Anne Clendinning speaks on the aftermath of the Titanic

The History Seminar Series presents


Anne Clendinning speaking on:

Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon and the “Money Boat”:  Class and Cowardice at the Board of Trade Titanic Inquiry


Friday, September 21, 2012
2:30–4:00 pm
A226

Everyone welcome


Refreshments provided
Contact: Derek Neal derekn@nipissingu.ca

Compliments scholars savor

Getting two requests in one day to write, or at least propose, an article.

After speaking in a public venue, having a student ask what courses you teach that he might take.

Finding out that a scholar you respect has called one of your books "fundamental."

UPDATE:  And having a former fellow student write out of the blue to say that she's using an old article for teaching purposes, the same day you write this post...

Provocative films, angry riots: the downside of new media

Doug Saunders at the Globe and Mail has been writing some really good stuff on the Middle East for a while now.  See this for clear-eyed clear thinking, clearly expressed  (my emphases):

After this week’s violence in the Middle East, two things are apparent. First, a lot of Arabs in the region believe that “the United States” created a video mocking the Prophet Mohammed. And second, a lot of people in North America believe that “Egypt” and “Libya” attacked U.S. diplomatic outposts and killed an American ambassador.

Few protesters in Cairo or Benghazi believed that the video Innocence of Muslims could have been created by a largely unknown group of anti-Muslim activists in California, a group so obscure that it took U.S. reporters more than a day to identify them – or that this network of bigots could be allowed to exist simply because American laws protect freedom of speech. This could only be a direct product of Washington.
After all, this was, until recently, how things worked in their own countries. If something was allowed to exist in Egypt or Libya, the authoritarian government must have encouraged it to exist. Ergo, this wasn’t some fringe oddball in California offending them; it could only have been the United States assaulting them.

Likewise, many Americans, including prominent ones, simply could not believe that a consulate or embassy could be stormed by anti-American protesters without the active consent, and likely direct involvement, of the country’s government. These attacks prove that America has “lost Egypt” or “been betrayed by Libya,” commentators wrote, likening this week’s relatively small-scope protests to Iran’s 1979 revolution

We need to take three lessons from this week’s events.

The first is that both Arab and Western citizens – and sometimes politicians – are failing to appreciate the polyphonic nature of democratic nations. This has always been a problem for the U.S. and its neighbours: One-note nations such as Russia and Iran have never really believed that every political statement, protest march and YouTube video emerging from a diverse Western country isn’t orchestrated by the national government.
But now it’s also a problem for the new Arab democracies. Suddenly, they are large, and contain multitudes. They have become polyphonic. We should not mistake the signal from the noise, even when things become very noisy, indeed.

The second is to realize that the new freedoms – both political and electronic – allow the most obscure and marginal figures to dominate the agenda. ...

The third is to realize that, as a result of this, these fringe movements are increasingly threatening, far out of proportion of their actual numbers, not just within their small sphere of action but on a larger stage. The past decade has seen a largely unnoticed ascent of the circle of xenophobic activists behind the short film that triggered this violence, their rise into mainstream politics, and the failure of mainstream conservatives to confront and denounce them...

This is a new, wide-open world – one whose freedoms, if we aren’t careful, can easily be seized and abused.

Historical maps, their meaning and their uses

Last night's round table on the War of 1812 attracted an audience of 35, not bad for a rainy Friday night opposite a hockey game.  We had faculty, students and people from town, and they were interested enough to stick around right up to 10 pm.

One of the most interesting discussions concerned the role of Natives in the war and diplomacy of the time, and whether that role has been ignored or misrepresented, and still is.  One point at  issue was the map above, which was being used to display basic geography.  The priority of the maker was clearly to emphasize American expansion.  Notice how solid  the American states and territories look, and the lack of provincial boundaries in British territory.  Even  more remarkable is the absence of any Native settlements or territories.  This led one participant to state that the map was "false."

Yes and no, say I.  What practical meaning did the boundaries of the Mississippi Territory have in  1812?  Weren't the Creek Indian settlements attacked by Andrew Jackson a lot realer?  On the other hand the state boundaries established in the 1810s are real and practical today.

This  returns me to a point I made to my Crusade and Jihad students in our first class meeting, when I was showing them various maps depicting Christian and Muslim expansion in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.  The maps "lied" (= "were false"), I said.

It is more accurate to say that ANY map, historical or otherwise, is very much an oversimplification for analytical or propagandistic purposes.

Thus I say that the appropriate response of a historian to a historical map is not to draw a quick conclusion but to ask more questions.

Which is pretty much what we  were doing with this map last night.

Geography and history

We were just talking about the importance of geographical factors in Middle Eastern and Islamic history in a class today when sure enough, Robert Kaplan comes down the pike flogging a new book pushing a geographical analysis of world politics. Maybe he's taking it a bit far, but some readers may find this interview of interest.

The War of 1812: A Round Table at Nipissing University

1812 -- Turning Points

On the face of it a small frontier conflict, the War of  1812 had world-wide causes and consequences.  It  was not just  one  turning point  but several, for Canada, the United States, Native North America and the British Empire.    

  

In this bicentennial year, the Department of History of Nipissing University presents a Round Table, 1812: Turning Points, for the benefit of the University and the wider North Bay community. We hope to explore all aspects of the war, what it meant at the time and what it means today. Your participation will be welcome.

Friday, September 14, 2012 7:30 PM – 10:00 PM

The Nipissing University Theater, Nipissing University (North Bay campus)

Contact: Steven Muhlberger  -- Stevem@NipissingU.ca --705 – 4744 – 3461 ext 4458

Martial art

For the last 20 years (!), My wife and I have been hosting an SCA medieval re-creation event on our rural property. Because it takes place on Labor Day weekend, and because we have 95 acres of land, there is time and space for a lot of different things to happen, or for people just to relax.
One of the chief activities is SCA style combat, which uses rattan weapons to make possible a vigorous style of fighting. I don't think that the SCA style can honestly be called an historical one; it evolved from some logical but mistaken assumptions about the effects of weapons and armor. Thanks to intelligent and scholarly martial artists we know a lot more about late medieval combat at the very least.
But SCA combat has its virtues. You can stage a hard-hitting analog of medieval combat with a minimum of serious injuries. Many SCA fighters have never broken a bone, even after many years of competition. And it has a certain aesthetic appeal.
This aesthetic element was brought home to me on the weekend. I was discussing various combat systems that now exist with someone who fences in the "cut and thrust" style, in which real steel swords are used. He and I both agreed that we did not see the point of certain modern jousters and martial artists who have adopted medieval styles, who use something like medieval weaponry and medieval techniques, but scorn dressing up in medieval costume, since what they are doing is in their minds a purely modern thing. The two of us didn't see the point. It may or may not make any sense to fight in a medieval or pseudo–medieval style just for the fun of it, but to do the same thing in 21st century dress and high tech armor just has no meaning for me at all.
And that same day I was lucky enough to see the fruits of medieval aestheticism, SCA style. One of our standard fighting activities involves a small earth and wood fort that we built some years back. One of the challenges of using it is coming up with scenarios that make a certain tactical sense, even though the number of fighters involved is seldom over 20. On Saturday afternoon, some good scenarios were devised and played over and over until everyone was good and tired.
It may be the fact that I am now retired from fighting for good and all, but I found this fighting to be really quite amazing. To my educated eyes, everybody involved looked like they really knew what they were doing. That struck me because with few exceptions, the fighters were what passes for average in our corner of the SCA. There were no famous knights, except one, and he is not nearly as famous as he deserves to be as a master of the pole weapon. There were also a number of quite new fighters, and they picked up on the clues of their more experienced neighbors like there was nothing to it. For me, it was an impressive and moving moment.

Making iron at the event, 2006.