equally thought-provoking chapters spotlight political moderates who were active in the southern backcountry and in the shaping of American churches during the first decades of the 19th century.
Any Thoughts On This?
"Obama is not a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away free healthcare. You're thinking of Jesus."
The quote is all over Facebook and the web so I am not sure who to attribute it to.
Christian Philosophers Take Off the Gloves
Recently Baylor University philosopher professor Francis Beckwith returned to his childhood Roman Catholic faith. His conversion made news in evangelical circles because Beckwith crossed the Tiber at the same time that he was serving as president of the Evangelical Theological Society. He has now chronicled his experience in Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic.
Recently in a web journal called The Other Side, James K.A. Smith, a philosopher from Calvin College, "reviewed" Return to Rome. Frankly, the review tells us more about Smith than it does about the content of Beckwith's memoir. Smith is not happy about Beckwith's conversion to Rome. In fact, he uses this so-called "review" to criticize Beckwith's Catholicism and the spiritual journey that brought him back to his childhood faith.
Beckwith, at his blog "Return to Rome," has responded to Smith's review. He is astonished that Smith would "diminish" the "heart-felt narrative" of his book with such a review. Beckwith was hurt by Smith's review, which no doubt explains why he comes out swinging:
Perhaps, given my own journey and academic life, I should by now have grown accustomed to the scores of insults that have been hurled at me since my return to the Church. But the insults do not usually come from those, like Professor Smith, who pretend to be the lone virtuous custodians of Christianity's lost liturgical kernel. Since becoming a Catholic, I have a better sense of my own smallness. I know that if I died tomorrow, the Church would go on just fine without me. I would not, and should not, be missed. But if Professor Smith were to vanish from this mortal realm, the postmodern, liturgically aware, emergent, anti-modernist, radical orthodoxy Reformed Protestant movement will have lost one third of its intellectual firepower.
Ouch!
What I found most interesting about this exchange, however, is Beckwith's appeal to a sort of Roman Catholic populism:
Apparently, Professor Smith was, to quote the country singer Johnny Lee, "looking for love in all the wrong places." In my life, the love I encountered was not found in the persons and practices that Professor Smith finds philosophically and liturgically interesting. (God knows it was not in the "practices" of Oscar Wilde, the death-bed Catholic who Professor Smith admires). Intellectual and cultural celebrity--usually bestowed on talented strangers who write inspiring tomes and/or live inspiring and/or edgy lives--may be all the spiritual water that Professor Smith requires to make his boat float. But I'm, happily, content with the Christ I find in those closest to me. Call me simple, but I prefer the ordinary folks, the sort with which Christ hung out that attracted the ire of the Pharisees. So, the love I found was not only in the Sacraments (as I share in the last paragraph in the quoted portion below), but in my family, my parents, my grandmother, my wife, my father-in-law, my siblings, my nieces and nephews, the real flesh and blood persons who, in their different ways, live out the incarnational life. That is, they actualize the very graces the Sacraments impart to the believer. Apparently, I'm just not as sophisticated or enlightened as Professor Smith. I actually prefer the company of my father, who played Santa Claus at an inner city elementary school for several years, than the company of pointy-headed intellectuals sipping espresso with Jean-Paul Sartre and Oscar Wilde wannabes discussing the esoteric homoerotic meaning of A Christmas Carol and decrying "Cartesian Dualism" as a social construction of hegemonic masculinity.
Ouch again!
Beckwith's critique is even more potent since it is made about a guy, Smith, who claims to be a good old boy from a blue collar family with "agricultural blood in his veins" who gets "easily distracted by the latest online headline about Britney Spears or yesterday's NASCAR dustup" and has stated that his written work is designed to "help my sisters and brothers imagine what it looks like to be disciples of Jesus who live 'abundantly' in a broken world, looking for kingdom come."
I am glad to hear that Smith views himself as such a Christian populist. Perhaps Smith can come with me to northern New Jersey and explain the meaning of "postmodernism," "Fors Clavigera," "hermeneutics," Derrida, and "radical orthodoxy" to my father (a general contractor), my mother (a housewife), my brother (a plumber), and my other brother (a carpenter). And while he is at it he can explain the meaning of these terms to me as well. We are all evangelical Christians who need Smith's wisdom.
I have nothing against what Smith writes about or chooses to study. He is obviously a bright and prolific philosopher who is fulfilling his vocation as a member of the Protestant intellectual class. He is probably a nice guy and a good teacher. I am guessing that his students love him. But please, let's drop the "common man" bit.
I'll take Beckwith's incarnational life over Smith's postmodern, liturgically aware, emergent, anti-modernist, radical orthodoxy Reformed Protestant movement any day of the week.
Recently in a web journal called The Other Side, James K.A. Smith, a philosopher from Calvin College, "reviewed" Return to Rome. Frankly, the review tells us more about Smith than it does about the content of Beckwith's memoir. Smith is not happy about Beckwith's conversion to Rome. In fact, he uses this so-called "review" to criticize Beckwith's Catholicism and the spiritual journey that brought him back to his childhood faith.
Beckwith, at his blog "Return to Rome," has responded to Smith's review. He is astonished that Smith would "diminish" the "heart-felt narrative" of his book with such a review. Beckwith was hurt by Smith's review, which no doubt explains why he comes out swinging:
Perhaps, given my own journey and academic life, I should by now have grown accustomed to the scores of insults that have been hurled at me since my return to the Church. But the insults do not usually come from those, like Professor Smith, who pretend to be the lone virtuous custodians of Christianity's lost liturgical kernel. Since becoming a Catholic, I have a better sense of my own smallness. I know that if I died tomorrow, the Church would go on just fine without me. I would not, and should not, be missed. But if Professor Smith were to vanish from this mortal realm, the postmodern, liturgically aware, emergent, anti-modernist, radical orthodoxy Reformed Protestant movement will have lost one third of its intellectual firepower.
Ouch!
What I found most interesting about this exchange, however, is Beckwith's appeal to a sort of Roman Catholic populism:
Apparently, Professor Smith was, to quote the country singer Johnny Lee, "looking for love in all the wrong places." In my life, the love I encountered was not found in the persons and practices that Professor Smith finds philosophically and liturgically interesting. (God knows it was not in the "practices" of Oscar Wilde, the death-bed Catholic who Professor Smith admires). Intellectual and cultural celebrity--usually bestowed on talented strangers who write inspiring tomes and/or live inspiring and/or edgy lives--may be all the spiritual water that Professor Smith requires to make his boat float. But I'm, happily, content with the Christ I find in those closest to me. Call me simple, but I prefer the ordinary folks, the sort with which Christ hung out that attracted the ire of the Pharisees. So, the love I found was not only in the Sacraments (as I share in the last paragraph in the quoted portion below), but in my family, my parents, my grandmother, my wife, my father-in-law, my siblings, my nieces and nephews, the real flesh and blood persons who, in their different ways, live out the incarnational life. That is, they actualize the very graces the Sacraments impart to the believer. Apparently, I'm just not as sophisticated or enlightened as Professor Smith. I actually prefer the company of my father, who played Santa Claus at an inner city elementary school for several years, than the company of pointy-headed intellectuals sipping espresso with Jean-Paul Sartre and Oscar Wilde wannabes discussing the esoteric homoerotic meaning of A Christmas Carol and decrying "Cartesian Dualism" as a social construction of hegemonic masculinity.
Ouch again!
Beckwith's critique is even more potent since it is made about a guy, Smith, who claims to be a good old boy from a blue collar family with "agricultural blood in his veins" who gets "easily distracted by the latest online headline about Britney Spears or yesterday's NASCAR dustup" and has stated that his written work is designed to "help my sisters and brothers imagine what it looks like to be disciples of Jesus who live 'abundantly' in a broken world, looking for kingdom come."
I am glad to hear that Smith views himself as such a Christian populist. Perhaps Smith can come with me to northern New Jersey and explain the meaning of "postmodernism," "Fors Clavigera," "hermeneutics," Derrida, and "radical orthodoxy" to my father (a general contractor), my mother (a housewife), my brother (a plumber), and my other brother (a carpenter). And while he is at it he can explain the meaning of these terms to me as well. We are all evangelical Christians who need Smith's wisdom.
I have nothing against what Smith writes about or chooses to study. He is obviously a bright and prolific philosopher who is fulfilling his vocation as a member of the Protestant intellectual class. He is probably a nice guy and a good teacher. I am guessing that his students love him. But please, let's drop the "common man" bit.
I'll take Beckwith's incarnational life over Smith's postmodern, liturgically aware, emergent, anti-modernist, radical orthodoxy Reformed Protestant movement any day of the week.
T.H. Breen on Tea Parties Past and Present
Prominent Northwestern University early American historian T.H. Breen has weighed-in on the Tea Party Movement's abuse of history. Here are a few snippets from what Breen has to say in today's Washington Post:
When Americans protest, whether it is today's Tea Party members or Vietnam Veterans Against the War being arrested on Lexington Green in 1971, they often lay claim to the ordinary patriots of the Revolution. The impulse of many protesters has been to assert kinship with the middling Americans who came forward to resist British imperial power. But what do we know about the motivations and actions of the ordinary colonists who risked killing and getting killed at the birth of independence? Judging by some of the uses to which their memory is put, not much. These remarkable men and women, however, left ample records; we can discern their motivations in their own words...
...Second, the colonists did not protest taxation. To be clear: They protested against taxation without representation, an entirely different matter. During the summer of 1774, when Parliament punished the city of Boston for the destruction of the East India Company's tea, people throughout Massachusetts Bay continued to pay taxes to the colonial government. At this chaotic moment, rather than keep their money, colonists voted in town after town to no longer transfer tax revenue to Harrison Gray, a treasurer of loyalist sympathies, but instead to send "moneys which they then had, or in future might have in their hands, belonging to the Province" to one Henry Gardner. Anyone who misses this point risks missing the fact that ordinary American patriots accepted the legitimate burdens of supporting a government in which they enjoyed genuine representation
Third, the colonists appreciated that any disgruntled person can mouth words of protest. But resistance to Britain demanded serious sacrifice. Long before there was a clash of arms, ordinary Americans desiring to demonstrate publicly their full support for the patriot cause participated in increasingly successful boycotts of British imported manufactures. A Connecticut newspaper stated the point bluntly: "if we mean still to be free, let us unanimously lay aside foreign superfluities, and encourage our own manufacture. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND YOU WILL SAVE YOUR COUNTRY." Sacrifice, they knew, bred unity, as when the inhabitants of one Maine village voted "a Universal Withdrawment of our Commerce with the Island of Great Britain until the aforesaid Oppressive Acts of Parliament shall be Repealed." Giving up something desired declared intentions and forged solidarity far more meaningfully than angry rhetoric....
....Modern Americans owe a tremendous debt to the ordinary patriots who launched an insurgency that became a revolution that brought independence. Simply put, without them there would be no United States. The minimum repayment is to know their history. Anyone wishing to cloak present-day complaints in that early generation's sacrifice ought to understand how it managed during a severe political crisis to bring forth a new republic dedicated to rights, equality and liberty.
When Americans protest, whether it is today's Tea Party members or Vietnam Veterans Against the War being arrested on Lexington Green in 1971, they often lay claim to the ordinary patriots of the Revolution. The impulse of many protesters has been to assert kinship with the middling Americans who came forward to resist British imperial power. But what do we know about the motivations and actions of the ordinary colonists who risked killing and getting killed at the birth of independence? Judging by some of the uses to which their memory is put, not much. These remarkable men and women, however, left ample records; we can discern their motivations in their own words...
...Second, the colonists did not protest taxation. To be clear: They protested against taxation without representation, an entirely different matter. During the summer of 1774, when Parliament punished the city of Boston for the destruction of the East India Company's tea, people throughout Massachusetts Bay continued to pay taxes to the colonial government. At this chaotic moment, rather than keep their money, colonists voted in town after town to no longer transfer tax revenue to Harrison Gray, a treasurer of loyalist sympathies, but instead to send "moneys which they then had, or in future might have in their hands, belonging to the Province" to one Henry Gardner. Anyone who misses this point risks missing the fact that ordinary American patriots accepted the legitimate burdens of supporting a government in which they enjoyed genuine representation
Third, the colonists appreciated that any disgruntled person can mouth words of protest. But resistance to Britain demanded serious sacrifice. Long before there was a clash of arms, ordinary Americans desiring to demonstrate publicly their full support for the patriot cause participated in increasingly successful boycotts of British imported manufactures. A Connecticut newspaper stated the point bluntly: "if we mean still to be free, let us unanimously lay aside foreign superfluities, and encourage our own manufacture. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND YOU WILL SAVE YOUR COUNTRY." Sacrifice, they knew, bred unity, as when the inhabitants of one Maine village voted "a Universal Withdrawment of our Commerce with the Island of Great Britain until the aforesaid Oppressive Acts of Parliament shall be Repealed." Giving up something desired declared intentions and forged solidarity far more meaningfully than angry rhetoric....
....Modern Americans owe a tremendous debt to the ordinary patriots who launched an insurgency that became a revolution that brought independence. Simply put, without them there would be no United States. The minimum repayment is to know their history. Anyone wishing to cloak present-day complaints in that early generation's sacrifice ought to understand how it managed during a severe political crisis to bring forth a new republic dedicated to rights, equality and liberty.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Teaching Springsteen
The other day I gave the students a double-shot of Bruce Springsteen--1970s FM Radio style!
My Immigrant America course has been spending a lot of time talking about the values and beliefs that define American culture. All semester I have been trying to get them to see, among other things, that Americans tend to be restless, always searching for meaning, always on the move, always searching for something more. This kind of yearning is at the heart of the pursuit of what might be called "The American Dream."
I am not the first to connect Springsteen to America's search for meaning and I will not be the last. Jim Cullen and Louis Masur do this quite well. Anything I had to say to the class about Springsteen and the American Dream came from reading their books. I even recommended these books to my students.
Since my students are mostly Christians, I challenged them to compare Springsteen's search for meaning with the opening words of St. Augustine's Confessions: "Our hearts our restless until they find their rest in Thee." (Thanks for this suggestion Paul Contino).
Earlier in the semester I had played "Land of Hope and Dreams" and "Working on a Dream" and later in the semester I will play Springsteen's rendition of "American Land." But on this day it was time to play "Thunder Road" and "Born to Run" in sequence from the Essential Bruce Springsteen. I gave the students the lyrics to both songs and included some of my own comments which I "tracked" onto the lyrics with the Microsoft Word editing/tracking/comment feature.
We then talked briefly about the relationship between breaking free from the "town that rips the bones from your back" and the "town for losers" and the quest for meaning in America. Later, I think I will also play "Long Walk Home" since, after all, The Way of Improvement Leads Home.
I wish we had more time for discussion, but I do hope that I developed in my students a deeper understanding of the American culture through Springsteen's music. I also hope that I convinced some of them to put some Springsteen on their I-Pods. And no, I did not get up in the front of the class and start dancing with a freshman girl. I'm not quite "there"yet and I am not sure I will ever be.
My Immigrant America course has been spending a lot of time talking about the values and beliefs that define American culture. All semester I have been trying to get them to see, among other things, that Americans tend to be restless, always searching for meaning, always on the move, always searching for something more. This kind of yearning is at the heart of the pursuit of what might be called "The American Dream."
I am not the first to connect Springsteen to America's search for meaning and I will not be the last. Jim Cullen and Louis Masur do this quite well. Anything I had to say to the class about Springsteen and the American Dream came from reading their books. I even recommended these books to my students.
Since my students are mostly Christians, I challenged them to compare Springsteen's search for meaning with the opening words of St. Augustine's Confessions: "Our hearts our restless until they find their rest in Thee." (Thanks for this suggestion Paul Contino).
Earlier in the semester I had played "Land of Hope and Dreams" and "Working on a Dream" and later in the semester I will play Springsteen's rendition of "American Land." But on this day it was time to play "Thunder Road" and "Born to Run" in sequence from the Essential Bruce Springsteen. I gave the students the lyrics to both songs and included some of my own comments which I "tracked" onto the lyrics with the Microsoft Word editing/tracking/comment feature.
We then talked briefly about the relationship between breaking free from the "town that rips the bones from your back" and the "town for losers" and the quest for meaning in America. Later, I think I will also play "Long Walk Home" since, after all, The Way of Improvement Leads Home.
I wish we had more time for discussion, but I do hope that I developed in my students a deeper understanding of the American culture through Springsteen's music. I also hope that I convinced some of them to put some Springsteen on their I-Pods. And no, I did not get up in the front of the class and start dancing with a freshman girl. I'm not quite "there"yet and I am not sure I will ever be.
The National Anthem at Goshen
A few weeks ago we blogged about the decision made by Goshen College, a Mennonite school, to play the national anthem at sporting events.
Now, over at Religion in American History, Goshen alum and American historian Steven Miller offers his take on this decision. His post is called "Goshen College Gets (Civil) Religion."
Here is a snippet:
The criticism of the new anthem policy within Goshen circles has some interesting parallels to how the “young evangelicals” of the early 1970s interpreted Robert Bellah’s famous “civil religion” thesis. That is, they focused almost exclusively on the priestly, rather than the prophetic, side of American civil religion. Such an approach might work as theology, but it does not suffice as history. In the classroom this semester, I have tried to get my students thinking about the multiple meaning of American-ness (and claims to American-ness) by using a modified form of Gary Gerstle’s civic vs. racial nationalism rubric, which I’ve long thought also is relevant to the study of American religion.
I’m intrigued to hear criticism of the anthem policy coming from other than Mennonite circles. It’s as if Goshen had some sort of obligation to be the foil for Christendom. Where did these high expectations come from? My best guess is the theologian Stanley Hauerwas, a vocal fan of Mennos who hitched his highly influential post-liberal vision to the spirit of the very Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder.
As the above thoughts might suggest, I’m not terribly bothered by the new policy—a fact that puts me in the minority among my alumni friends. In deciding to play the anthem before most sporting events, the college unquestionably is abandoning a source of Mennonite distinctiveness. On the other hand, no one who attends a Goshen baseball game—and hears an announcement of the school’s core values (three of which are “Global Citizenship, Servant Leadership and Compassionate Peacemaking”), followed by a musical version the anthem, followed in turn by the Peace Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi—will mistake the place for Patrick Henry College. Besides, our nickname is not “Crusaders,” not “Flames”; it’s “Maple Leafs.”
Now, over at Religion in American History, Goshen alum and American historian Steven Miller offers his take on this decision. His post is called "Goshen College Gets (Civil) Religion."
Here is a snippet:
The criticism of the new anthem policy within Goshen circles has some interesting parallels to how the “young evangelicals” of the early 1970s interpreted Robert Bellah’s famous “civil religion” thesis. That is, they focused almost exclusively on the priestly, rather than the prophetic, side of American civil religion. Such an approach might work as theology, but it does not suffice as history. In the classroom this semester, I have tried to get my students thinking about the multiple meaning of American-ness (and claims to American-ness) by using a modified form of Gary Gerstle’s civic vs. racial nationalism rubric, which I’ve long thought also is relevant to the study of American religion.
I’m intrigued to hear criticism of the anthem policy coming from other than Mennonite circles. It’s as if Goshen had some sort of obligation to be the foil for Christendom. Where did these high expectations come from? My best guess is the theologian Stanley Hauerwas, a vocal fan of Mennos who hitched his highly influential post-liberal vision to the spirit of the very Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder.
As the above thoughts might suggest, I’m not terribly bothered by the new policy—a fact that puts me in the minority among my alumni friends. In deciding to play the anthem before most sporting events, the college unquestionably is abandoning a source of Mennonite distinctiveness. On the other hand, no one who attends a Goshen baseball game—and hears an announcement of the school’s core values (three of which are “Global Citizenship, Servant Leadership and Compassionate Peacemaking”), followed by a musical version the anthem, followed in turn by the Peace Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi—will mistake the place for Patrick Henry College. Besides, our nickname is not “Crusaders,” not “Flames”; it’s “Maple Leafs.”
Was Early America a Christian America?
So asks Claude S. Fischer in a recent article at Immanent Frame. The piece stems from Fischer's book, Made in America: A Social History of American Culture and Character.
Fischer concludes:
The furious debate in some quarters over whether America was born a “Christian nation” is ironic. The historical record shows that America was not born Christian, but grew to be very Christian centuries later....
Of course such an argument is not a new. Jon Butler made it in Awash in a Sea of Faith. Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and others have made it as well. The Founding was not a Christian event, but clearly America had become a "Christian nation" or "evangelical empire" or "a spiritual hothouse" by the early 19th century.
Read Fischer's entire piece here.
Fischer concludes:
The furious debate in some quarters over whether America was born a “Christian nation” is ironic. The historical record shows that America was not born Christian, but grew to be very Christian centuries later....
Of course such an argument is not a new. Jon Butler made it in Awash in a Sea of Faith. Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and others have made it as well. The Founding was not a Christian event, but clearly America had become a "Christian nation" or "evangelical empire" or "a spiritual hothouse" by the early 19th century.
Read Fischer's entire piece here.
Smart Talk Interview Is Now On-Line
If you missed it this morning, I was a guest on WITF Smart Talk (WIFT is Harrisburg's NPR station) with Barbara Franco, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. We discussed Ed Rendell's recent budget cuts to Pennsylvania historical sites. You can read my recent Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed piece on the subject here and here.
We had a great conversation about these issues with Smart Talk host Scott Lamar. The fact that the phone boards were lighting up and the station was inundated with e-mails from listeners suggests that people are passionate about history. As Barbara Franco told me before the show, it does not seem as if Rendell and the legislators in Harrisburg are really in touch with the people of Pennsylvania on this one.
You can listen to the conversation at the Smart Talk website.
We had a great conversation about these issues with Smart Talk host Scott Lamar. The fact that the phone boards were lighting up and the station was inundated with e-mails from listeners suggests that people are passionate about history. As Barbara Franco told me before the show, it does not seem as if Rendell and the legislators in Harrisburg are really in touch with the people of Pennsylvania on this one.
You can listen to the conversation at the Smart Talk website.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Tune In To WITF Radio Smart Talk Tomorrow
I will be a guest on WITF's Radio Smart Talk tomorrow (Tues.) morning at 9am. The show can be found at 89.5 or 93.3 on your FM dial. The topic will be the meaning of history in the state of Pennsylvania.
Click here for details.
Click here for details.
New Interactive Website on the 1704 Raid on Deerfield
AHA Today is calling our attention today to what looks like a really great website on the 1704 Indian Raid on colonial Deerfield, Massachusetts.
What a great teaching tool! Check it out.
What a great teaching tool! Check it out.
Are There Too Many Events on Campus?
In her latest Brainstorm post, Gina Barecca feels guilty about not attending all of the wonderful events going on at the University of Connecticut.
I feel bad about being a bad citizen, but not bad enough to read most of them all the way through. I hate myself for not taking advantage of everything that's being offered, but not enough not to go home when I'm done with my classes, office hours, and my own research.
In terms of size and resources Messiah College is no University of Connecticut, but for a college of around 2800 we have our own dizzying slate of events. This year, the college's Centennial Year, has been packed with public lectures: Henry Louis Gates, Philip Yancey, Tracy Kidder, Mark Noll, Kwame Dawes, Dana Gioia, Dinesh D'Souza, Louis Fischer, Greg Boyd, Nathan Yoder, Brian Blount.
But unlike UCONN (I am guessing), Messiah students, and especially faculty, sometimes notice when you are not in attendance.
I would love to attend all of these events, but I just can't do it. There are family dinners to eat and games to coach and board games to play and books to write and papers to grade. Don't get me wrong--I think that all of these lectures and events are good for the college. Let a thousand lectures bloom! All I am saying is that I need to learn to be selective about what I attend without feeling guilty about it.
Here are some more thoughts from Barecca:
I feel bad about being a bad citizen, but not bad enough to read most of them all the way through. I hate myself for not taking advantage of everything that's being offered, but not enough not to go home when I'm done with my classes, office hours, and my own research.
In terms of size and resources Messiah College is no University of Connecticut, but for a college of around 2800 we have our own dizzying slate of events. This year, the college's Centennial Year, has been packed with public lectures: Henry Louis Gates, Philip Yancey, Tracy Kidder, Mark Noll, Kwame Dawes, Dana Gioia, Dinesh D'Souza, Louis Fischer, Greg Boyd, Nathan Yoder, Brian Blount.
But unlike UCONN (I am guessing), Messiah students, and especially faculty, sometimes notice when you are not in attendance.
I would love to attend all of these events, but I just can't do it. There are family dinners to eat and games to coach and board games to play and books to write and papers to grade. Don't get me wrong--I think that all of these lectures and events are good for the college. Let a thousand lectures bloom! All I am saying is that I need to learn to be selective about what I attend without feeling guilty about it.
Here are some more thoughts from Barecca:
I hate to admit this, of course, because I still would like to fancy myself as one of those people who is a vivid, vital, always-colorful part of the larger fabric of the campus community. I'd also very much like to regard myself as one of those people who has a dynamic, fluid, ever-changing, ever-expanding set of intellectual and cultural experiences. Hell, I'd like to think of myself as someone who is interested in learning for learning's sake.
The older I get, however, the less willing I find myself to open those notices announcing a campus speaker or Student Union-sponsored event. This is a drag because I am sometimes that person on another campus, and I'm always hoping that people will leave the comfort of their homes to come and see me. How rotten is that?
It's the guilt, more than anything, that breaks my heart because I really would like to have all the time in the world, just as I imagined I would. I genuinely do enjoy most of the events that I go to -- after I show up. I'm genuinely excited when we have good poets and writers, essayists and stand-up comics come to the campus. I'm happy to line up right next to my students to get tickets. But, heartbreaking as it is, it's also difficult to talk myself into going to those readings or talks of people that I don't know or haven't heard of whose work doesn't precisely dovetail with my own.
History as Identity Politics
Can history be rescued from identity politics? Sam Tanenhaus is not very optimistic about the prospect.
In a thought-provoking piece, the book review editor of the New York Times reflects on the social studies curriculum recently approved by the Texas Board of Education.
In reality, this controversy is the latest version of a debate that reaches back many decades and is perhaps essential in a heterogeneous democracy whose identity has long been in flux.
In a thought-provoking piece, the book review editor of the New York Times reflects on the social studies curriculum recently approved by the Texas Board of Education.
In reality, this controversy is the latest version of a debate that reaches back many decades and is perhaps essential in a heterogeneous democracy whose identity has long been in flux.
In the 18th century, the American writer Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, himself an immigrant from France, catalogued the continent’s bewildering mix of “English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans and Swedes.” He wondered, “What then is the American, this new man?”
He concluded that in America, “individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men.”
That idea was later fortified by Alexis de Tocqueville’s concept of American exceptionalism, which suggested that the country was exempt from the bitter conflicts — class, religion, imperial ambition — that had convulsed Europe.
Long afterward, amid America’s own convulsions in the 1960s and ’70s, the concept of a single “race of men” looked outmoded. Didn’t race mean “white race”? And didn’t “men” exclude women? American exceptionalism might really be a form of cultural insularity.
So, universities and colleges devised new programs that prompted objections as fierce as those now being made to the Texas curriculum.
Tanenhaus makes a good point. The identity politics being played by the conservative members of the Texas Board of Education shares similarities with the rise of the social history in the 1960s and 1970s. Some of the most popular histories of America are now being written by people like Howard Zinn and Larry Schwiekart. But is it history? While I am not convinced that the study of the past can ever be entirely objective or even apolitical, isn't this still the goal of the historian? Isn't that what we are ultimately striving for? I still like Gordon Wood's line (paraphrased): If a book about the American Revolution references George W. Bush in the preface there is a good chance it might be bad history.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Sunday Night Odds and Ends
A few things on-line that caught my attention this week:
"Way of Improvement Leads Home" membership drive.
Are you a narcissist?
Are you middle class?
Should Ph.D programs be reduced in length?
Joseph Palermo on Sam Tanenhaus on the Texas Social Studies curriculum.
Ordinary history vs. providential history.
Students and wikipedia.
A new history of Messiah College.
Mark Noll reviews Chris Castaldo, Holy Ground: Walking With Jesus as a Former Catholic
Jill Lepore on Glenn Beck and eugenics.
Are academics snobs?
Stacy Schiff reviews Michael O'Brien, Mrs Adams in the Winter.
John Stauffer reviews Graham Hodges, David Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City and Scott Christianson, Freeing Charles: The Struggle to Free a Slave on the Eve of the Civil War.
"Way of Improvement Leads Home" membership drive.
Are you a narcissist?
Are you middle class?
Should Ph.D programs be reduced in length?
Joseph Palermo on Sam Tanenhaus on the Texas Social Studies curriculum.
Ordinary history vs. providential history.
Students and wikipedia.
A new history of Messiah College.
Mark Noll reviews Chris Castaldo, Holy Ground: Walking With Jesus as a Former Catholic
Jill Lepore on Glenn Beck and eugenics.
Are academics snobs?
Stacy Schiff reviews Michael O'Brien, Mrs Adams in the Winter.
John Stauffer reviews Graham Hodges, David Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City and Scott Christianson, Freeing Charles: The Struggle to Free a Slave on the Eve of the Civil War.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Ed Countryman Weighs in on the Texas Social Studies Standards
The Texas Freedom Network has asked noted history of the American Revolution Edward Countryman to respond to the history standards approved by the Texas Board of Education. Here is the response:
There is absolutely no question that Jefferson is an Enlightenment figure of the first order. In my major-level Revolution course I’ve just taught Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia (1782), having previously taught his emergence piece (“A Summary View of the Rights of British America”) and the Declaration. We’ll continue the Notes on Tuesday dealing specifically with the tortured language on slavery and race.
My class is excellent, but Jefferson stumped them today. I wanted them to see him as a scientific thinker, in the late eighteenth-century sense. So I walked them through his interest in the emerging sciences of geology, paleontology, and anthropology, noting that he is part of a trans-Atlantic Republic of Letters whose participants exchanged ideas and information constantly. What was taking shape was the concept of Deep Time, which won’t be fully in place until the 1830s and from which Darwin would springboard. Jefferson is aware of the issues that render the Biblical Creation account untenable, including fossils high in the Appalachians that had to be maritime in origin. He poses the questions, though he doesn’t have the answers and knows it.
He wrote the Notes on Virginia for a French friend who was a fellow savant, and his larger readership, when it was published, was such people on both sides of the Atlantic. One interesting point, marking him as a man of the eighteenth-century: he knows about the exhumation of mastodon and mammoth bones and is very interested. He puzzles on what species they belong to. But Darwin hasn’t happened yet, and he has no notion of either the extinction or the origin of species of animals. So he firmly believes that the creatures are alive somewhere “out there.” He would instruct Lewis and Clark to seek them.
His Enlightenment thinking is present as well in his political thought. In the Summary View (1774) he cuts right through all the old, tortured arguments about British belonging that had erupted out of Britain’s decision to reform colonial administration. One of the figures whose thought he dismisses is (William) Blackstone, though he doesn’t mention him. In the Notes he ponders what is going wrong with his own Virginia, adopting an Enlightenment take on his state’s public life, which comes down to “what is wrong can be understood and can be fixed.” He also has a long chapter at the end of the book on the problem of religion in the polity, criticizing Virginia (where the Anglican Church has been disestablished but where heresy was still a crime at common law) and Massachusetts (where the Congregational Standing Order still stood) and praising New York and Pennsylvania where the separation had become complete.
I just do not get the Board’s list (of recommended names for the standard). I would not dismiss Aquinas or Blackstone as thinkers. Far from it. Blackstone’s insight in the Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765) that all societies must have an absolute authority above them was precisely what the rebellious colonials resisted. He was saying, in effect, that Britain’s formulaic of the King-in-Parliament, though different in form from the “l’etat, c’est moi” of Louis XIV or the formula “yo el Rey” of a Spanish monarch, was nonetheless absolute from the subject’s point of view. Parliament said the same thing in the Declaratory Act (1766), when it asserted its power over the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” Jefferson would list those words at an important point in his long indictment of the king that forms the centerpiece of the Declaration.
The Blackstone formula does come back in “We the People . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution [which shall be] the Supreme Law of the Land,” but in a way modified precisely by the very Enlightenment debate about sovereignty and authority that Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Jay and their like (including many so-called ordinary folks) carried on between the Declaration in 1776 and the Constitution a dozen years later. The old order that the Revolution demolished had rested on a legitimacy drawn from its long history (the Burkean position that long experience justified continuation) and from its supposed sacred origins (“Got almightie in his most holy and venerable providence hath so disposed of the condition of mankind that in all times and places some must be rich, some poore, some high and mightie in power and dignitie, others meane and in subjection . . . the reason hereof . . . that we may have need of one another,” John Winthrop, founding governor of Massachusetts, 1630). The order that Jefferson helped to originate rejected that whole position, very much in the Enlightenment position that all things and all human arrangements are open to human inquiry and to human remaking. This underpins the achievement of the people we honor as the Founders, among whom Jefferson figures large.
So, again, on intellectual grounds I just do not get it. On historical grounds it is outrageous. Such people are likely to go on about historical revisionism, not in the (accurate) sense of taking fresh evidence and fresh problems into account but in some supposed sense of rewriting according to an ideological agenda, which is not what serious professionals do. That describes precisely what these people are doing. It’s akin to condemnations of so-called “judicial activism” and to upholding so-called originalist Constitutional jurisprudence – and then handing down the decision about corporate spending in the electoral process on the spurious ground that corporations, like living human beings, are persons with equal First Amendment rights.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Membership Drive at The Way of Improvement Leads Home
Public television has membership drives. Why not blogs? Here are some opportunities:
1. Become a follower of this blog! (Click on "Followers" list on the left)
2. Become a follower of this blog on Facebook through Networked Blogs (Click on Facebook link on left)
3. Are you a Philip Vickers Fithian fan? Join the PVF Fan Club on Facebook. Or if you are not a fan of PVF but would like to be, join us! Or if you have never heard of PVF or have not read The Way of Improvement Leads Home, but think it would be cool to be in a group, join us!
4. Our "Places" feature has not taken off, but I am not yet ready to give up on it. Learn about it here and send us your photos. Click here for entries so far.
5. Are you a history major or former history major doing interesting things with your degree? Take a look at our "So What CAN You Do With a History Major" feature and consider telling us your story.
6. Read The Way of Improvement Leads Home and write a short blurb or review of the book at Amazon.Com.
JOIN US TODAY!
1. Become a follower of this blog! (Click on "Followers" list on the left)
2. Become a follower of this blog on Facebook through Networked Blogs (Click on Facebook link on left)
3. Are you a Philip Vickers Fithian fan? Join the PVF Fan Club on Facebook. Or if you are not a fan of PVF but would like to be, join us! Or if you have never heard of PVF or have not read The Way of Improvement Leads Home, but think it would be cool to be in a group, join us!
4. Our "Places" feature has not taken off, but I am not yet ready to give up on it. Learn about it here and send us your photos. Click here for entries so far.
5. Are you a history major or former history major doing interesting things with your degree? Take a look at our "So What CAN You Do With a History Major" feature and consider telling us your story.
6. Read The Way of Improvement Leads Home and write a short blurb or review of the book at Amazon.Com.
JOIN US TODAY!
Super-Sizing DaVinci's Last Supper
The Los Angeles Times reports on a study that shows how the portion sizes in DaVinci's "The Last Supper" have been growing consistently larger over the years. While one might think such a study would appear in a scholarly art journal, it actually was published in the International Journal of Obesity.The Christian faith holds several acts of "super-sizing" to be miracles accomplished by Jesus Christ -- a handful of fish and loaves of bread expanded to feed thousands; a wedding feast running low on wine suddenly awash in the stuff. Now a new study of portion expansion puts Jesus once more at the center.
In a bid to uncover the roots of super-sized American fare, a pair of sibling scholars has turned to an unusual source: 52 artists' renderings of the New Testament's Last Supper.
Their findings, published online Tuesday in the International Journal of Obesity, indicate that serving sizes have been marching heavenward for 1,000 years.
Creative History Writing
I was browsing the website of the History News Network this week and learned about an exciting new journal called Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice. Here is how U.S. editor James Goodman describes the journal:A couple of years ago, not long after I signed on as U.S. editor of Rethinking History, I penned a called for contributions for a series of themed issues. I called those issues “History as Creative Writing,” but not without some hesitation, even reluctance. I knew those words would strike some readers as tired (another revival of narrative?), or pretentious (another literary turn?) or just plain meaningless. But I meant something modest, something that made a certain amount of plain sense. By creative writing I mean history written by writers who, whether composing the most complex theory or the simplest narrative, are attentive to the ways that form and style shape substance, content, and meaning. Creative writers are those who take their writing seriously enough, as writing, to try to figure out what form of writing will allow them to best express whatever it is that they want to tell. If that’s pretentious, I figured I might as well make the most it.
I imagined submissions that showed signs not just of the scholar’s struggle with evidence or the existing literature, but also the writer’s struggle with language and form. I imagined that that struggle might lead to some unusual structure, or plot, or voice, or point of view, or some uncommon (for academic history) use of metaphor, imagery, or rhythm.
I imagined that some writers might try to strike some unusual balance between showing and telling, revealing and withholding, answering questions and leaving questions for readers to try to answer.
I imagined some might try to complicate conventional chronology, shaking up beginnings, middles and ends.
I expected that the struggle would push some writers of narrative or interpretation or theory (or some hybrid of two or more) to the outer limits of the universe of non-fiction writing—or out of that universe altogether. I made it clear, in my call, that I would be thrilled if, in the name of historical understanding, a writer submitted some poems, a portion of a memoir, or a scene from a play. I neglected to mention visual forms, but happily my readers have taken it for granted that I welcome innovation that extends beyond the limits of my own imagination.
After reading Goodman's encouraging piece I went to the journal's website. After establishing a password, I was able to browse a sample issue of Rethinking History. This issue was a veritable feast of unorthodox historical prose and creative non-fiction. I loved it. Of course, Jersey boy that I am, I was taken immediately by Susan Briante's short essay on "The Casino" in Asbury Park, New Jersey. But there were also several other fascinating essays on how history writing might be imagined.
I might even subscribe!
The Hofstadter Revival
With the so-called Tea Party Movement in full swing and Sarah Palin writing best selling books, populism is hot these days. But rather than turning to living and active scholars of populism to explain the tea party phenomenon, commentators and pundits continue to turn to the late Richard Hofstadter.For those of my readers who do not know Hofstadter (1916-1970), he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian and public intellectual who spent much of his career at Columbia University. His doctoral students included Herbert Gutman, Eric Foner, Lawrence Levine, and Linda Kerber In 1964, he published "The Paranoid Style in American Politics in which he attacked rural populists as backward, paranoid, and anti-intellectual. For an excellent treatment of Hofstadter's life check out David S. Brown, Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography.
A recent New York Times article by Richard Bernstein describes Hofstadter's staying power:
NEW YORK — The name Richard Hofstadter has been summoned up a lot lately in liberal opinion columns and the blogosphere as an eloquent and intellectually impeccable explanation for political developments like the Tea Party movement, the stardom of Sarah Palin, and the claim on right-wing talk radio that Barack Obama is a “socialist,” maybe even a “bolshevik” leading America to ruin.
Mr. Hofstadter was the highly respected, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at Columbia University among whose most famous essays was one called “The Paranoid Style of American Politics,” published in Harper’s Magazine in 1964, which is the piece of writing being cited most often these days.
“I call it the paranoid style because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind,” Mr. Hofstadter wrote, describing what he viewed as a menacing proneness in America to irrational anger and passion.
Quite a few commentators lately have cited Mr. Hofstadter as a useful guide for the politics of an angry and passionate minority today...Drew University Student Busted for Stealing the Letters of John Wesley
A Drew University freshman and former employee of the university's United Methodist Archives is charged with pilfering a host of letters written by John Wesley. The New York Times reports:
The university became suspicious, according to an account provided by prosecutors, after an antiques dealer in England alerted officials in its library that he had been approached by someone offering to sell him original letters from the Wesleys. Ten of the letters arrived on March 3, via FedEx, according to the complaint, with two suffering some damage in transit.
Prosecutors said the unprofessional way the valuable documents were shipped did not sit well with the dealer, who then consulted Drew officials, given their expertise and collection of Wesleyana.
After a quick search of its archives, the university estimated that 21 to 23 of its Wesley letters appeared to be missing and contacted the F.B.I. The missing lot included a valuable letter, worth more than $5,000, from John Wesley to a friend and supporter, George Merryweather, dated Dec. 20, 1766.
After combing through Mr. Scott’s dorm room, federal agents discovered a file containing six Wesley letters besides the ones that were sent to England. The file also contained roughly 11 other important and historical documents from the university archives, including letters from five United States presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, William McKinley, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The file also had letters belonging to the university from Richard Nixon when he was vice president, Robert F. Kennedy and Madame Chiang.
Hat Tip: Tommy Kidd via FacebookWednesday, March 24, 2010
Job Opening: David Library of the American Revolution
The David Library of the American Revolution is accepting applications for the SOL FEINSTONE SCHOLAR
The David Library of the American Revolution seeks to hire an energetic scholar of American history who can manage the academic needs of the Library. The position is 15 to 20 hours per week, with flexible scheduling and a competitive salary. Other terms may be negotiated. In addition, the Sol Feinstone Scholar will have full, 24-hour access to the Library and its holdings to advance her or his own research and scholarship.
The David Library of the American Revolution (DLAR) is a private, non-profit library dedicated to the study of American History circa 1750-1800. Our premier collection includes over 700 manuscript collections, 7000 bound volumes of primary and secondary sources, and rare pamphlets. Located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the Library hosts vibrant public programming for the local community and supports a fellowship program for scholars.
We invite all applicants to learn more about the David Library by visiting www.dlar.org.
Duties of the Sol Feinstone Scholar include:
1. Programming DLAR’s lecture series and other academic events.
2. Cultivating collaborative relationships on the Library’s behalf.
3. Managing DLAR’s fellowship program.
4. Participating in long range strategic planning for the organization with the Board of Trustees and staff.
5. Overseeing DLAR’s acquisitions.
6. Providing historical oversight, guidance and counsel to DLAR staff and patrons.
QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE POSITION: Advanced degree in a related field.
THE BEST CANDIDATE WILL DEMONSTRATE:
1. A record of scholarly accomplishments.
2. Broad knowledge of Early American History/Studies.
3. Experience in developing and producing public history programs.
4. An interest in digital humanities, especially as they relate to archives.
APPLICATION PROCESS: To apply, send a letter of interest and curriculum vitae to
Search Committee
David Library of the American Revolution
P. O. Box 748
Washington Crossing, PA 18977
Review of applications will begin immediately. It is DLAR’s goal to fill the position by June 1, 2010.
The David Library of the American Revolution seeks to hire an energetic scholar of American history who can manage the academic needs of the Library. The position is 15 to 20 hours per week, with flexible scheduling and a competitive salary. Other terms may be negotiated. In addition, the Sol Feinstone Scholar will have full, 24-hour access to the Library and its holdings to advance her or his own research and scholarship.
The David Library of the American Revolution (DLAR) is a private, non-profit library dedicated to the study of American History circa 1750-1800. Our premier collection includes over 700 manuscript collections, 7000 bound volumes of primary and secondary sources, and rare pamphlets. Located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the Library hosts vibrant public programming for the local community and supports a fellowship program for scholars.
We invite all applicants to learn more about the David Library by visiting www.dlar.org.
Duties of the Sol Feinstone Scholar include:
1. Programming DLAR’s lecture series and other academic events.
2. Cultivating collaborative relationships on the Library’s behalf.
3. Managing DLAR’s fellowship program.
4. Participating in long range strategic planning for the organization with the Board of Trustees and staff.
5. Overseeing DLAR’s acquisitions.
6. Providing historical oversight, guidance and counsel to DLAR staff and patrons.
QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE POSITION: Advanced degree in a related field.
THE BEST CANDIDATE WILL DEMONSTRATE:
1. A record of scholarly accomplishments.
2. Broad knowledge of Early American History/Studies.
3. Experience in developing and producing public history programs.
4. An interest in digital humanities, especially as they relate to archives.
APPLICATION PROCESS: To apply, send a letter of interest and curriculum vitae to
Search Committee
David Library of the American Revolution
P. O. Box 748
Washington Crossing, PA 18977
Review of applications will begin immediately. It is DLAR’s goal to fill the position by June 1, 2010.
The Springsteen Eucharist
Trinity Cathedral, an Episcopal church in Portland, is going to play the music of Bruce Springsteen during a Saturday night Communion celebration. Here is a snippet of the article from The Oregonian.The songs of Bruce Springsteen, known for describing everyday life in religious terms, will accompany a traditional Eucharist, or Communion celebration, at Trinity Cathedral on Saturday.
"Sky of Mercy," named for a phrase from Springsteen's song "The Rising," is the creation of a Trinity committee working on Christian outreach. Pairing contemporary music with traditional liturgies has been done before. "U2charists," with music from the rock band U2, are common. Trinity's version in October drew a multigenerational crowd of about 250. "It's a chance to bring modern culture into the church and the other way around," says the Rev. Nathan LeRud, a priest at Trinity. "It's a way to push the distinction between sacred and secular, to break it down."
It's also a chance to support a cause that organizers say is close to Springsteen's heart: feeding people in need. The collection taken during the service will benefit Trinity's food pantry, which served almost 20,000 people last year.
I know that much of Springsteen's music reflects Catholic sensibilities, but is this taking it too far? Actually, as a Christian who often meditates spiritually to Springsteen's music, I kind of like the idea. If I lived in Portland I would definitely attend this service.
Historians on Colbert
Unfortunately, I cannot embed these. But if you want to see Stephen Colbert in action with two famous historians, check out these links.
First, Colbert and Nell Irvin Painter arm wrestle over her book The History of White People.
Then, Colbert discusses the Texas Social Studies curriculum changes with Eric Foner.
Hilarious stuff.
First, Colbert and Nell Irvin Painter arm wrestle over her book The History of White People.
Then, Colbert discusses the Texas Social Studies curriculum changes with Eric Foner.
Hilarious stuff.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
So What CAN You Do With a History Major: Part 25
Become a Pulitzer-Prize winning newspaper reporter and award-winning author!Today's interview in our continuing series, "So What CAN You Do With a History Major," is with Sonia Nazario.
Sonia has spent 20 years reporting and writing about social issues, most recently as a projects reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Her stories have tackled some of this country’s most intractable problems: hunger, drug addiction, immigration.
She has won numerous national journalism and book awards. In 2003, her story of a Honduran boy’s struggle to find his mother in the U.S., entitled "Enrique's Journey,” won more than a dozen awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, the George Polk Award for International Reporting, the Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the National Assn. of Hispanic Journalists Guillermo Martinez-Marquez Award for Overall Excellence.
Expanded into a book, Enrique’s Journey became a national bestseller and won two book awards. It is now required reading for incoming freshmen at dozens of colleges and high schools across the U.S.
In 1998, Nazario was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for a series on children of drug addicted parents. And in 1994, she won a George Polk Award for Local Reporting for a series about hunger among schoolchildren in California.
Nazario has been named among the most influential Latinos by Hispanic Business Magazine and a “trendsetter” by Hispanic Magazine.
Nazario, who grew up in Kansas and in Argentina, has written extensively from Latin America and about Latinos in the United States. She is now at work on her second book. She began her career at the Wall Street Journal, where she reported from four bureaus: New York, Atlanta, Miami, and Los Angeles. In 1993, she joined the Los Angeles Times. She serves on the advisory board of the University of North Texas Mayborn Literary Non-fiction Writer's Conference and on the board of directors of Kids In Need of Defense, a non-profit launched by Microsoft and Angelina Jolie to provide pro-bono attorneys to unaccompanied immigrant children.
She is a graduate of Williams College and has a master’s degree in Latin American studies from the University of California, Berkeley.
SN: I had led a fairly sheltered life until I was 13 years old. Then my father died of a heart attack. And my mother decided to take the family back to Argentina, where she and my father were from. It was just as the so-called dirty war was cranking up, where the country’s military would ultimately “disappear” nearly 30,000 people. The experience made me want to study history for two reasons. First, it was clear many Argentines hated Americans. When I spoke English with my American accent, sometimes people would spit on my shoes in disgust. What role, I wondered, had the U.S. played in the world to make people behave this way? Having grown up largely in Kansas, I felt so ignorant about the world. Argentines all knew where Kansas was. Few Kansans could tell you where Argentina sat on a map. I felt so ignorant I remember spending a week trying to read the Encyclopedia Britanica! Second, after having two journalists killed by the military in my neighborhood, I increasingly understood how repressive regimes thrived by stifling the free flow of information. I decided to become a journalist at 14 after seeing the blood of those two journalists on a sidewalk near my home in Buenos Aires. To write about today’s reality in Latin America—or the U.S. for that matter—it seemed clear to me that the best foundation would be an understanding of history.
JF: Tell us a bit about your undergraduate experience as a history major at Williams College.
SN: At the time, the offerings seemed very limited. It seemed that the world was made up of Europe, Japan, China, and the U.S. east of the Mississippi. There were hardly any course offerings about the rest of the world, including Latin America. That really bothered me. It seemed that the rest of the world simply wasn’t worth studying. This has changed drastically since then. Williams is now a very diverse college, and the offerings reflect diverse interests. Despite the limitations, the professors were top-notch. Being curious about a lot of places, I did a winter study in China, and a year abroad in Spain and England. Charles Dew, a renowned expert on the U.S. Civil War, did an independent study with me for my honors thesis on the Congressional response to the Vietnam War. He and others were willing to do whatever it took to teach me, even if that meant going into subject areas they knew little about.
JF: What led you into journalism?
SN: It was a desire to write about social justice issues in Latin America after my experiences in Argentina as a teenager. I was determined to go back and write about that part of the world. When I graduated from college, I went to work at the Wall Street Journal. By the age of 25, I was the back-up Latin American correspondent. After living out of a suitcase far too much of the time, I decided there were plenty of social issues I could write about here in the U.S. I have often focused on writing about people that don’t get a lot of ink: women, children, the poor, and immigrants.
JF: In what ways did your undergraduate history major help prepare you for your work as a journalist and writer? (Any so-called transferable skills?).
SN: In a very practical way, it taught me to do research, where to look for needed documents, and to write. More important, however, it taught me to think critically. Because when you look at events in history, by looking at how those situations were resolved you can understand a lot about what is going to happen in the future. The past is prologue.
JF: Would you recommend that students interested in careers in journalism or writing do an undergraduate major in history?
SN: I think that is a tougher call today than when I graduated from college. In the 1980s, you could leave college with the knowledge and skills history taught you, and assume that someone in a newsroom would teach you the craft of journalism. Back then, editors had time to teach new hires how to report and write. With the huge cutbacks in newsroom staffs, that is no longer the case. So you really have to pick up those journalism skills now in college if you hope to be successful in a newsroom. There’s not much learning on the job any more.
JF: When will Enrique's Journey be coming to HBO?
SN: HBO worked on it for years as a six-part mini-series, but unfortunately it stalled there. It may be revived at a network in the near future. In the meantime, the book has inspired at least two of the three films that have come out recently about immigrant children coming to find their mothers: Sin Nombre, a feature film, and Which Way Home, a documentary that was nominated for an Oscar this year. I’m told a fourth film, looking at an Ecuadorian mother who makes the journey atop freight trains through Mexico with her child is in the works. It’s wonderful, especially in a time of so much hostility towards immigrants, to see that the book has inspired so many to make films that are helping to educate people about this issue and about migrants.
JF: What advice would you give to undergraduates majoring in history or those considering a history major?
SN: I believe that in many different careers, employers are looking for people who can do research, think critically, understand past events and put current events in context, and can write clearly. I cannot think of a better major than history that gives you all that.
Thanks, Sonia!
Readers: Get out there and buy a copy of Enrique's Journey.
Wendell Berry on Marriage
HT: Joe Carter
Marriage, in what is evidently its most popular version, is now on the one hand an intimate “relationship” involving (ideally) two successful careerists in the same bed, and on the other hand a sort of private political system in which rights and interests must be constantly asserted and defended. Marriage, in other words, has now taken the form of divorce: a prolonged and impassioned negotiation as to how things shall be divided. During their understandably temporary association, the “married” couple will typically consume a large quantity of merchandise and a large portion of each other.
Marriage, in what is evidently its most popular version, is now on the one hand an intimate “relationship” involving (ideally) two successful careerists in the same bed, and on the other hand a sort of private political system in which rights and interests must be constantly asserted and defended. Marriage, in other words, has now taken the form of divorce: a prolonged and impassioned negotiation as to how things shall be divided. During their understandably temporary association, the “married” couple will typically consume a large quantity of merchandise and a large portion of each other.
New Springsteen 10-Inch Vinyl
Springsteen has a new album coming out--kind of.
From Backstreets blog:
Last year for Record Store Day, Columbia issued an exclusive Springsteen vinyl single — a seven-inch featuring "What Love Can Do" backed with "A Night With the Jersey Devil." For this year's Mom & Pop shop celebration, on April 17, they're doing it again—only bigger.
From Backstreets blog:
Last year for Record Store Day, Columbia issued an exclusive Springsteen vinyl single — a seven-inch featuring "What Love Can Do" backed with "A Night With the Jersey Devil." For this year's Mom & Pop shop celebration, on April 17, they're doing it again—only bigger.
This year's Record Store Day release is a ten-inch, featuring two rare tracks: "Wrecking Ball" live at Giants Stadium (2009), and "The Ghost of Tom Joad" live with Tom Morello (2008). While both tracks have been previously available digitally, this is their first release in physical form. Their length may account for the size of the record: "Wrecking Ball" clocks in at 6:34, and "Joad" at 8:40. And another upgrade from last year, this release boasts a full-on picture sleeve.
Last year's single was difficult to track down, and like that one, the "Wrecking Ball" single will be exclusive and limited; we suggest you contact your local indpendent music store and request that they carry it. Participating stores are listed here, but as recordstoreday.com's disclaimer states:
Those stores are all independent, which means not only are they not owned by a corporation, they aren’t run or influenced or told what to do by us here at Record Store Day either. They have complete control over their stock, store policies and which promotions they participate in. Any piece (commercial or promotional) that we tell you about on this site is available at some stores, but other stores have probably chosen not to carry them. Which is totally their prerogative. That’s why we tell you to be sure to CHECK WITH YOUR LOCAL STORE.
We're psyched to see Springsteen and Columbia putting in the effort to be part of Record Store Day — "a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally" — and we encourage you to be part of it too. Support your local shops!
Talking About My Generation?
I have always felt a bit insecure about myself because I do not fit in one of the nicely defined "generations" as delineated by sociologists and other academics. I am too young to be Baby Boomer and have always thought of myself as too old to be included in Generation X.
I never thought, however, that my parents, both born in 1941, did not fit very well into these prescribed categories either. Then I read Richard Pells's article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "The Peculiar Generation." It seems that my parents were also stuck between generations--the "Greatest Generation" and the "Baby Boom" generation. Here is a taste of Pells's article:
...But what about the people born between the beginning of World War II, in 1939, and its end, in 1945? Those members of a transitionally awkward generation who were too young to have personally experienced the Depression or the war, but too old to have been embroiled in the turmoil on college campuses in the late 1960s. Who were presumably too blasé or sedate to have participated in the battles against the Vietnam War or for the equality of women, much less in the revels at Woodstock. Who came of age in an America that was obsessed with the cold war and was not yet bombarded daily by technological innovations, new waves of immigrants, or cataclysms in the stock market. What contributions, if any, has this generation made to American political and cultural life?...
Read the entire article for an answer to this question.
I never thought, however, that my parents, both born in 1941, did not fit very well into these prescribed categories either. Then I read Richard Pells's article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "The Peculiar Generation." It seems that my parents were also stuck between generations--the "Greatest Generation" and the "Baby Boom" generation. Here is a taste of Pells's article:
...But what about the people born between the beginning of World War II, in 1939, and its end, in 1945? Those members of a transitionally awkward generation who were too young to have personally experienced the Depression or the war, but too old to have been embroiled in the turmoil on college campuses in the late 1960s. Who were presumably too blasé or sedate to have participated in the battles against the Vietnam War or for the equality of women, much less in the revels at Woodstock. Who came of age in an America that was obsessed with the cold war and was not yet bombarded daily by technological innovations, new waves of immigrants, or cataclysms in the stock market. What contributions, if any, has this generation made to American political and cultural life?...
Read the entire article for an answer to this question.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Look Out Jim Wallis: The Hammer is About to Fall!!
Jim Wallis better run for the hills or else keep his door locked at night. Glenn Beck is coming...
“So you go ahead and you continue to do your little protest thing, and that’s great. I love it. But just know — the hammer is coming. We’ve been compiling information on you, your cute little organization, and all the other cute little people that are with you. And when the hammer comes, it’s going to be hammering hard and all through the night. Over and over.”--Glenn Beck
Listen to the whole thing. It's really eerie and a little bit creepy.
“So you go ahead and you continue to do your little protest thing, and that’s great. I love it. But just know — the hammer is coming. We’ve been compiling information on you, your cute little organization, and all the other cute little people that are with you. And when the hammer comes, it’s going to be hammering hard and all through the night. Over and over.”--Glenn Beck
Listen to the whole thing. It's really eerie and a little bit creepy.
Historians Weigh In On Health Care
The Daily Beast has an interesting forum on the passing of the health care bill. It features four historians--Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ted Widmer, Sean Wilentz, and Michael Kazin.
Here is a summation:
Goodwin: Places health care reform legislation in the same category as Social Security and the Civil Rights bill.
By extending health care to almost all Americans as a right and not a privilege, this bill is indeed historic. The measure of its historic nature can also be taken by the number of presidents who have tried and failed to get health care passed, from its listing in the Progressive Party platform in 1912 under the heading of social and industrial justice, to FDR's failed attempt to include it in Social Security, from Truman's fight for it, to LBJ's signing of Medicare in the presence of Truman, from Nixon to Clinton.
Widmer
Had the GOP been able to stop the health-care bill, it would have effectively neutered the Obama presidency after little more than a year, ending the political revolution that began with Barack Obama's remarkable grassroots campaign. The legislation passed by the House, even in stripped-down form, revives the momentum that the president desperately needs to take on the huge challenges that remain, including the Middle East, China and jobs, jobs, jobs.
Wilentz Praises Nancy Pelosi:
It is rare for a speaker of the House to assert much independent authority and will to achieve a major piece of legislation. No speaker in modern times has performed as powerfully as Pelosi has over health care; for an apt comparison, one might have to go all the way back to Speaker Henry Clay of Kentucky, who, with an iron grip on procedures as well as personnel, rammed through the compromise that resolved the Missouri crisis of 1819 to 1821 and delayed by nearly four decades the crisis over slavery that led to Civil War. Curiously, the modern political figure who has most often cited Clay as a role model is Newt Gingrich, whose performance as speaker proved disastrous for his party and himself. We may, though, at last have seen the emergence of a speaker with Clay’s talents in Nancy Pelosi. The tough, resilient woman has saved the day.
Kazin
The long, exhausting march to health-care reform should remind us of a truth that ideologues on the right and left tend to ignore: Every liberal moment in modern American political history has been both hard-won and brief...
The passage of health-care reform is the signal liberal achievement of Obama’s presidency—and may also be the last. But the president and his allies in Congress can also take heart from another historical parallel. In those earlier liberal moments, the policies Democrats were able to enact—from financial regulation and Social Security to civil rights and Medicare—quickly became popular enough to silence all but the most hidebound right-wing challengers...
Here is a summation:
Goodwin: Places health care reform legislation in the same category as Social Security and the Civil Rights bill.
By extending health care to almost all Americans as a right and not a privilege, this bill is indeed historic. The measure of its historic nature can also be taken by the number of presidents who have tried and failed to get health care passed, from its listing in the Progressive Party platform in 1912 under the heading of social and industrial justice, to FDR's failed attempt to include it in Social Security, from Truman's fight for it, to LBJ's signing of Medicare in the presence of Truman, from Nixon to Clinton.
Widmer
Had the GOP been able to stop the health-care bill, it would have effectively neutered the Obama presidency after little more than a year, ending the political revolution that began with Barack Obama's remarkable grassroots campaign. The legislation passed by the House, even in stripped-down form, revives the momentum that the president desperately needs to take on the huge challenges that remain, including the Middle East, China and jobs, jobs, jobs.
Wilentz Praises Nancy Pelosi:
It is rare for a speaker of the House to assert much independent authority and will to achieve a major piece of legislation. No speaker in modern times has performed as powerfully as Pelosi has over health care; for an apt comparison, one might have to go all the way back to Speaker Henry Clay of Kentucky, who, with an iron grip on procedures as well as personnel, rammed through the compromise that resolved the Missouri crisis of 1819 to 1821 and delayed by nearly four decades the crisis over slavery that led to Civil War. Curiously, the modern political figure who has most often cited Clay as a role model is Newt Gingrich, whose performance as speaker proved disastrous for his party and himself. We may, though, at last have seen the emergence of a speaker with Clay’s talents in Nancy Pelosi. The tough, resilient woman has saved the day.
Kazin
The long, exhausting march to health-care reform should remind us of a truth that ideologues on the right and left tend to ignore: Every liberal moment in modern American political history has been both hard-won and brief...
The passage of health-care reform is the signal liberal achievement of Obama’s presidency—and may also be the last. But the president and his allies in Congress can also take heart from another historical parallel. In those earlier liberal moments, the policies Democrats were able to enact—from financial regulation and Social Security to civil rights and Medicare—quickly became popular enough to silence all but the most hidebound right-wing challengers...
Appearance on WIFT Radio Smart Talk
Does participating in a radio program count as an "appearance?"
If you live in the Harrisburg, PA area tune into WITF Radio Smart Talk at 9:00am on Tuesday, March 31st. I will be part of a panel discussing the place of history in the state of Pennsylvania. Much of what I have to say will stem from my recent Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed, "State is Erasing Its History." If WITF streams the program on the web, I will let you know.
If you live in the Harrisburg, PA area tune into WITF Radio Smart Talk at 9:00am on Tuesday, March 31st. I will be part of a panel discussing the place of history in the state of Pennsylvania. Much of what I have to say will stem from my recent Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed, "State is Erasing Its History." If WITF streams the program on the web, I will let you know.
Early American History Jobs
Back in the fall we commented on all the jobs available this year in Early American History. Well, many of them appear to have been filled by lucky and talented candidates. According to the US History Academic Jobs Wiki, here are some recent hires in early American history. (Feel free to correct anything that the Wiki has gotten wrong).
University of Arkansas: James Gigantino, University of Georgia
Indiana University Purdue University-Fort Wayne: Jeffrey Malanson, Boston College
St. Ambrose University: Larry Skillin, Ohio State
Syracuse: Andrew Lippman, University of Pennsylvania
Texas A&M: Brian Rouleau, University of Pennsylvania
Wake Forest: John Ruddiman, Yale University
Williams College: Patrick Spero, University of Pennsylvania
University of Arkansas: James Gigantino, University of Georgia
Indiana University Purdue University-Fort Wayne: Jeffrey Malanson, Boston College
St. Ambrose University: Larry Skillin, Ohio State
Syracuse: Andrew Lippman, University of Pennsylvania
Texas A&M: Brian Rouleau, University of Pennsylvania
Wake Forest: John Ruddiman, Yale University
Williams College: Patrick Spero, University of Pennsylvania
More on Religion and American History
At Christianity Today's blog, Bobby Ross Jr. reports on the recent findings of the American Historical Association that conclude that religion is now the hottest topic of study for American historians.
Here are a few snippets:
Here are a few snippets:
The study of religion is too important to be left in the hands of believers.
So claims David A. Hollinger, a professor of American history at the University of California at Berkeley, in his response to religion emerging as the hottest topic of study among members of the American Historical Association (AHA).
Perhaps surprisingly, leading evangelical scholars voiced general agreement with his basic premise.
"The practice of history is best served by many historians working from all their separate angles," said Rick Kennedy, president of the Conference on Faith and History (CFH) and a professor of history at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. "What is good about the new surge in religious history is that something that was neglected is now gaining its rightful place."
Barry Hankins, resident scholar at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, said he shared Hollinger's sentiments, "as long as the understanding of faith is not left only to unbelievers."
"The trick for insiders is to think critically about their own tradition, while the trick for outsiders is to try to develop a feel or affinity for the group he or she is studying," said Hankins.
In an annual survey of AHA members, 7.7 percent of respondents selected religion as one of three areas of interest. That topped the 7.5 percent who chose cultural history, ranked number one for 15 years...
Hollinger clarified on his blog that he doesn't regard religious belief as a barrier to successful scholarship. "But this religious demography of scholarship does narrow the inventory of perspectives brought to the field," he wrote.
Like other evangelicals interviewed, Douglas A. Sweeney, a professor of church history at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, said the field benefits from having more perspectives, but voiced concern that most historians do not take theology seriously.
"These scholars don't have to be evangelicals," said Sweeney, director of the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding. "Sadly, evangelical schools offer less support for first-rate scholarship than do secular schools. And evangelical historians are often harder on their own people than they are on religious people from other traditions.
"So, having more evangelical standouts will not necessarily help the cause either of scholarship or of evangelicalism. But having more serious scholars committed to telling the truth … could well help the cause of our scholarship and our evangelical movement."...
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