Renaissance Prints at the Art Institute of Chicago

Posted on March 23, 2011 by briansandberg

This is a big year for the Renaissance at the Art Institute of Chicago.  A major exhibition on Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France is ongoing at the Art Institute until 30 May 2011.

Another exhibit will be opening next month on Altered and Adorned: Using Renaissance Prints in Daily Life.  This show will run from 30 April to 10 July 2011 at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Student in HIST 420 The Renaissance at Northern Illinois University will be interested in both of these shows.

Posted in Early Modern Europe, French History, French Revolution and Napoleon, Renaissance Art and History | Leave a comment

Debtor Prisons in the United States

Posted on March 23, 2011 by briansandberg

Has the United States recreated the debtor prisons of the early modern period?

A current United States Supreme Court case questions whether some states’ laws on “deadbeat dads” constitute imprisonment for debt.

A NPR story today considers the court case and draws comparisons to early modern debtor prisons.

Posted in Early Modern Europe, History of Violence | Leave a comment

At War in Libya?

Posted on March 23, 2011 by briansandberg

Are the Unites States and its allies at war in Libya?

As discussed in a recent post, the airstrikes in Libya can be seen as constituting not merely the institution of a no-fly zone but a military intervention in a civil conflict in support of the Libyan opposition groups, especially in Benghazi.  The modern practice of states engaging in “military actions.”

The modern practice of engaging in “military actions” and “policing actions” without formal declarations of war creates ambiguities, however.  The Obama administration’s claim to be acting to protect Libyan civilians in a humanitarian intervention has created more confusion.  Politicians and pundits across the political spectrum are now exploiting the ambiguity over conceptions of a “state of war” in order to score political points.

A piece on NPR examines modern notions of a “state of war” and the processes of instigating warfare.  This piece suggests that the military operations in Libya do not (yet) constitute a war.  Although I find this piece rather flawed, it does at least open a new arena of discussion on the military intervention in Libya.

Meanwhile, Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations has criticized the airstrikes and no-fly zone in Libya, referring to these operations as a clear military intervention into a Libyan civil war.  Listen to Haass’s interview on NPR, and find a summary of the interview here.  I do not endorse all of Haass’s assessments of the situation in Libya and find his description of Libya as a “tribal” country highly problematic.  However, I do agree with his argument that the airstrikes constitute military intervention in a Libyan civil conflict.

Perhaps we can now move beyond discussion of the no-fly zone, to examine exactly what the military intervention in Libya represents.

Posted in Civil Conflict, Comparative Revolutions, War, Culture, and Society | Leave a comment

Trude Jacobsen Presentation at Northern Illinois University

Posted on March 21, 2011 by briansandberg

Posted in French History, Northern Illinois University, Women and Gender History | Leave a comment

Military Intervention in Libya

Posted on March 21, 2011 by briansandberg

While much of the media coverage of the Libyan conflict has focused on the debate over a no-fly zone, the European and American military intervention in Libya is clearly much broader than than a no-fly zone would imply.  The initial targets and timing of French and American airstrikes make clear that allying with the Libyan opposition forces and protecting their positions in Benghazi are the primary goals of the intervention.

A story in the Christian Science Monitor examines the French role in the initial airstrikes.  Reports in Al Jazeera, The New York Times, the Guardian, and Le Monde reinforce this interpretation of the rationale for the military intervention.

Now that the United States and its allies have intervened to support the opposition forces (or rebels), policymakers need to identify the anti-Ghaddafi forces and discern their political aims.  Having spent years trying to decipher the shifting groups of participants in early seventeenth-century civil conflicts, I believe that this will be very difficult to do in Libya, especially without a significant U.S. diplomatic or military presence on the ground.  Civil conflicts that are not based on regional, ethnic, or religious affiliations often produce incredibly fragmented political and military groups with varying interests.  This promises to be a very complicated, and potentially lengthy, military intervention in Libya.

French historians will be interested in following this latest expression of French nationalism and militarism in North Africa.  France has a long history of colonial projects and neocolonial relationships in North African and the Mediterranean.  Nicolas Sarkozy resumed the French arms trade to Libya several years ago, permitting Gaddafi to purchase French missiles, aircraft, and military radio equipment.  French concerns about immigration from North Africa are clearly shaping Sarkozy’s policies and his government’s intervention in Libya, especially following news of more than 100,000 refugees already fleeing from the Libyan conflict.  While Libya’s oil reserves certainly figure in the French intervention in Libya, these other concerns are clearly operative, too.

Posted in Civil Conflict, Comparative Revolutions, French History, War, Culture, and Society | Leave a comment

Call for Proposals: Attending to Early Modern Women Conference

Posted on March 20, 2011 by briansandberg

Call for Proposals

Attending to Early Modern Women: Remapping Routes and Spaces
June 21-June 23, 2012     Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Attending to Early Modern Women, which has been held seven times at the University of Maryland since 1990, is moving to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, thanks to the generous support of the College of Letters and Science at UWM. The conference will retain its innovative format, using a workshop model for most of its sessions to promote dialogue, augmented by a plenary session on each of the four conference topics: communities, environments, exchanges, and pedagogies. It will be held at the UWM School of Continuing Education Conference Center in the heart of downtown Milwaukee, within easy walking distance of the lakeshore, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Milwaukee Public Museum, and the Amtrak station.

Attendees will stay in the near-by and newly renovated Doubletree Hotel. The conference will run from Thursday June 21 through Saturday June 23, 2012, and attendees will also have the opportunity to participate in a special pre-conference seminar on Wednesday June 20 at the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

A detailed description of the conference and the call for proposals is now available at: www.atw2012.uwm.edu

Proposals for workshops that address the conference themes may now be submitted, to atw-12@uwm.edu. Deadline: August 31, 2011.

Please forward this call to colleagues and students who you think might be interested.

Posted in Conferences, Current Research, Early Modern Europe, Women and Gender History | Leave a comment

Bellicose Women: A “Gender Gap” in Policymaking?

Posted on March 20, 2011 by briansandberg

The decision for the United States to go to war in Libya appears to have been made by female policymakers in the Obama administration.  An article in the Christian Science Monitor discerns a “gender gap” in foreign policy formulation in the White House, suggesting that bellicose women policymakers pushed for military intervention in Libya.

The notion that bellicose women can instigate military action connects nicely with my own research on women, gender, and violence.  When I present research on gender and violence during the French Wars of Religion, I often get questions and comments suggesting that women could not really have been seriously involved in warfare.  Many scholars and students seem to have bought into the popular myth that war is exclusively a masculine domain.

Recent historical research demonstrates that women have long been involved intimately in the practices of warfare, and not just as victims.  John A. Lynn’s Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe offers a fascinating portrait of women’s involvement in armed forces throughout the early modern period.  My own research shows that many women were active participants in religious and civil warfare in early modern France.

It is time to rethink the notion of warfare as a purely masculine sphere.

Posted in Gender and Warfare, History of Violence, War, Culture, and Society, Warfare in the Early Modern World | 1 Comment

Resource for Research on Historical Film

Posted on March 20, 2011 by briansandberg

Students in HIST 390 Film and History: War in Film will be interested in Screening the Past, an e-journal on filmmaking that has numerous articles and film reviews dealing with historical films.

Posted in Historical Film, History in the Media, War in Film | Leave a comment

At War in Libya

Posted on March 20, 2011 by briansandberg

The United States has today entered into a new war in Libya.  President Obama’s decision to implement a no-fly zone in Libya entails cruise missile strikes and bombing to dismantle surface-to-air missile emplacements and Libyan ground forces close to Benghazi.  The New York Times and other news organizations now confirm that United States and French forces have begun bombardments in Libya.

The President has clearly sided with the Libyan opposition coalition, intervening in a widening civil conflict.  This military intervention will involve providing significant political support and committing the prestige of the United States to protect the opposition coalition’s integrity for an indeterminate period of time.  This is a very risky political and military strategy that will clearly require significant financial costs and increased stress on the already strained United States military system.

Numerous policy analysts have questioned the wisdom of a no-fly zone strategy in Libya, including Michael Lind, a fellow with the New America Foundation who wrote this piece in Salon.  Steve Clemmons, another fellow at the New America Foundation, critiqued the no-fly zone strategy in the BBC.  Meanwhile,  The Economist has offered its own assessment of the risks of a no-fly zone in Libya.

Can the United States effectively enter into a Libyan War while simultaneously waging  ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Posted in Civil Conflict, History of Violence, War, Culture, and Society | Leave a comment

Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France

Posted on March 20, 2011 by briansandberg

Renaissance France is present in Chicago!  A new exhibition, entitled “Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France,” opened recently at the Art Institute of Chicago.

I visited the exhibition today with several of my graduate students and found it fascinating.  Students in my HIST 420 The Renaissance course at Northern Illinois University may want to visit this exhibition for extra credit.

See the exhibition website for “Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France.”

Posted in Early Modern Europe, French History, History in the Media, Renaissance Art and History | Leave a comment