The past is never dead. It's not even past
by David Rahimi Before moving to the final dissertation stage of the PhD, graduate students in History must first pass their comprehensive exams (also known as orals, qualifying exams, or comps). These are designed in part to show mastery of a student’s chosen teaching and research fields. Experiences vary depending on how the student and […]
Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World (BBC, 2021, 7 hours in 6 parts). Meet Adam Curtis. Age: 66. Gender: Male. Race: White. Place of Birth: Dartford, UK. Marital Status: Unknown. Education: Oxford. Profession: Well . . . , here is where things get a bit complicated. […]
From the editors: Not Even Past joins the wider University of Texas community in our horror at the recent mass shootings in Atlanta. We express our solidarity with the messages and statements below and have included details of important events and workshops focused on confronting anti-Asian racism. The events in Atlanta cannot be separated from […]
In 1884, a twelve-year old boy got into a fight with his parents. Pious Ashkenazi Jews from the manufacturing city of Lodz in Poland, they were traveling by ship to make a new home in the Holy Land. Once in Constantinople, unbeknownst to his parents, Wolf Finkelstein stepped off the ship and into a rowboat. […]
In 1707, after the death of the last great Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, the power and authority of the Mughals who ruled over the greater part of South Asia for about two hundred years started to disintegrate. The weakening of the imperial center altered the socio-political conditions, which led to the rise of strong regional powers […]
In his most recent book, Ussama Makdisi provides a more accurate account of sectarianism and coexistence in modern Arab history. In so doing, he repudiates two historical narratives. The first narrative, common in media headlines, claims that sectarian violence is inherent to the religious landscape of the region. The typical counter-argument – the second narrative […]
Not Even Past is proud to partner with This is Democracy, a groundbreaking podcast that brings together thoughtful voices from different generations to help make sense of current challenges and propose positive steps forward. For Episode 120 of This is Democracy, Jeremi and Zachary Suri hosted Professor Hannah Gurman and Professor Kaeten Mistry to discuss […]
In Spring 2020, Professor Mark Ravina introduced a new variant on the highly successful, HIS 320W • Thinking Like A Historian. He describes the course as follows: Historians use a range of analytical skills and our discipline, like the rest of the world, is entering the age of big data. In this class we will […]
We are currently experiencing one of the most disruptive pandemics in modern history. The COVID-19 pandemic came in the wake of a series of global ecological disturbances, climate fluctuations, uncontrolled urbanization, habitat destruction, decline in biological diversity, the sixth age of extinction, and the biggest human displacement in modern history. While policy makers seek to […]
by Nükhet Varlik This article originally appeared in The Conversation. It can be seen here. The article is republished here in connection with Dr Varlik’s talk in the Institute for Historical Studies. When will the pandemic end? All these months in, with over 37 million COVID-19 cases and more than 1 million deaths globally, you may be […]