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Re-imagining Public History: A Tribute to Joan Neuberger

May 10, 2022

by the Editor of Not Even Past, Adam Clulow

As Not Even Past winds down for another academic year, we want to take a moment to celebrate the remarkable contribution of Dr. Joan Neuberger, our Founding Editor, who will be retiring from the University of Texas this summer. Joan guided the magazine for almost a decade from its formation before stepping down in 2019.

Many people worked on Not Even Past. It received consistent support from successive chairs of the department, the College of Liberal Arts and LAITS. Colleagues across the department and beyond gave generously of their time and expertise in writing for the magazine, which drew as well on the work of a group of exceptionally talented Associate Editors. But Not Even Past is also unimaginable without Joan.

When I first took over as Editor from Joan in 2019, I had no idea what lay ahead. Joan handled the task seemingly effortlessly, responding within minutes to any email and always knowing how to shape an article and improve an argument. In reality, and as I soon learned, this took an immense amount of effort, hundreds and thousands of hours each semester, managing the work of a magazine that publishes like a fully staffed magazine but with no permanent staff. Joan set the standard as editor and her immense energy, creativity and passion underpinned Not Even Past‘s growth and success.

Joan Neuberger, Founding Editor of Not Even Past, testifies on SB 11 (Campus Carry) before the Senate State Affairs Committee — Joan Neuberger, Founding Editor of *Not Even Past*, testifies on SB 11 (Campus Carry) before the Senate State Affairs Committee (January 2016) Photo by Matt Valentine.

Across her career Joan has won many accolades. In 2018, she was awarded the Herbert Feis Award that is given annually to recognize distinguished contributions to public history. It is worth quoting the citation, which sums up Joan’s indefatigable energy: “As the driving force behind multiple noteworthy online history projects such as the Not Even Past website, the Thinking in Public project database, and the 15 Minute History podcast, Joan Neuberger’s scholarship harnesses the possibilities of the latest digital platforms for public engagement. Each year her work touches tens of thousands of people, both inside and outside the academy. In addition, she is an enthusiastic mentor and editor for other historians writing for a general audience.”

Itza Carbajal, Maria Esther Hammack, Rebecca Johnston, John Lisle and Joan Neuberger during the recording of the 15 minute history podcast "Episode 84: Behind the Tower: New Histories of the UT Tower Shooting" — Itza Carbajal, John Lisle, Joan Neuberger, Maria Esther Hammack, and Rebecca Johnston during the recording of 15 minute history podcast “Episode 84: Behind the Tower: New Histories of the UT Tower Shooting“

Joan has always reserved special time and energy for her work in training graduate students to become public historians. Below, we have reproduced just a few testimonials from current and former students, for they speak louder than any other accolades of how hard Joan has worked to train, inspire and accompany students on their academic journeys to become distinctive public voices in their own right.

Every year Joan recruited an Assistant Editor, who worked closely with her on every aspect of the site. In 2016-17, that was Emily Whalen, who wrote to us that “Working with Dr. Neuberger on NEP transformed the way I thought about public history. After a year as a graduate assistant for the blog, I began to understand public history was less an added perspective than it was a holistic philosophy, a way to approach our entire professional toolkit and bring the public along with us as we delve into the past. I will also always remember Dr. Neuberger’s generosity with younger scholars. She is a model for professional mentorship and thoughtful guidance.”

In 2017-18, Natalie Cincotta, took on the role. Here are her words: “I am so grateful for Dr. Neuberger’s exhaustive efforts to make public history a core part of the graduate program. Through Not Even Past, 15 Minute History, Thinking in Public and coursework, Dr. Neuberger has engaged graduate students as writers, editors, and producers in the creative process of making history scholarship broadly accessible. Many of the graduate students who have worked or written for NEP (and other projects) have gone on to create their own websites and podcasts, write for national news publications, and use public history tools in the classroom. Thanks to resources like NEP, graduate students will go out into the world with a repertoire of tools and skills to engage the public in our work as historians in new and exciting ways. “

In 2018-19 the role was filled by Jesse Ritner who writes that “I had the privilege of working with Dr. Neuberger as the Assistant Editor and Books Editor of Not Even Past, where I have also contributed several articles. Writing for NEP, as much as anything has helped me write clearly, in a voice that is my own. Dr. Neuberger’s guidance, and the tremendous amount of energy she put into my pieces, is rare to receive outside of a student’s relationship with their advisor, and I think is one of the most valuable things that professors can offer graduate students. Working for her gave me a sense of what it means to work in digital history and public history, as well as to see (and at times experience) the tremendous amount of work it takes to produce and maintain projects as large as NEP. Her honesty, at times intensity, and her dedication to her project and the students who work for her and write for her, is something that I think the department will sorely miss.”

Alina Scott, the Assistant Editor from 2019 to 2020, explains that “It has been a pleasure working with and learning from Dr. Neuberger. Her Public and Digital History class sparked my interest in public scholarship. Her ability to take her students’ work seriously, prompted me to apply to work with her on NEP. While serving as the assistant editor of NEP, this became even more clear. Dr. Neuberger’s dedication to her students and public history is evident in how much time she spends with our work. Her care and attention to detail in editing and engaging with the main arguments of NEP submissions go above and beyond the requirements of the job. She also pays keen attention to the needs of the public, adapting NEP to reflect those needs. Not Even Past remains an important resource for UT graduate students and faculty, relevant digital tool, and contribution to public scholarship because of the dedication of Dr. Neuberger.”

Many other current and former students contributed to Not Even Past. Kristie Flannery writes that “With Not Even Past, Joan offered history Ph.D. students opportunities to learn about and experiment with how to write the kind of history that people want to read. Joan encouraged us to use our developing expertise to produce clear, engaging, and provocative pieces for public consumption about scholarly monographs as well as novels, films, music and museums that we love (or hate). Producing the high quality stuff you see on the blog involved a lot of patient and kind editing from Joan. Contributing to Not Even Past transformed my understanding of history as practice, of what it means to be a historian and to write history. Thank you!” For Brittany Erwin, a PhD candidate in the department,“Dr. Neuberger’s public history course was a jumping-off point for my digital humanities research. She was a great soundboard and editor, and I am so grateful for her insights.”

We leave the final words to Rebecca Johnston who writes that “the very existence of NEP encourages history students to think about the importance of our work in the public sphere. But it does more than help us find our relevance to the public – it pulls us out of our academic silos into a collective conversation with others in our own department. With NEP, Dr. Neuberger has created a community space that helps to make our department more whole.”

Not Even Past re-imagined Public History at the University of Texas at Austin and we thank Joan for all she did to turn the magazine into such a valuable resource for history online.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Creating a Collective Conversation: A Tribute to Joan Neuberger

August 18, 2020

by the Incoming Editor of Not Even Past, Adam Clulow

Long before I applied for a position at the University of Texas at Austin, I knew about Not Even Past. Asked to teach a new course in my old university in Australia, I remember the familiar panic about readings: Where could I find something suitable for an undergraduate audience but written by a genuine expert, an article with a clear argument but also incorporating suggestions for further readings, a piece with its own voice but easily accessible to all. Here for me, as so many, Not Even Past came to the rescue.

For a decade now, Not Even Past has provided the premier platform to communicate the History department’s groundbreaking scholarship to the University of Texas community and the general public. Drawing tens of thousands of readers each year, it is, quite simply, one of the department’s great treasures and something that sets our community of scholars apart from hundreds of others across the country and the globe.

Many people worked on Not Even Past. It received consistent support from successive chairs of the department, the College of Liberal Arts and LAITS. Colleagues and contributors gave generously of their time and expertise in writing for the site, which drew as well on the work of a group of remarkably talented Assistant Editors. But Not Even Past is also unimaginable without the work of its founding editor, Dr. Joan Neuberger, who has guided the site for the past ten years and is stepping down this month. Joan’s vision of great history writing that is accessible to all courses through every part and every page of Not Even Past. It is a vision that is very difficult to realize and anyone who has worked with Joan knows her tireless skills as an editor and the time she invests in guiding a contribution through to final publication.

Joan Neuberger, Founding Editor of *Not Even Past*, testifies on SB 11 (Campus Carry) before the Senate State Affairs Committee (January 2016) Photo by Matt Valentine.

Not Even Past has been marked by constant innovation, the pushing of boundaries ever outwards and by a remarkable growth in its ambition and reach. The site started with the idea of a book blog but it has become something so much more: a full-service platform for the department, the university, and the discipline more generally. Joan’s interview which details the history of the site can be seen here.

Such words are echoed by Jackie Jones, the outgoing Chair of the Department of History and the President-elect of the American Historical Association, who writes that she is “delighted to join in celebrating Joan’s extraordinary editorship of Not Even Past from its inception ten years ago until the summer of 2020. The site is a testament to her creativity, energy, tech savvy, broad historical knowledge, and commitment to bringing the past to life for people inside and outside the academy. NEP exemplifies the UT History Department’s highest standards in terms of scholarship, teaching, and service to the department, the College of Liberal Arts, and the University. Because of Joan’s hard work, NEP reminds us that the study of the past can take us to new, surprising, and fascinating places, with the help of texts, images, music, videos, and interviews. Congratulations to Joan on leading NEP through its first decade and showcasing excellent features by faculty, graduate students, and alums!”

Since Joan announced that she was stepping down from Not Even Past, there have been a steady stream of tributes from across the department and the university. Joan has always reserved special time and energy for her work in training graduate students to become public historians. To mark the 10 year anniversary of Not Even Past and to celebrate Joan’s achievement we wanted to collect just a few testimonials from current and former students, for they speak louder than any other accolades of how hard Joan has worked to train, inspire and accompany students on their academic journeys to become distinctive public voices in their own right.

Photos of the creators of the Behind the Tower digital history project.

Alina Scott, the current Assistant Editor, explains that “It has been a pleasure working with and learning from Dr. Neuberger. Her Public and Digital History class sparked my interest in public scholarship. Her ability to take her students’ work seriously, prompted me to apply to work with her on NEP. While serving as the assistant editor of NEP, this became even more clear. Dr. Neuberger’s dedication to her students and public history is evident in how much time she spends with our work. Her care and attention to detail in editing and engaging with the main arguments of NEP submissions go above and beyond the requirements of the job. She also pays keen attention to the needs of the public, adapting NEP to reflect those needs. Not Even Past remains an important resource for UT graduate students and faculty, relevant digital tool, and contribution to public scholarship because of the dedication of Dr. Neuberger.”

Banner for *Public and Digital History* class projects : The Public Archive

Many other current and former students contributed to Not Even Past. Kristie Flannery, who has just accepted a position at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, writes that “With Not Even Past, Joan offered history Ph.D. students opportunities to learn about and experiment with how to write the kind of history that people want to read. Joan encouraged us to use our developing expertise to produce clear, engaging, and provocative pieces for public consumption about scholarly monographs as well as novels, films, music and museums that we love (or hate). Producing the high quality stuff you see on the blog involved a lot of patient and kind editing from Joan. Contributing to Not Even Past transformed my understanding of history as practice, of what it means to be a historian and to write history. Thank you!” For Brittany Erwin, a PhD candidate in the department, “Dr. Neuberger’s public history course was a jumping-off point for my digital humanities research. She was a great soundboard and editor, and I am so grateful for her insights.”

We leave the final words to Rebecca Johnston, who also provided the title of this piece. She writes that “the very existence of NEP encourages history students to think about the importance of our work in the public sphere. But it does more than help us find our relevance to the public – it pulls us out of our academic silos into a collective conversation with others in our own department. With NEP, Dr. Neuberger has created a community space that helps to make our department more whole.”

In her tireless work, Joan has created a collective conversation that links students and faculty but also the department’s scholarship to the wider world. As incoming editor, I thank Joan for all she has done and applaud her singular achievement in giving life, with the support of many, to Not Even Past. I hope to do justice to her vision of great history writing accessible to all, and it is an honor to succeed Joan in this role.

Other Projects Mentioned Above:

Professor Neuberger studies modern Russian culture in social and political context, with a focus on the politics of the arts. She is the author of a range of publications, including Hooliganism: Crime and Culture in St Petersburg, 1900-1914 (California: 1993), Ivan the Terrible: The Film Companion (Palgrave: 2003); co-author of Europe and the Making of Modernity, 1815-1914 (Oxford: 2005); and co-editor of Imitations of Life: Melodrama in Russia (Duke: 2001) and Picturing Russia: Explorations in Visual Culture (Yale: 2008); Everyday Life in Russian History: Quotidian Studies in Honor of Daniel Kaiser (Slavica, 2010); and The Flying Carpet: Studies on Eisenstein in Honor of Naum Kleiman (Mimésis International. 2017). Her most recent book is This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible in Stalin’s Russia (Cornell: 2019).

On the “Polish Death Camps” Law

February 5, 2018

Picture of barbed wire fencing and buildings from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Camp — (Auschwitz-Birkenau, via Pixabay)

By Natalie Cincotta

Last Thursday, the Polish senate passed a bill that would outlaw public statements that acscribe responsibility or complicity to the Polish nation or state in crimes committed by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. If signed into law by President Anrzej Duda, who supports the measure, using terms like “Polish Death Camp” would become punishable by fines or jail time up to 3 years. “The point I must stress most emphatically is that there was no complicity in the Holocaust,” explained Duda in a statement, “either on the part of Poland as a state, a non-existent state, or on the part of Poles perceived as a Nation.”

The pending legislation has prompted a diplomatic spat with Israel and is considered an “attempt to rewrite history” by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The U.S. State Department has also expressed disapproval, citing concerns over the potential strains on Poland’s relationship with the U.S. and Israel, as well as freedom of speech.

Around the same time, state-owned Polish Radio (Polskie Radio) launched an interactive website “aimed at debunking misconceptions about Poland’s role in the Holocaust,” according to a release. The site is available in Polish, English, and German.

Titled “Germandeathcamps.info,” the first section shows a map of the Nazi camp network established across occupied Europe, followed by thematic sections including profiles of German perpetrators, a short timeline of the Final Solution, video footage of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, and oral histories of victims. The last section, titled “distortion of history,” refers to two cases of the usage of “Polish death camps” in the recent past – once by German broadcasting company ZDF and by President Obama in a 2012 speech.

Map featured on germanydeathcamps.info showing Nazi concentration and extermination camps in Europe — Map featured on germanydeathcamps.info

This public history project has a clear political agenda – that is, to show that camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau were Nazi, not Polish, camps, and thus attest that the Polish state bore no responsibility for complicity in the Holocaust. Opponents agree that the term “Polish death camps” is indeed inaccurate, but worry that the law would silence instances when Poles were culpable in Jewish persecution, whether by aiding local German authorities in rounding up their Jewish neighbors, denunciation, or, in some cases, killing. In a joint statement issued by the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland, Dariusz Stola and Piotr Wiślicki warned of a chilling effect in difficult discussions of crimes committed on Polish soil, calling for honest and open discussion.

The larger implications of a law banning the suggestion of Polish complicity is much larger than simple phraseology. Distilling the conversation into categories of “collaborator” and “victim” precludes a more difficult public conversation on the wide range of actions, experiences, and responses on part of gentile Poles in relation to the persecution of Jews during the war. Poles were victims of Nazi persecution, as they were also helpers, rescuers, and participants, and their motivations as such were complex and contradictory in ways that defy easy categorization. Two major studies illustrate this complexity.

Book cover of Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland by Jan T. Gross

Jan T. Gross’ Neighbors intensified the debate about Polish “complicity” in the Holocaust. Neighbors tells the story of how on one day in July 1941 a group of Polish residents in Jedwabne murdered 1,600 of their Jewish neighbors, about half of the population. According to Gross, it was Poles who did the killing, not the local German gendarmes. At a time when Poland’s national self-image of WWII was, and is, one of victimhood, the revelation of an instance in which Poles had brutally murdered their Jewish neighbors stirred a debate about “complicity” and “collaboration” that, as the proposed law might suggest, has not yet been resolved.

In Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in Occupied Poland, Jan Grabowski recounts the role of Poles in the rounding up and murder of Jews in Dabrowa Tarnowska, a county in southeast Poland. After the ghettoes in the area were liquidated in 1942, Germans relied on local Poles to hunt Jews (referred to as Judenjagd) who had escaped liquidation and hid among the gentile population or in the forest. The Polish Blue Police, the Baudienst, and local Polish peasants played an active role in denouncing Jews, participating in searches, or even killing. Jewish property was often a motivation for participating, as the Germans instituted a reward system. Importantly, there are also many instances of rescue: some Poles hid Jews from the Nazis, and their motivations for doing so varied, sometimes altruistic, sometimes materially-driven. Sometimes, if the hidden Jews were no longer able to compensate their Polish hosts, they were denounced to the local authorities.

The Polish state does not share some kind of equal “co-responsibility” with the Nazis (the state was actually in exile in London), because the Germans were the “undisputed bosses of life and death” in occupied Poland, as Gross argues, and “no sustained organized activity could take place without their consent.” Even if the law emphasizes the role of the Polish state, the law seems to be a pretext to stifle the discussion of the participation of Polish people, as seen in Jedwabne and Dabrowa Tarnowska. As works like Neighbors argue, we must account for the Holocaust both as a system of mass murder and also for its discrete episodes of impromptu violence carried out by local people. It is also important to note that Polish responses, actions, and attitudes are not easily distilled into categories like “collaborator,” “bystander,” or even “victim,” it is possible that individuals can be any or all three of these things to different extents, at different points in time, and for different reasons. Allowing space for honest, evidence-based discussion is vital to this kind of constructive engagement with difficult pasts, which has already been taken on by several Polish scholars and institutions. As these voices in Poland urge, ignorance is best challenged through education, not silence.

Also by Natalie Cincotta on Not Even Past:

Review of Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich by Norman Ohler
Review of Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Soviet Central Asia

Virtual Auschwitz by David Crew
Looking into the Katyn Massacre by Volha Dorman
David Crew reviews The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedländer

Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich by Norman Ohler (2016)

September 7, 2017

By Natalie Cincotta

A German novelist and screenwriter, Norman Ohler first happened upon the topic of drug use in the Third Reich through a Berlin-based DJ, who told him that drugs were widespread at the time. Intending to write a novel on the subject, Ohler went into the archives in search of historical detail for his book. What he found in military records and the personal papers of Hitler’s physician was so astounding that Ohler left the world of fiction to write a work of history.

The result is the highly readable, bitingly ironic Blitzed, that, although not without problems, lends a fresh perspective on Hitler and the Second World War. In sum, Ohler aims to show that drug use was rife in Nazi Germany. From its rise through to its collapse, German citizens were high, German soldiers were high, and Hitler was high.

In the 1920s, many Germans turned to artificial stimulants to cope with the trauma of WWI, Ohler argues, and eventually Nazi promises of collective ecstasy and euphoria became like a drug itself. In 1937, in a pharmaceutical factory not far from Berlin, the pharmacist Dr. Fritz Hauschild found a drug to match the social intoxication of the time: Pervitin.

The first German methylamphetamine, Pervitin was a performance-enhancing drug that gave the consumer an “artificial kick” of heightened energy, alertness, euphoria, and intensified senses, often lasting more than 12 hours. Pervitin was marketed to Germans as a panacea cure for anything from depression to “frigidity” in women. By 1939, the drug was also distributed among German army battalions as they swept through Poland and France without sleep and without halt.

The “people’s drug:” Pervitin (Karl-Ludwig Poggemann via Flickr)

Ohler even goes so far as to say that the use of Pervitin was crucial to Germany victory in France in 1940. The German surprise-strategy to drive tanks through the Ardennes – later coined the “sickle cut” by Winston Churchill – was a near-impossible operation, argues Ohler, that only stood a chance if the Germans could drive day and night without stopping. Learning from the use of Pervitin during the Polish campaign, army officials realized that overcoming fatigue was just as crucial as tactic and equipment. The Wehrmacht ordered 35 million tablets for the campaign.

Critics have pointed out that Ohler tends to make sweeping generalizations. Does the evidence he presented, in fact, allow Ohler to say that many or most German citizens and soldiers were taking methylamphetamines? In a scathing review, historian Richard J. Evans wrote that Ohler severely overstates the role of drugs in both civil society and the military effort. “To claim that all Germans, or even a majority of them, could only function on drugs in the Third Reich,” writes Evans, “is wildly implausible.” While it may be difficult to pinpoint how many ordinary Germans took Pervitin, Ohler makes a convincing case for its methodical use and central role in the 1940 campaign.

Hitler and his entourage at the Wolf’s Lair, June 1940. Hitler’s personal physician, Dr. Theodor Morell, stands in the second row, second from the right (via Bundesarchiv)

The second issue that Ohler addresses is that of Hitler’s drug use. Fearing illness and an inability to perform, Hitler sought out performance-enhancing remedies that came in the form of vitamin injections and glucose solutions from Dr. Theodor Morell, his personal physician who saw and treated him more or less daily from 1936 until the end of the war. By 1944, Ohler argues, Hitler was addicted to a mix of cocaine and Eukodal (an opiate), assumed to be marked by an ‘X’ in Morell’s charts. When Eukodal supplies began to run out by February 1945, Hitler began suffering withdrawal symptoms.

Ohler’s assertion that Hitler was a drug addict has roused the ire of some historians, notably Evans, who has dismissed Ohler’s claims as a “crass,” “inaccurate” and morally problematic account that excuses Hitler of his own behavior and crimes. But, that does not seem to be Ohler’s argument here. Blitzed does not propose to reshape our understanding of Hitler’s psyche or ideology, but rather to understand the elements – including drug consumption – that held Hitler firmly in a world of delusion that ultimately prolonged the Second World War. Historians including Anthony Beevor and Ian Kershaw consider Blitzed a valuable addition to scholarship that is not apologetic, but illuminative.

Perhaps the debate about Blitzed is not only about our understanding of Hitler and National Socialism, but also about who gets to contribute to the already well-trodden scholarship. In his review, Evans expressed concern that Ohler’s background as a novelist gives him a “skewed perspective.” But the perspective of an outsider may be what the discipline needs. Blitzed allows the general reader to learn about a well known period in a new light, while also offering new lines of inquiry for scholars. A meticulously researched and bold work, Blitzed is a must-read for the general reader and scholar alike.

More by Natalie Cincotta on Not Even Past
Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Soviet Central Asia (Review)

Kevin Baker reviews Omer Bartov’s Hitler’s Army
David Crew discusses the work of German propaganda photographers during the Second World War
Chris Babits on finding Hitler (in all the wrong places)

Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Soviet Central Asia, By Douglas Northrup (2003)

November 7, 2016

By Natalie Cincotta

When the Soviets launched their campaign, known as the hujum, against the veil in Uzbekistan in 1927, their goal was not just to liberate women. Without a class framework or a working class to build socialism in Uzbekistan, Soviet activists instead attempted to transform society through the liberation of women. Northrop argues that a woman’s behavior and dress, expressed namely through the veil, came to symbolize all social values and, as such, became a battleground between Uzbek national identity and the socialist project. According to Northrop, the battle over the veil thus came to represent a process of mutual self-definition.

Northrop’s main aim is to explain the unfolding of Soviet policy in Central Asia through the lens of gender relations and policy. Rooted in a colonial studies framework, Northrop argues that the campaign to unveil women began only after the isolation of Muslim clerics and landowners as class enemies failed to win the rest of the population to their side. Only then did Soviet activists initiate the “liberation” of women as the means to build socialism, through bringing profound changes to Uzbek society, culture, and everyday life. In 1927, these Soviet activists launched a campaign, or hujum, to liberate Muslim women from seclusion and oppression through mass unveiling, which they hoped would dismantle the traditional patriarchal structure of everyday life.

Woman wearing a traditional paranja in Samarkand (present-day Uzbekistan) circa 1910 (via Wikimedia Commons).

Northrop highlights the limits to Soviet power through a thought-provoking consideration of Uzbek responses to this new drive to unveil women. For the most part Uzbeks resisted Soviet policies simply by non-compliance. Others learned to work the system or subvert Soviet language and logic, but wearing the veil became the primary symbolic assertion of anti-Soviet sentiment. Apart from expressing anti-Soviet sentiment, however, exactly how opposition to the hujum fostered Uzbek identity beyond preserving traditional cultural and societal structures remains an elusive aspect of the book.

Northrop’s use of gender as an analytical framework is arguably the most valuable contribution of Veiled Empire. He masterfully considers the way the Uzbek woman’s body became conflated with a social purpose by both Uzbeks and Soviet policy makers, as women’s behavior and dress came to represent practices in everyday life and social values in communities and in the nation as a whole. Northrop shows that unveiling did not necessarily spell out “liberation” for Uzbek women because western notions of feminism, gender, and patriarchy are not universal. For example, veils were not necessarily associated with oppression in Uzbek society, evident in the fact that the Uzbek Zhenotdel (Women’s Bureau) did not make it a chief concern before 1926. Northrop’s consideration of gender relations from both a Soviet and an Uzbek perspective thus allows him to understand the complexity of underlying tensions during the hujum and connect the gender project to broader Soviet goals. It is unfortunate, however, that women’s experiences are largely absent from this account, due to a lack of sources, as their voices would help further illuminate these tensions and complexities.

urging_peasants_to_speed_up_cotton_production_-_russian_and_uzbek_tashkent_1920s_mardjani

Soviet propaganda poster urging Uzbek peasants to speed up cotton production. Islamic clerics are depicted disparagingly (via Wikimedia Commons).

Overall, Veiled Empire is an admirable work that illuminates the limits of Soviet power in Central Asia. Using gender as an analytical framework, Northrop highlights how the Soviets attempted to use the “liberation” of women as a means to meeting a broader goal of building socialism. On both the Soviet and Uzbek sides, the veil was made to represent an entire identity and was conflated with social utility. As such, Northrop highlights the ways “oppression” and “liberation” are not as straightforward as Soviet activists hoped they were.

You may also like:

Janine Jones reviews The Politics of the Veil, by Joan Wallach Scott and Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject by Saba Mahmood (2004).
Christopher Rose recalls Exploring the Silk Route in Uzbekistan.

About us

Not Even Past is a digital magazine that serves as a robust platform for Public History with a global reach. It was founded in 2010 and developed by academics in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin. It is read by around half a million users each year. The site has three main goals. Not Even Past aims, first, to bring great History writing to the public. The faculty and graduate students in the Department of History are committed to making our research freely accessible to anyone interested in History and Not Even Past provides a key vehicle for this. Second, the site serves as a reliable and frequently updated resource for History online. We publish extended research features, book recommendations, reviews of historical films and digital archives, teaching and course profiles, and stories that shed light on intriguing corners of the past. Although much of our content comes from scholars associated with the University of Texas at Austin, we also publish the work of academics and students from different institutions across the world. Third, Not Even Past provides a way for past graduates and supporters of the History program to stay in contact with the department and the full range of its activities. The title of the magazine reflects our professional and ethical commitment to bringing the work of professional historians into a public conversation that illuminates the importance of the past in shaping our actions, values, and beliefs in the present. In short, we believe that the past is never dead, it’s not even past.

For our republishing guidelines, please see here

Not Even Past collaborates with multiple partners across the University of Texas at Austin. We work each year with the Institute for Historical Studies to develop an online library of resources related to the IHS theme. In 2020-21, this was Climate in Context. We also partner with the Harry Ransom Center, a world-renowned humanities research library, to produce Primary Source: History from the Ransom Center Stacks. In March 2021, Not Even Past launched a new collaboration with LLILAS Benson. Journey into the Archive: History from the Benson Latin American Collection celebrates the Benson’s centennial and highlights the center’s world-class holdings.

Not Even Past is honored to be associated with 15 Minute History which is intended for teachers, students and anyone interested in history. This far-reaching podcast was launched by Dr. Joan Neuberger and Dr. Christopher Rose and quickly became one of the most popular academic podcasts online. Since 2020, 15 Minute History has come under the leadership of Alina Scott where it remains a key resource for anyone interested in History and great scholarship. NEP also features podcasts from This is Democracy, a forward-looking podcast developed by Dr. Jeremi Suri, the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. The past offers hope for the present and the future, if only we can escape the negativity of our current moment. Each show offers a way to do that. This is Democracy brings together thoughtful voices from different generations to help make sense of current challenges and propose positive steps forward. Its goal is to advance democratic change, one show at a time.

CURRENT STAFF

Dr. Adam Clulow, Editor

John Gleb, Associate Editor and Communications Director, 2022-

Courtney Meador, Administrator

PAST STAFF

Dr. Joan Neuberger, Founding Editor

Gabrielle Esparza, Associate Editor and Communications Director, 2020-22

Raymond Hyser, Digital Humanities Developer, 2020-21

Alina Scott, Associate Editor and Communications Director, 2018-20

Stacy Vlasits, LAITS, Technical Coordinator

Jesse Ritner, Assistant Editor, Books Editor (2018-19)
Natalie Cincotta, Assistant Editor, Books Editor (2017-18)
Emily Whalen, Assistant Editor, Books Editor (2016-17)
Edward Shore, Public History Editor (2016-17)
Mark Sheaves, Senior Assistant Editor, Books Editor (2014-2016)
Henry Wiencek, Assistant Editor, Books Editor (2012-14)
Yana Skorobogatov, Assistant Editor, Books Editor (2011-12)
George Christian, Assistant Editor (2010-11)
Ben Breen, Assistant Editor, Books Editor (2011)
Kelli Mosteller, Assistant Editor, Books Editor (2010)

Charley Binkow, Daniel Resler, Undergraduate Interns (2013-14)
Kevin Stewart, Undergraduate Intern (2012-13)

Karl Hagstrom Miller, Theme Music Arrangement and Performance (prior to 2020)
Transcriptions: Yana Skorobogatov, Angela Smith, Kevin Stewart, Charley Binkow

Original site design, Suloni Robertson and What Will They Do Next?
Revised site design: Stacy Vlasits
Site implementation, Kate Broussard and David Johannes
Site development & technical Support, Ming Gong, Lauren Moore, Ryan Miller, Stacy Vlasits

Development Team, George Christian, Rick Geyer, Joel Kocher, Courtney Meador, Kelli Mosteller, Joan Neuberger, Alan Tully

Image of Garrison hall kindly supplied by Ray Rafidi.

NOT EVEN PAST wishes to thank the following for their support: the Department of History Visiting Committee, Josiah Daniel III, the current and former deans of the College of Liberal Arts, Gary Susswein and Kathleen Aronson at COLA, College of Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services, Tim Fackler and Joe TenBarge at LAITS, Rick Geyer, Alan Tully, Jackie Jones, Daina Ramey Berry, Joel Kocher and the College of Liberal Arts.

The views and opinions expressed in articles or videos published on Not Even Past are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

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