How Not to do Engaged Learning

Posted on May 9, 2011 by briansandberg

Professors in universities across the country hear lots of talk these days about “engaged learning.”  The concept can be useful in promoting alternative educational experiences and formats both inside and outside classrooms.  But, “engaged learning” is often been misused and even abused.

Here is an article from the Chicago Tribune about an incident of improper “engaged learning” at my own university, Northern Illinois University.

In my opinion, humanities and sciences professors need to take charge of more “engaged learning” initiatives to ensure that that have academic integrity and educational purpose.  Otherwise, student activities outside the classroom risk turning into community service or even exploited labor.

Posted in Education Policy, Humanities Education, Northern Illinois University | 2 Comments

Threats to Liberal Arts

Posted on May 9, 2011 by briansandberg

Jim Leach, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, spoke on “Defending the Liberal Arts” at the American Council of Learned Societies annual meeting in Washington recently.

Leach argued that “we need an infrastructure of ideas,” comparing humanities research networks to the interstate highway system.  “The humanities are America’s stock in trade. They’re an aspect that we shortchange at our peril,” he said.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on Leach’s remarks and on the issue of threats to the liberal arts.

Posted in Digital Humanities, Education Policy, Humanities Education | Leave a comment

Millennialists believe in Impending Last Days

Posted on May 8, 2011 by briansandberg

A new group of Christian millennarians led by fundamentalist Harold Camping is proclaiming that the world will end on 21 May 2011, when true believers will be “raptured.”  The Washington Post reports on Camping and his millennialist movement in an online story.

This movement taps into a powerful current of millennial belief in American popular culture.  The Pew Research Center recently polled Americans on their religious beliefs, finding that an astounding 41% of Americans believe that Jesus Christ’s Second Coming will occur before 2050.

For early modern historians, such millennial expectations seem unremarkable and even routine aspects of Christian practice.  Martin Luther, Jean Calvin, and many other Reformation leaders believed that the Last Judgment would occur during their own lifetimes.  Jan Matthijs famously led millennialist Anabaptist followers to their deaths at the siege of Münster in 1534.

There is a long history of millennial thought and prognostication in Christianity.  A good starting point for considering apocalyptic belief and millennarianism is Andrew Cunningham and Ole Peter Grell’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalpyse: Religion, War, Famine and Death in Reformation Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Posted in Early Modern Europe, History of Violence, Religious Violence, Warfare in the Early Modern World | Leave a comment

Faculty Union formed at UIC

Posted on May 8, 2011 by briansandberg

The faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago voted recently to form a faculty union, which will be affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which supported the UIC faculty unionization efforts, reports on faculty organization and union authorization vote in a 29 April 2011 story on the AAUP website.

Graduate students and faculty at Northern Illinois University will want to track how the unionization movement at the neighboring UIC campus proceeds.

Posted in Education Policy, Human Rights, Humanities Education, Northern Illinois University | Leave a comment

Robespierre’s Manuscripts for Sale

Posted on May 8, 2011 by briansandberg

A collection of Maximilien Robespierre’s manuscripts is being put up for sale by Sotheby’s France.  The collection apparently includes 150 pages of Robespierre’s writings that were in a dossier that has resurfaced over 200 years after the death of this important member of the Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution.

Pierre Serna, Directeur de l’Institut d’Histoire de la Révolution Française, has written an op-ed in Le Monde about this sale and is organizing an attempt to purchase the manuscripts for the French nation.  Below is a call issued by Anne Jollet to support Serna’s efforts to purchase and preserve this collection.

URGENT : APPEL À SOUSCRIPTION

Il faut sauver les manuscrits de Robespierre ! 

Collecte de la SER !  Mobilisons nos réseaux !

Cher/es amies,

Vous avez peut-être appris par la presse la mise en vente aux enchères de quelque 150 pages de manuscrits de Robespierre, par Sotheby’s France, le 18 mai. Il s’agit d’un dossier qui avait été mis à l’abri par la famille du conventionnel Lebas, après son suicide, et qui réapparaît deux siècles plus tard. Il est évident que la place de ces papiers est dans une collection publique et qu’ils ne doivent pas être dispersés chez des collectionneurs privés.

Il s’agit, au sens propre, d’un patrimoine national, d’une source à mettre à la disposition des historien/nes et des citoyen/nes.

Pierre Serna (Directeur de l’Institut d’Histoire de la Révolution Française) a signalé dans une tribune publiée dans Le Monde le danger que représente cette vente aux enchères (http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2011/05/03/il-faut-sauver-robespierre_1516206_3232.html).

Des associations, la Sociétés des Études robespierristes (SER), le Comité de Vigilance face aux usages publics de l’histoire (CVUH), des collectifs de rédaction, les Cahiers d’histoire. Revue d’histoire critique se mobilisent. Rejoignez leur action!

La Société des études robespierristes  propose de lui adresser de toute urgence des chèques, établis par vous ou par des personnes de votre connaissance à l’ordre de la Société des études robespierristes, mention “Pour les manuscrits de Robespierre” et adressés à la Société, au 17 rue de la Sorbonne, 75231 Paris cedex 05.

Si l’opération se concrétise, ces chèques, dans la limite de 20 % du revenu imposable, permettront aux souscripteurs de recevoir un reçu dont ils pourront directement faire déduire 66,66 % de leur impôt sur le revenu de 2011. Si cette contribution à l’achat n’a finalement pas lieu, nous détruirons et/ou renverrons évidemment ces chèques aux souscripteurs.

Posted in Archival Research, European History, French History, French Revolution and Napoleon, History in the Media | 1 Comment

Disasters in French History Call for Papers

Posted on May 8, 2011 by briansandberg

Call for Papers

Disaster in French History

The editors of French Historical Studies seek articles for a special issue on the theme of disaster in French history.  As an interdisciplinary field, disaster studies has sought to understand the political, economic, cultural, and environmental consequences of disasters, both natural and human‑made, on societies.  The experience of disasters in France has had a profound impact on the history of its people in both the metropole and colonies.

We invite articles on the theme of disaster broadly understood including, but not limited to, the following themes:

  • environmental degradation
  • urban decay or destruction
  • natural catastrophe (e.g., flood, heat wave, famine)
  • infrastructure failure (e.g. building or mine collapse)
  • events interpreted or experienced as disasters (e.g., acts of war, police actions, economic or financial crisis)

Queries regarding submission and all other matters regarding this special issue should be addressed to the guest editors Elinor Accampo (accampo@college.usc.edu) and Jeffrey H. Jackson (jacksonj@rhodes.edu).  Articles may be either in English or in French but must conform to French Historical Studies style (see http://fhs.umn.edu/ for details) and must be accompanied by 150 word abstracts in both languages.  Papers should be between 8,000 and 10,000 words (up to but not longer than 14,000 words including notes).  For the inclusion of illustrations written permission must be obtained from the relevant persons or institutions for print and on‑line publication.

Manuscripts can be sent by post or electronically to the editorial manager of the journal, Richard Hopkins, French Historical Studies, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Arizona State University, 975 S. Myrtle Avenue; Box 874302, Tempe, AZ 85287-4302. E-mail: fhs@asu.edu.  We encourage, but do not require, electronic submission of manuscripts. Manuscripts submitted electronically should be sent in MS Word or Rich Text Format (RTF).

The deadline for submissions is August 1, 2011.

Posted in Conferences, Environmental History, French History | Leave a comment

A Mead Renaissance

Posted on May 6, 2011 by briansandberg

Mead, a fermented honey drink popular in the medieval and renaissance periods, is apparently making a comeback.

NPR reports on the mead revival in the United States.

Students in HIST 111 Western Civilization, 1500-1815 and in HIST 420 The Renaissance may be interested in this story.

Posted in Early Modern Europe, Food and Cuisine History, Renaissance Art and History | Leave a comment

Al Qaeda Confirms bin Laden’s Death

Posted on May 6, 2011 by briansandberg

Al Qaeda has confirmed the death of Osama bin Laden in a message on 3 May 2011, according to a report by NPR.

The “general leadership” of Al Qaeda declares that: “We stress that the blood of the holy warrior sheik, Osama bin Laden, God bless him, is precious to us and to all Muslims and will not go in vain.”  The message continues with a warning: “We will remain, God willing, a curse chasing the Americans and their agents, following there outside and inside their countries. Soon, God willing, their happiness will turn to sadness and their blood will be mingled with their tears.”

Read more about this development in an article on NPR online.

Further details of Osama bin Laden’s life at his compound over the past several years continue to emerge from interrogations of his wives in Pakistan.  See a related story on   on bin Laden’s secret life at the compound on NPR online.

Posted in Globalization, Terrorism, War, Culture, and Society | Leave a comment

Five Myths about Osama bin Laden

Posted on May 6, 2011 by briansandberg

As people search to define a post-Osama bin Laden world, it is important to take stock of bin Laden’s historical significance in global affairs.

Peter Bergen, a national security analyst who once interviewed Osama bin Laden, now offers a timely assessment of bin Laden’s significance.  Bergen identifies five popular myths about bin Laden and seeks to dispel them.

Peter Bergen’s op-ed appears at the Washington Post.  Bergen is currently an analyst and director at the New America Foundation.

Posted in Globalization, History of Violence, Terrorism, War, Culture, and Society | Leave a comment

Multiculturalism in Europe

Posted on May 6, 2011 by briansandberg

The protests and revolutions in the Arab world this spring have created increased political tensions in Europe over the status of Arabs and Muslims within the European Union. Debates over policies promoting multiculturalism in European nations were already contentious well before the Arab protests, but now the very notion of multiculturalism is under attack by far right political parties across Europe.

The instability in Tunisia and civil conflict in Libya have heightened southern European countries’ fears of a massive new wave of immigration by North Africans fleeing across the Mediterranean Sea.

A recent article in Foreign Policy discusses the tenuous nature of integration in Europe.

Posted in European Union, French History, Globalization, Human Rights, Mediterranean World | Leave a comment