Katrina Gulliver
Most influential historian on Twitter
Host of the podcast Cities in History
Email me
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ABOUT
- CV
See my cv here
Research interests
I study cultural history. My current project examines the development of four colonial port cities, Malacca, Havana, New Orleans and Sydney, from the early sixteenth century to 1900. Through this project, I am examining the idea of the colonial metropolis, as well as how each city developed its own identity.
A particular focus is the idea of a modern urban sensibility, and how early this emerged in colonial sites. To research this, I draw on popular culture, foodways, costume, and architecture as well as archival sources.
My doctoral research focused on the idea of the Modern Woman in China and Japan between the wars. I examined the ways in which this concept was created and projected by different women. I took a case study approach to this, looking at four women each in China and Japan, writers and artists whose work reflects different responses to the enormous social changes taking place, particularly with regard to the status of women. I completed my PhD at the University of Cambridge where I was supervised by Hans van de Ven.
For my Masters research, I worked on the idea of "going native" and racial liminality in colonial societies. I am fascinated by histories of cultural exchange and this is a key theme in all my work.
What else I do
Editor of the journal Transnational Subjects
Presenter of the urban history podcast, Cities in History
I have also worked as a photographer. This background picture of a lighthouse is my best-known image. If you are interested in my pictures, please email me.
Book
Modern Women in China and Japan: Gender and Global Modernity Between the Wars, I.B.Tauris, 2011
Refereed Journal Articles
‘Finding the Pacific World’, Journal of World History, Vol 22, No 1, 2011
‘Shanghai’s Modernity in the Western Eye’, East/West Connections, Vol 9, No 1, 2009
‘Gabrielle Vassal and the Countess von Hoenstadt’, Notes & Queries, Vol 56, No 3, 2009
‘Sophia Chen Zen and Westernised Chinese Feminism’, Journal of Chinese Overseas, Vol 4, No 2, 2008
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Posts
- Jan 12, 12
During the excitement of the 2012 American Historical Association conference, I won a prize!
The Cliopatria Awards are given by History News Network annually for the best in history blogging. For the first time, an award was given for best history-related twitter feed. And I won!!I was thrilled by the recognition, and am wondering if there is some way to spin this as peer-review for career value.
More importantly, my follower list has grown, and I meet more and more #twitterstorians.
During the conference, I had a hectic weekend (as always), catching up with many people, as well as presenting and interviewing.
I spoke about podcasting and the audience response seemed very positive. The site for my panel is http://www.historyindigitalmedia.org.
I'll be updating soon with more #twitterstorians!
- Dec 13, 11
Those of you who knit may be familar with two common styles: English (aka "throwing") and Continental. Recently, I encountered an interesting theory: that "English" knitting style was encouraged (I suppose at least in the UK) because of its palms-down, "ladylike" pose. This may be partly true, but I would also suggest that the technique is easy to learn, and produces even results, making it a good option for those who were only going to knit as a hobby, and for whom speed was not important. My historian's ear also perked up at the discussion, because of the implication that a ladylike posture was not valued in continental Europe, or indeed in Portugal (where they have a different style again).
My own knitting frustrations led me to the discussion. I have knitted since I was a child (sporadically), but with no great results. While I am an even knitter, I am so abysmally slow that I lose interest long before the project is done. To put it into perspective: championship speed knitters run at 100+ stitches per minute. Competent quick knitters are at 50+. I manage about 15-20. So everything takes forever.
Which brings me back to my curiosity about the speeds of knitting production, and particularly that Continental knitting is reputed to be faster than English. The "fast" option in the British Isles in fact seems to be "cottage" or lever style, in which the movement is streamlined by anchoring the right needle, in the knitter's armpit, in an attachment to a belt, or in the knitter's crotch (it's obvious why such a pose would not have caught on with Victorian ladies). Graceful it isn't, but damn quick. And for women in the Aran islands and elsewhere knitting for a living it was probably the fastest way to hand knit anything.
A couple of years ago, I discovered crochet (well, ok, I didn't "discover" it, I'm not the Christopher Columbus of textile arts). I taught myself (thank you, threadbanger!) and since then that's what I've mostly stuck to. Although it is the same basic concept: creating a fabric by looping and threading yarn together, it seems quicker than knitting.
Some beautiful crochet from the mid-19th century onwards have been digitised, showing some of the beautiful designs women used to make bags or cushions. As crochet, like knitting, shifted from being a manufacturing skill to a decorative hobby, it also became more generalised. Previously, different regions specialised in different crafts, and particular decorative motifs (part of the culturogenesis I research in urban spaces relates to the development of distinctive local costumes). The arrival of printed patterns made designs more general: you too can make an "Aran" or "Fairisle" sweater.
Along with the romanticisation of domestic arts that arose among middle-class Victorians, the low cost of labour (which meant an increasing proportion of the population could afford to employ the rest of the population as domestic servants), gave ladies free time to sew, knit, etc, as a hobby.Domestic sewing machines (the Smithsonian has a fabulous booklet from 1929 online explaining the history of the sewing machine) and commercial dress patterns appeared in the mid nineteenth century, which made making one's own clothes (for the untrained seamstress) feasible. Although then as now, the amateur stitcher only made the occasional garment, not an entire wardrobe.
It's a romantic image of the woman sewing by candlelight to clothe her children, but before the machines arrived and sewing was by hand, most women did not make their own or their families' clothes. Rich women had no need (they used dressmakers) and poor women did not have the time. They repaired or altered clothes, and they bought second-hand or acquired hand-me-downs.Only professional seamstresses are likely to have made their own clothes.
I sew, but to make all my own clothes (let alone those for a husband and children) would take pretty much all my time. As in, it would only be possible if I didn't have to work. And it would still be more expensive than just buying them at a department store. (for me to buy the fabric, retail, for an outfit, can work out more expensive than getting the outfit when it's already been sewn together in a factory in some other country, where another woman's labour is being valued at much less than mine).
Perhaps because these are traditionally female crafts, the engineering skill is overlooked.
"I felt overwhelmed by the masses of circular creations that seemed to represent womankind's challenge to answer the riddle of pi in neverending cotton lace. It seemed odd to me that so many women could say that they are no good at math when they could create a perfect flat circle, or hexagon, or octagon, in lace pattern, no less.
Lace is a way of suspending holes within a stable fabric. So making a doily means a person creates pleasing, repeating geometrical pattterns with these holes, while at the same time making the number of stitches inrease by pi (3.14+) every time the diameter of the doily increases by the height of the average stitch's width.
― Sigrid ArnottThe mathematical and spatial ability in devising patterns can be quite high, as shown in the work of mathematician Daina Taimina, using crochet to model hyperbolic space.
The hours of work involved in making anything by hand mean those of us who do it (when it would be cheaper to just buy a machine-knitted sweater), are doing it for recreation - and perhaps to make something unique. But if anyone gives you a sweater they knitted this Christmas, remember that it probably took them hours each evening for weeks to make it.
For those of you on craftster or ravelry, you'll find me scampering round there as squirrelbythesea.
- Nov 09, 11
Today is the anniversary of Kristallnacht (or, night of broken glass), which occurred on the night of November 9, 1938. Supposedly as a response to the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, (a German-born Polish Jew), a massive coordinated attack was launched on Jewish businesses and property across Germany. The broken glass reference was to all the windows being broken.
On November 8, Jewish newspapers had been forced to cease publication. The Nazis were moving to deny Jews all rights, and the vom Rath assassination gave them an excuse to move forward, in an outbreak of violence.
Although the Nazis tried to claim that Kristallnacht represented spontaneous rioting on the part of German patriots, it was in fact an organised attack. Stormtroopers (SA) and SS members wearing plain clothes were despatched to create mayhem in Jewish neighbourhoods. They had been ordered not to harm non-Jews.
Two hundred synagogues, more than 7,000 Jewish shops, and 29 department stores were attacked. Some Jews were beaten to death and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and taken to concentration camps. Some of these men were later allowed to leave the camps on the condition they left Germany permanently.
Image of damage to a department store in Munich, the morning after Kristallnacht.The foreign press was horrified, and reports such as this one appeared in papers around the world.
Two Munich synagogues were among those destroyed. In fact, the Nazis had started destroying Munich's synagogues in June of that year: leaving only two to be trashed on Kristallnacht.
A short distance from where the original stood, there is a new Jewish Centre and synagogue. This was not opened until 2006. There is also a Jewish museum as part of the same complex. Its modern architecture and geometric shape make a different approach to a house of worship. And the use of so much glass in the cube on top, surely a historic fuck you to the Nazis.
- Nov 09, 11
More #twitterstorians have joined my twitterfeed, check them out!This month there are also the nominations for the Cliopatria awards, given by the History News Network. I am one of the judges for the categories Best New Blog, and Best Group Blog.
Nominations are open through November, judging takes place in December, and winners are announced at the AHA in January. Anyone can make a nomination, and this year there are also categories for twitter and podcasts! So if you read history blogs, or twitter, or listen to podcasts, consider nominating your favourites here.
@MichaelHattem
@ladyhertford
@calhistorian
@opheliacat
@sallyosborn
@samuraiarchives
@ciaranon - Ciaran O'Neill
@ETFranz
@ProfessorSheyda Sheyda Jahanbani
@ljunkin
@mpitelka
@MoreOnVictoria - Philippa Dissel
@dpmckenzie
@humanifyingg - Alan Hwe
@hujane
@seefootnote - Katy Layton-Jones
@SpartanLady1 - Jenni Irving
@ProfessMoravec
@Ms_Historian - Amy Lively
@RichardEvans36
@ruth_mather
@tammyingram
@kathikernInstitutional accounts:
@ReviewsHistory
@scholarslab
@brooklynmuseum
@librarycompany - Nov 05, 11
This week I was in Montreal, where I had the opportunity to present a paper at the Indian Ocean World Centre at McGill. While I was in town, I went to visit the Museum of Fine Arts.
There, I saw The King's Beavers by Kent Monkman, possibly the most disturbing and puzzling painting I have seen in a while. I stared at it for some time, the vividness of the image raising so many questions about its message.
In it, apparently Christian beavers are trapped and attacked by Europeans and Indians. Which king? Are these French beavers being killed by the English and their native allies, or loyal English beavers being butchered by the French?
We see Catholic priests evidently complicit in the massacre. Some beavers are trapped in a floating prison: are these slaves? Are the beavers African? Is this just a general allegory for the violence in all colonial encounters, or a parable on animal rights? (Beaver skin, after all, being a key item of trade in colonial North America). Were the beavers a persecuted minority from the Old World who had fled to the new? There are so many different ways of reading it, and perhaps that is the point.
The museum has hung this painting by the entrance to a gallery of art from colonial Canada, placing this modern piece alongside paintings from the eighteenth century, and the juxtaposition is striking (and deliberate). On researching further, I discovered that this piece is very new, having been completed this year for the museum.
I wonder what effect it has on visitors to the museum, that they are greeted with this allegory of frontier violence before they see the rest of the art in that gallery. I was unable to find any more detailed explanation by Monkman about his intended meaning of the work, and I would be interested to know if any readers have their own conclusions.
- Oct 15, 11
A few people on twitter have asked me about my career, and how I came to be where I am. So here is a rather lengthy explanation. Next month will mark four years since I submitted my PhD thesis. I started in October 2004.
My work was on women in the interwar period, and their ideas of gender and modernity in Asia and the West. (Buy the book!)
I'm very proud of the work I did for my PhD, but it wasn't an area I wanted to continue to work on. I felt I had said all I could on that topic, and my interests led me elsewhere, towards urban history and a broader timeframe. Or to put it bluntly: different focus, different place, different period from my PhD.
Rare is the person in history who seems to have made such a sharp handbrake turn in research interests. Those I can think of (Simon Schama, Cassandra Pybus, Alan Macfarlane), did so after their careers were well-established. Nonetheless, Richard Waterhouse mentioned in one of his books having colleagues who still regarded him as an "Americanist", even after he had spent over twenty years writing Australian history.
I covered my views - and trepidation - about changing areas in an earlier post. It remains to be seen whether my career choices (or rather, following my interests), will pay off. I've been told I've gone "too fast" (i.e. published too much, too soon). A friend was advised NOT to publish her doctoral book until after she landed a tenure-track job, so that it would count for tenure. I'll be finishing book two in the spring (with an edited volume on the side), and no tenure-track job in sight.
MARCH 2008
I was awarded a Lee Kong Chian Research Fellowship at the National Library of Singapore. I moved in April. I wanted to study the city of Malacca, which had held a fascination for me since I first visited as a tourist some years earlier. I began researching how it had evolved as a colonial port. This research started with sources that were 400+ years earlier than my doctoral work.The fellowship was for six months, and gave me an office in the library, and a research assistant. I had a lot of fun, and it was a great opportunity. I studied Malay and started building up my reading ability of Portuguese.
OCTOBER 2008-SEPTEMBER 2009
That July, I was interviewed for, and offered a postdoctoral fellowship starting in October at the Centre for Metropolitan History at the Institute of Historical Research in London. There I expanded my project to incorporate Havana, comparing it to Malacca as two key port cities of early modern European expansion. I spent a great year with supportive colleagues, and worked on my side interest in the Pacific world, which was published in the Journal of World History this year. I had a visiting fellowship at the Institute of Asian Studies in Amsterdam, where I spent two months learning about the Dutch East Indies, and studying archives in the Hague.
OCTOBER 2009-NOW
The following May, I was awarded a two-year research fellowship funded by the Excellent Initiative at Ludwig-Maximilians University. I've been here since October 2009 (my fellowship ends later this month). This has given me the chance to get through all the research for my book, which has expanded to be a study of urban identity in colonial port cities. I have access to a wonderful library and it has been a good place to be based to complete my research.
I recently received (thank you, Gerda Henkel Stiftung!) a generous grant, which will enable me to finish my book, and will pay me a salary into the spring. This happy news came when I was only six weeks away from my last postdoc paycheque, so to say it was a "relief" doesn't begin to cover it. The uncertainty (indeed the pattern of the last few years of not knowing where I'll be going next until pretty late in the game) is wearing thin (though I must recommend the high-stress diet, seems to work wonders). The book is coming together and I look forward to publishing it.
INTERDISCIPLINARY! TRANSNATIONAL! UNHIRABLE?
Of course, all this time I've been applying for jobs. I never lifted my foot off in terms of writing apps, and when your job search is global, there is no off-season. After several years, it's pretty tiring. I look forward to one day not feeling like I'm working without a net. But my mobility has been my strength, thus far. Only the fact that I've been willing to go anywhere has kept me employed continuously. Friends of mine who have bound themselves to one country have not been so lucky.
My published work spans the 1500s to the 1960s. People who have encountered me, or my work, in different forums have described me as an early modernist, a nineteenth-centuryist, an Asianist, an urbanist, a gender historian. I suppose I am all of these, in varying degrees. But jobs seem to come in one of those flavours, and it's hard for me to sell myself as fitting into such categories, with disparate foci in my published work. Anyone hiring an Asianist would balk at my current project, and anyone hiring a historian of empires would look at my dissertation topic and think "What the...?". Urban/World are the labels I would use, though it's rather slim pickings for both of those at the moment.
I've spent longer working on my current book than I spent on my doctoral work, and more intensively too (the postdocs I have had have allowed me to focus fully on my research; during my PhD I was working various part-time jobs). I am at least as well up on the literature of what I'm working on now than on my doctoral area.
In general, I receive more interest from search committees in the US, especially those with world history programs, who look at my cv and think "wide teaching areas". While to hiring committees in the UK, where people tend to specialise more, the term might be (I'm guessing), "dilettante". The last AHA at which I had interviews was in 2008 (since then I've been interviewed by phone or straight to campus). If I'd landed one of those jobs, I would have had a mid-tenure review by now.
I am sure I am a better scholar, better teacher, than when I first went on the job market. I know my cover letters have improved! Nonetheless, I was wikijected this week for a job at which I thought I had a good shot. So, maybe my letter doesn't impress everyone. But I love what I do. I love history: reading about it, writing about it, sharing knowledge of the past with others. I've been lucky to have the chances I've had so far, and check in next year to see if this turns into a story of triumph or a warning of what NOT to do in academe.
- Oct 07, 11
I’m very excited that my book will be coming out in December. It’s based on the research I did for my doctorate. I plan to post some more about the women I researched in the coming weeks.
Since it will be coming out just in time for Christmas, I know how many of you will just be dying to get a copy! You can pre order it now from Amazon. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1848859392 - Oct 02, 11
@Past_Lives - Martin Robb
@sulinlewis
@historyrepeatin - Ian Curry
@Damienwarburton
@benfrew
@ProfSigler - Krista Sigler
@tcstride
@TonyHorwitz
@outofmischief - Richard Hemming
@markdegroh
@canenvirorock - Lauren Wheeler
@earlymodernpost - Lizzy Williamson
@KlecticAcademiK - Theresa Runstedtler
@ruth_mather
@erfagen
@tammyingram
@hhtnsw - Historic Houses Trust of NSWA few more #twitterstorians have come to light, and welcome one and all! Add yourself in the comments if you would like to be included, and check out these people for history-related twittertalk.
- Sep 20, 11
As many readers know, I am the editor of a new journal, Transnational Subjects: History, Society and Culture. Our first issue will be appearing in October 2011. The journal is print and online, and fully peer-reviewed.
Currently we have two open calls for papers. For our second issue, which will be published in May 2012, we invite essays on all aspects of transnational and cultural history (4,000–7,000 words) and shorter historiographical or pedagogical case-study articles (fewer than 3,000 words).
We also particularly welcome digital submissions, including audio/visual work that would not be suitable for a traditional journal. Digital content will also be peer-reviewed and published on our website. Send proposals to transnational@gylphi.co.uk. The deadline for issue 2 is 31 October 2011.
Issue 3 will be a themed issue: Gender, Sexuality, and the Transnational Subject, to be guest edited by Gregory Smithers.
For well over a generation, historians have enriched our understanding of the history of gender and sexuality in a variety of historical contexts. Insightful works by Anne McClintock, Ann Stoler, Philippa Levine, Robert Aldridge, and many others, have presented a vivid picture of how the "state" endeavored to control, channel, and at times manipulate gendered behavior and sexual activity. Despite an impressive body of scholarship, we still know relatively little about the individuals who were the objects of the state’s policies, laws, and policing. Transnational Subjects calls for essays that will shed historical, anthropological, and/or sociological light on the experiences of individuals as they navigated the socially and legally constructed concepts of gender and sexuality from the eighteenth century to the present. We welcome submissions that include, but are not limited to, small case studies, methodologically and theoretically innovative essays, digital work, and personal reflections on gender and sexuality in a transnational context. Essays should not exceed 7,000 words, and reflective pieces should not be more than 3,000 words.Submissions will be peer reviewed and should be sent electronically to transnational@gylphi.co.uk Deadline for submissions is January 15, 2012. Selected papers will appear in the October 2012 edition of Transnational Subjects.
Direct inquiries about the special edition to Dr. Gregory Smithers, Department of History, Virginia Commonwealth University.
You can also follow Transnational Subjects on twitter, @transnationsub
- Sep 06, 11
Once upon a time (well, two years ago), I asked on twitter "where are all the historians?". The answer became the Twitterstorians.
The 7th September marks the second birthday of the #twitterstorians list. We had a small party last year, and since then the list has continued to grow! We've been mentioned on the American Historical Association blog, and it's interesting to see how use of Twitter is spreading, particularly among more senior academics.
If twitter had existed earlier in my academic career, my dissertation would have been the stronger for it. On the other hand, it might not have been finished...
Twitter (and the #twitterstorians) have been a godsend to me the last couple of years, when I've been working at home. Having the daily water-cooler type chat with colleagues (who happen to be thousands of miles away) has helped me immensely. And being able to turn to such a resource of historical knowledge is at times, mindblowing. I've been introduced to new fields, and some of the best articles I've read. I'm using it more and more, as I get much quicker responses to my tweets than I ever do to email....
I am interested to see how a critical mass of historians on twitter changes other things about the field, from conference organisation to the job market (the wiki, for all its shortcomings, has already had a dramatic effect in how people approach searches; in the past I have been wikijected, and this year I found out that I didn't get a fellowship because I saw the recipient post it on twitter! While that was disappointing, I'd rather find out sooner than be kept hanging for months).
Some twitterstorians (and other people I had originally known online, through the Chronicle of Higher Education fora) became members of the editorial board of Transnational Subjects. We've discussed editorial goals, recruited submissions, and sought advice and expressions of interest from other historians. We even found our publisher, @gylphi! There is no way that without twitter we could have done it at such speed or so successfully.
Some other #twitterstorians who are posting to mark the date are:
Jonathan Dresner - @jondresner
Rachel Herrmann - @raherrmann
Kathryn Tomasek - @kathryntomasek
Wilko Hardenberg - @wilkohardenberg
Suzanne Fischer - @publichistorian
Charlotte Riley - @lottelydia
Mark Cheathem - @markcheathem
Sharon Howard - @sharon_howard
Kelly Hignett - @kellyhignett
Janice Liedl - @jliedl
Brett Holman - @airminded
Kelly Baker - @kelly_j_baker
Heather Prescott - @hmprescott
and from @ministorian in the #historynoir theme:
You can see more #historynoir at his tumblr.
- Aug 31, 11
Yesterday I put on google docs an article draft. The piece is called "Landscape Projections" and it is about the presentation of Australia's environment in historical film. You can see it here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uaByekdygE3h7qRPgRKbPl-Nf3b3cDvmZu_dwubSz...
I am interested to gather people's responses to the piece, and any suggestions they may have for improvement. (I was also curious to see how many people actually read it, and I've been pleasantly surprised on that score).
So, take a look, and let me know what you think.
- Aug 30, 11
This great short film on wikimedia commons, I was directed to by a twitter link from @berfrois. It demonstrates what a wealth of material there is in wikimedia for historians.
- Aug 20, 11
Since the uses of twitter were featured on the AHA blog, including the #twitterstorians, a whole bunch more have emerged!
@keeganjg
@kenneth_owen
@adam_costanzo
@hmprescott - AKA Knitting Clio
@RegalRenegade
@joshuapaddison
@history_doctor - Taylor Stoermer
@kelly_j_baker
@jefferslennox
@commitz - Mike Commito
@fredgibbs
@DanGuadagnolo
@pbkotowski
@tammyingram
@wrigbe - Beth Wright
@wunderplatz - Kate D.
@gordonchls - s.e. gordon-salway
@sarabushnc
@AmandaEpperson
@Brujuli - Juliana GómezMerchán
@lostinhistory - Jason Warren
@notplainjane29 - Jane Rothstein
@drhonor - honor sachs
@JessicaPClark
@macklin_gd
@kenneth_owen
@GeoffPolHist - Geoff Robinson
@jhrees - Jonathan Rees
@itshistorygirl - Emily MacLeod
@jypersian
@YAppelbaumAnd some institutional accounts:
@virginiacw150 - The Virginia Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission
@HISTORYmag
@BMAGimages Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery Picture Library
@HistoryWJ - History Workshop JournalTwitterstorians is not limited to academic historians, but anyone with an interest in history. If you want to see the rest of the list, click here.
- Aug 20, 11
So, I'm on the job market (again). Although I never really left, I've been applying since the year I finished my PhD, I've just been lucky enough to have a job this time around that allowed me to stay in one place for two years. And since I apply for jobs all over the world, I haven't had an "off season" since 2007.
But the ads for North American jobs have begun (and in a promising turn for historians, it looks like there might be more available than in the last couple of years). For this reason, a few other historians have recently written with advice, such as Chad Black on writing job letters, and Tanya Roth on her experiences on the job market. (I wrote a few months ago for the Chronicle on international job seeking).
Right now, I'm writing to my mentors and asking them to put updated letters for me on Interfolio. Meanwhile, I'm also wondering if my apps would be stronger with personal, specific letters written for each one - although I cringe at the thought of asking anyone to do that much work for me, and know that I would then be in a state of panic for each application over whether all the letters had arrived on time (having been burned before, when an absent LoR cost me consideration for a position, I've tended to rely on Interfolio ever since. It's been suggested to me that this puts me at a disadvantage. I don't know).
I'm also waiting to hear back on article submissions, wanting to have them to add to my cv, and anticipating plenty of job market chat on the wiki. Mostly, I'm intrigued to see what happens. I'm finishing my second book, and I'm curious about how I'll look to Search Committees this year.
If your dept is hiring, in world or urban history, call me.
- Aug 19, 11
I was struck by something Timothy Burke wrote at Easily Distracted, as a comment on one of his own posts, which was progressively threadjacked.
He was writing in relation to the discussions of rioters in London, vs. the bankers responsible for the economic meltdown. The contrast between those scrambling to make excuses or find cultural explanation for rioting, while not looking at financial practices in the same way, reveals a blind spot in a lot of people's thinking. As Professor Burke wrote:
But you’re singing my song on a point that I frequently harp on (including in classes, to my poor students) which is that for a very long time much qualitative social science has shown very little interest in elites or powerful social groups like soldiers or bureaucrats in the same terms that it takes an interest in many other social groups, e.g., as groups that have “cultures”, that are the products of social conditions, and so on. Lazy or simple versions of the social-conditions-produce-and-justify-practices ought to be just as forgiving of neoconservative bombing of Iraq. Admittedly, part of the reason that there are very few ethnographic studies of military or security force cultures of torture (for one example) is methodological: the powerful have very little interest in welcoming ethnographic inquiry into their habitus, even when that’s not strictly secret in some sense. But part of it is also the assumption by a lot of people on the left that the elite are already fully understood in this sense. Which I don’t really see: if I had to teach a class on the everyday cultural world of the most elite financial capitalists, I would have very few studies to put on the syllabus that would compare with what I can offer in a course on everyday life in rural southern Africa. I’d have to use memoirs, novels, and journalism, which is fine, but it’s still a notable gap. Unless what people mean by assuming that these worlds are already known to inquiry is because academics or leftists typically believe that they themselves are part of or known personally about such elite social contexts or that the self-representations of elites in the public sphere are accurate or useful guides to their everyday practices.
This relates to the kind of problem I bump up against regularly in my research, which involves assessing the cultures of colonialism at different sites. I don't often see scholars finding culturally determinist explanations for European empires. However, at the the high point of European expansion, we could easily say it was a longstanding part of European culture to beat people up and take their land. The defeated either sucked it up and learned to bow to a new king, or they rallied their friends and pushed the invaders out. (see Spain, reconquest of). And pretty well every part of Europe had been on both sides of that equation (conqueror and conquered) at some point in their history.
Historians, whether we like it or not, tend to vew the colonialist elites of the past as our equals, to be judged on our terms, while the subaltern groups are condescended to and excuses are made for their culture-bound hopelessness. I'm reminded of this response to the Aztec exhibition at the British Museum, which said a lot of what I was thinking at the time. If an exhibition of the history of the slave trade showed shackles and whips and did not say "look at this evidence of human cruelty" but "look at the fine workmanship on that!" most of us would be horrified and outraged. Why wasn't the Aztec show seen in the same way?If Europe’s explorers and conquerors are condemned as invaders, pillagers and exploiters (which means judging them by our contemporary standards of morality), then we have to hold other groups to the same standard. Otherwise it’s like saying “oh, those poor benighted tribal people, with their simple understanding of the world, we can’t condemn them for their child sacrifice/cannibalism/cruelty. But those white Europeans, we can condemn them for witch hunts/slavery/torture, because they should have known better.”
Evil people and nasty practices have existed everywhere, at all times. So have good people. I am certain there would have been some Aztecs who thought the murder of children was wrong, and who tried to stop it. Diversity of opinion within a group isn’t something we in the educated West have exclusive claim to, either. “People of [group], believed x....”. Really? All of them? Can you think of one thing today that “everyone believes”?Either we're all trapped by our cultures, or nobody is. I'm frequently annoyed with people who describe themselves as "very spiritual". This irks me because I regard "spirituality"—in the sense of having an interior life, rather than adhering to any particular religion or philosophy—as an essential element of being human. To say one is "very spiritual" is like saying one is "very human".
Which brings me back to Professor Burke’s useful point about rioters and bankers: if we’re to excuse the rioters for their culturally determined behaviour, the same excuses have to apply to the bankers. Or conversely, theft is theft. If you expect better from someone because they wear a suit and work on Wall St than you do from a teenager in a hooded sweatshirt, what kind of class snobbery is that? - Aug 15, 11
Is this for real? I have seen this pic a few places on the internet, and it's generally posted as a joke. But is that how it began? My initial assumption was that this was a bunch of men in drag, parodying the women of the temperance movement. But maybe I'm wrong....
Any ideas, please add them in the comments.
- Aug 14, 11
Many more historians have appeared on the Twitter, I find them because they follow me or reply to me—I also browse around for new members but I can’t be comprehensive. So if you want to be added, please list yourself in the comments. @lincolnmullen
@amylou981 – Amy Louise Western
@lbary – Leslie Bary
@philmedman – Brendan Clarke
@mrweatherburn
@blanchemaynard – Louise Côté
@dawudart – David Chavarria
@thompsonwerk – Robert Thompson
@tori_smith_
@cap_and_gown – Tamson Pietsch
@adamarenson
@conversiontales – research group on religious change in Early Modern Europe.
@oldbaileyonline – Old Bailey and London Lives digital projects.
@totalgettysburg – Battle of Gettysburg information. - Aug 04, 11
The lovely and charming Ade Teal drew this picture of me. You can see more of the talented Mr Teal's work here.
- Jul 16, 11
This is a great film from Mondo Black about the role of African American interpreters at Colonial Williamsburg. Starting with considering what people will do for employment in the recession, this documentary asks: would you be willing to play a slave?
I've written about Williamsburg before, and it has wrestled in the past with how to present the history of slavery for visitors.
Hat tip to Larry Cebula of Northwest History for posting this video.
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Posts
- Books recently read
An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, Brock Clarke Declaration of Independents, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch
- Books recently read
Susan Orlean, Rin Tin Tin
Richard Russo, Empire Falls
Tess Gerritsen, The Bone Garden
Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies
Amitav Ghosh, River of Smoke
David Javerbaum, The Last Testament
- Books just read
William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom
David Rakoff, Fraud
David Sedaris, Naked
Mark Steyn, After America
Sarah Vowell, The Partly Cloudy Patriot
Sarah Vowell, Assassination Vacation
Sarah Vowell, The Wordy Shipmates
Professor Meerkat attends a faculty meeting, at which the presence of cookies at faculty meetings is hotly debated.
Professor Meerkat missed his flight to the Venice Biennale. Who will speak for the rights of Professor Meerkat?
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Tweets
- Preparing a conference abstract, a teaching demonstration, and revising a chapter. #historyweekend
- Urban History Multimedia has a new site with Cambridge Journals Online: http://t.co/rkLT9veh #twitterstorians via @ethingtonphil
- I have the key to the past, the present and the future. It's somewhere in the bottom of my purse.
- Nice thing this year: interviewing institutions all paying upfront for travel costs, not asking me to pay & get reimbursed.
- #twitterstorians - would you like to join a panel on "identity" that I'm putting together for #aha2013? #history
- Article review just received: criticised for building on my own past research, and not using an article that has *yet to be published*. Bah.
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LATEST NEWS
- The first issue of Transnational Subjects, the journal I edit, is now online!
Recent writings
'River of Smoke', Berlin Review of Books, 5 December 2011
'Still Flying', Berfrois, 5 August 2011
