Another piracy attack off the coast of Somalia has resulted in renewed questions about the dynamics of modern piracy and possible approaches to curbing Somalian pirates’ activities. Some are now advocating aggressive naval and military intervention by the United States and European nations, sometimes using historical allusions to the so-called Barbary Wars of the early 1800s to buttress their arguments.
Read more about this issue in the New York Times.
Props are key to establishing the “look” of the past in historical films. But, how are props selected and used in films?
A new NPR story examines the prop-masters in Hollywood who research, collect, and catalog period objects for use on film sets. Prop-masters act as scenery advisers to filmmakers, using their expertise in the material culture of historical periods.
Read or listen to the story on NPR.
A fascinating story explores how the Jubilee Quartet at Fisk University attempted to preserve slave-era spirituals in the early twentieth century.
Read the story and hear the recordings from the 1900s and 1910s at NPR.
Le Monde reports that the Director of the Archives Nationales in Paris has departed. The Archives Nationales has been embroiled in a political fight over the installation of a historical museum in the Hôtel de Soubise, home of the Archives Nationales. Historical researchers should be concerned about this developing story.
Read the story in Le Monde.
Women’s participation in the United States Armed Forces is again being reconsidered, with combat roles the key focus. NPR provided an analysis of the issue today in as story on “Women In War: ‘I’ve Lived Out There With The Guys.'”
Read or listen to the story at NPR.
The Newberry Library is in the news again, with a feature on its collection of marginalia appearing in the New York Times today. The story highlights the importance of studying marginal comments in books and raises questions about how e-marginalia can be preserved in the future.
Read the article at the New York Times.
Renaissance France is coming to Chicago! A new exhibition, entitled “Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France,” will open at the Art Institute of Chicago on 27 February 2011.
Students in my HIST 420 The Renaissance course at Northern Illinois University may earn extra credit by writing a review of this exhibition.
See the exhibition website for “Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France.”
The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration has been consulting comparative revolutionary studies as it works to formulate responses to the protests in Egypt and across the Arab world.
Read the article by Scott Wilson in the Washington Post.
An important reminder of why female war correspondents are vital: Kim Barker, “Why We Need Women in War Zones,” New York Times, 19 February 2011.
French historian David A. Bell examines the Egyptian Revolution through the history of the French Revolution.
Read the article on Foreign Policy
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