By Raymond Hyser April 22-23, 2021Institute for Historical Studies, University of Texas at Austin This conference brings together diverse scholars whose work grapples with the challenges that climate change presents to the discipline of history. Participants will address precedents for this “unprecedented” crisis by uncovering and analyzing the historical roots and analogues of contemporary climate […]
Conspiracies, Fear, and the Dutch Empire in Asia
By Adam Clulow On February 23, 1623, a Japanese mercenary called Shichizō in the employ of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC) was arrested for asking questions about the defenses of one of the company’s forts on the remote island of Amboina in modern day Indonesia. When he failed to provide […]
Documenting Slavery in East Texas: Transcripts from Monte Verdi
By Daniel J. Thomas III Originally from Macon, Alabama, Julien Sidney Devereux, Sr (1805-1856) moved to east Texas where he eventually purchased land in Rusk County. This plat would eventually become Monte Verdi, one of the highest producing cotton plantations in the state, where over fifty Africans were enslaved. The Devereux family papers and the […]
Maurice Cowling and AJP Taylor: What Would They Think of Brexit?
Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Labour, 1920-1924 (1971)A.J.P. Taylor, English History, 1914-1945 (1965) After three years of riotous gyrations and mayhem, Brexit has finally happened. The United Kingdom officially left the European Union last week, an official agreement being signed between the two entities that formally severs ties in a (hopefully) orderly manner. Britain […]
Rising From the Ashes: The Oklahoma Eagle and its Long Road to Preservation
by Jaden Janak On May 31, 1921, Greenwood, a district in Tulsa, Oklahoma crafted by Black business people and professionals, burned to the ground. After a young white girl accused Dick Rowland, a Black elevator attendant, of sexual assault, mobs of white vigilantes attacked this Black community and its citizens for what the white rioters […]
Film Review – Ayka (Dir: Sergei Dvortsevoy, 2018)
by Lilya Kaganovsky A longer version of this review was originally published on KinoKultura In the second season of BBC America’s TV show Killing Eve, we are introduced to a new villain, whom Eve Polastri labels “The Ghost.” In every way, The Ghost is the main villain’s polar opposite: while Villanelle’s killings are elaborately staged […]
Kusumoto Ine: A Remarkable Woman in Meiji Restoration Japan
On September 23, 1873, Japan’s young emperor Meiji received tragic news. His consort, Hamuro Mitsuko, had died, five days after delivering a stillborn boy. Sadly, such deaths were not uncommon. The imperial house suffered from high rates of maternal and infant mortality, probably due to some combination of inbreeding and poor diet. Ironically, their elite […]
Digital Archive Review – Authorship and Advocacy: The Native American Petitions Dataverse
An earlier version of this review was published on halperta.com. Embedded in the (digital) archive are structures of power. The Native American Petitions Dataverse shifts those structures by attributing authorship to tribal and Native individuals in hundreds of colonial and early American era petitions and memorials. However, is attributing authorship the sole responsibility of those […]
Romero
The most terrible things are quickly learned, And beauty will cost us our lives. -Silvio Rodríguez A romero is a pilgrim, comrade. I guess we are all pilgrims, to some degree, though some pilgrimages seem to go on forever, while others end abruptly. When Pope John Paul II came to Chile in April of ’87, […]
When Answers are not Enough: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
By Jimena Perry (All photos are courtesy of the author.) The only facts we know about Rosalia Wourgaft Schatz are that she was raised by Jewish parents in the city of Tulchin in southwestern Ukraine. In 1919 her family emigrated to France and in 1940 when the Germans occupied Paris and began their anti-Jewish politics, she, […]