http://www.salon.com/2013/01/12/tarantino_flunks_american_history/
This article from January of this year is an interesting follow-up to Rachel’s comment about Django Unchained and “The Scourged Back.” If the film claims to make a point about American slave society, is Tarantino responsible to represent it in an historically truthful way, or is he only responsible for entertaining his audience? Can historical representation and entertainment work well together?
About the World War II Memorial in Washington DC:
“This is not a memorial built by people of the early twenty-first century. Part of its purpose, indeed, is to erase all that Americans did between 1945 and 2001 so that we might insert ourselves into the morally pure era (supposedly, as we have reimagined it) of the Second World War. It functions, then, a little like Williamsburg or Sturbridge Village: It is history that is not-history, or not-history dressed up as history. It is history, in short, for those who are devoid of memory.”
via American exceptionalism is a dangerous myth – Salon.com.
Museums Move to Return Human Remains to Indigenous Peoples – NYTimes.com.
A very timely article about the preservation of human remains in museums.
An astounding new book about American soldiers in France during World War II– and their record of sexual assault.
This falls firmly under the heading of “revisionist” history, and it’s interesting how much of the article deals with past readings of this material.
Rape by American Soldiers in World War II France – NYTimes.com.
Presidential Politics and the I.R.S..
There it is, in today’s White House press conference: the dreaded suggestion that today’s IRS scandal rivals the malfeasances of Richard M. Nixon–the touchstone, now and probably forever, of presidential dirty tricks. HISTORY rears its ugly head and smacks President Obama, who has been fond of quoting (and being compared to) the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, but who probably does not enjoying being compared to the GOP’s greatest embarrassment, Richard Nixon.
This short article from AP addresses a museum exhibit with no “real” objects on display, as I would imagine that the exhibit would include speculations about these mythic creatures or imagined representations of them. Also, it is connected to our brief discussion of conspiracy theories as history, especially on The History Channel.
The 700-Doll Question – NYTimes.com.
Here’s a very timely article — about collections, family, nostalgia, autobiography, and history. Be sure to check out the slideshow of the doll collection.
“I watched “Antiques Roadshow” and wondered how many people ended up selling their valuable treasures, and how many more couldn’t bring themselves to part with something so special. How many marriages had been strained by the problem I was struggling with?
Trash and Vaudeville, Still Selling Punk’s Look After 38 Years – NYTimes.com.
Here’s a bit of “History in the News.”
“Trash and Vaudeville”–the epicenter of punk style and consumerism–is still in business in New York City. My guess (I’ve never been there) is that the place might have something of a museum quality. Certainly this article is full of nostalgic sighing for the Punk Past.
I realize that this relates more to academic history than public history necessarily, but I found this to be a rather interesting read about how a fair amount of academic research into history (which then filters through public history) has shifted towards studying capitalism since the recession began in 2008.
From the New York Times about a month ago:
After decades of “history from below,” focusing on women, minorities and other marginalized people seizing their destiny, a new generation of scholars is increasingly turning to what, strangely, risked becoming the most marginalized group of all: the bosses, bankers and brokers who run the economy.
Even before the financial crisis, courses in “the history of capitalism” — as the new discipline bills itself — began proliferating on campuses, along with dissertations on once deeply unsexy topics like insurance, banking and regulation. The events of 2008 and their long aftermath have given urgency to the scholarly realization that it really is the economy, stupid.
I’m curious as to hear your reactions to this burgeoning attention towards capitalist history. Do you see it as a more timely, relevant area of history? Are you concerned that this gives too much credence to capitalists and not enough attention to potential flaws of capitalism?
The full article can be found here.
A powerful essay about a new show of Civil War photography, leading off with a fascinating story about this famous photograph, “The Scourged Back.”
“The Scourged Back” may have been propaganda, but as a photograph, which drew as much from science as from art, it presented irrefutable evidence of the horror of slavery. Because those scars had been photographed, they were real, in a way that no drawing could be.
Be sure to watch the slide show–though some of it is pretty hard to take. (You have to wait through a 30-sec. ad first, however.)
findinghistory 