Linktastic Voyage

Loads of stories that have caught my eye have begun to pile up on my tabs. My intent was to give each a full post, but with my pace of late, let's face it -- that wasn't gonna happen. So here are some links with commentary as apt:

You know what? President Obama has accomplished a hell of a lot, especially given the political context within which he has had to operate.

The Miller Center at UVA has started a blog, Riding The Tiger, that promises to look at the presidential election in historical context.

Cliopatria, the first among equals of the History News Network Blogs is closing its doors. Ralph Luker, paterfamilias of Cliopatria, did yeoman's work herding cats over there for more than 8 years. When he started blogging at HNN Ralph was one of a precious few professional historians who saw the potential for blogging as a medium of blending historical, political, social and cultural questions. In large part due to his nurturing thousands of historians now blog.

Ruy Teixeira thinks much of the hullaballoo about Independent voters is nonsense and he recently found himself reviewing an especially nonsensical book about Independent voters. Negative reviews are fun.

This about sums up my feelings.

Voter ID laws, created to create a solution to a problem that doesn't exist (but really simply created to make it harder for Democrats to vote), might just end up having unintended consequences.

Students in one history class at my alma mater are making campaign ads rather than writing final papers. I love this idea:

There’s a catch, though. The students can only use images, quotes, documents, and music from the era. They cannot use anything that came afterwards. An image of the White House burning in 1812 would not work for the election of 1808. They cannot use images of Leutze’s famous Washington Crossing the Delaware, a product more reflective of the 1840s than the 1770s. Their assignment is to capture the spirit of the age – not the spirit of our historical memory.

I might have to appropriate this idea and adjust it for my students.

At the Chronicle Leonard Cassuto argues that the comprehensive exam needs to be changes because it does not seamlessly fuel the way toward writing a dissertation. The problem with this solution is that it assumes rather than proves the seamlessness. The fact is that the comprehensive exams are rather different from the dissertation -- and frankly I've always argued that in many ways the comprehensive exams are what separates history PhD's from laymen -- learning to respect both the history and the historiography is vital. There is a lot of material out there. I am of the belief that before one does original work one should immerse oneself in the books and articles that have come before. And in so doing get to really know the history as well.

In which I say some stuff about the new UT system post-tenure review policy.

We're #1!

In honor of this year's 15th Virginia Festival for the Book, Charlottesville's alternative newsweekly The Hook is honoring its "15 picks for the 15th anniversary." Their number one pick for this year's festival?:

1. Stories from the Civil Rights Movement. The panel line-up may be heavy on the white guys, but UVA law profs Richard Bonnie and Mildred Wigfall Robinson co-edited a collection of 40 essays written by people who were in school when one of the most influential Supreme Court decisions was made. It's called Law Touched Our Hearts: A Generation Remembers Brown v. Board of Education. With Freedom's Main Line: The Journey of Reconciliation and the Freedom Rides author Derek Catsam, and Peter Wallenstein, who wrote Higher Education and the Civil Rights Movement. [An unsung Civil Rights hero, John A. Stokes, who helped lead the Farmville student strike in 1951, will be talking at another event at Walton Middle School open only to students].
Noon Thursday, March 19, at UVA Bookstore

Sure, their motivation for plugging the panel has largely to do with another book, and I basically get dismissed as just another white guy, which I probably am, but there is no such thing as bad publicity, especially at such a powerhouse event as the Virginia Festival. If you are anywhere near Charlottesville, please do attend.

Encyclopedia Virginia (Incidental Self Indulgence Alert)

The Encyclopedia Virginia is now online. An effort of the incomparable Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (with which I was a fellow in 2004), the Encyclopedia is just one example of why the Foundation may well be the best state humanities organization of its kind. My modest contribution to the encyclopedia is an entry on the 1946 Supreme Court case Morgan v. Virginia, which directly led to the Journey of Reconciliation and Freedom Rides.

Virginia Festival of the Book (Self Indulgence Alert)

I will be participating in this year's Virginia Festival of the Book on a panel called "Stories from the Civil Rights Movement." My panel is on Thursday, March 19th, at noon at the UVA Bookstore. It probably goes without saying that I'll be promoting Freedom's Main Line. But I'll say it anyway. (And yeah, that's the worst picture ever.)

dcat Quick Hits

A few interesting things that have crossed my desktop today, with brief commentary:

The Guardian is running a series of great interviews of the twentieth century. Yesterday the paper reproduced an edited version of a 1936 New York Post interview with a dissolute F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald is one of my favorite writers, and it is difficult to separate him from his era, both for good and ill. For all the glamour and glitz of his 1920s incarnation the Fitzgerald of the 1930s was a seedy and pathetic character whose talent shone only intermittently. This interview captures that version of the man who embodied one normative, if not normal, slice of the 1920s.

USA Today gives props to the University of New Hampshire's quarterback, Ricky Santos. Despite its long-standing excellence in hockey and recent successes on the gridiron, UNH has never been able to win a national championship in any sport. Santos, who has led the Wildcats to victory over IA teams in each of the last three seasons, hopes this will be the year, though sitting at the top of the rankings is an Appalachian State team that has managed to garner a few votes in the IA polls after its upset victory over Michigan. (Hat Tip to the Thunderstick, reporting from the southern edges of the Granite State.)

Pool play in the Rugby World Cup in France is well underway and as of now South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia, the SANZAR/Tri-Nations powers, look like potential champions. The Washington Post travel section has a feature on the scene in France as one of the world's greatest and most popular sporting events works its way toward the awarding of the William Webb Ellis Cup. I have but two words: Go Amobokoboko!

Also from the Post is this article on Virginia's Civil Rights in Education Heritage Trail. I have more than a passing interest in this subject, having been a fellow with both the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the Virginia Historical Society, and I would like to see the trail expanded to include many of the locations in Virginia where blacks and their white allies challenged arenas other than education. We have a tendency to compartmentalize aspects of the Movement that to my mind need merging into a narrative whole. Nonetheless, it is nice to see Virginia, too often overlooked in favor of the hot spots in Mississippi and Alabama, getting its due as an important theater of struggle during the Civil Rights era.

If you see issues of gay rights as fundamentally questions of civil rights, as I do, the decision of Maryland's highest court to uphold the state's ban on gay rights will serve as a reminder of how far we have to go. The case cannot be appealed to the Supreme Court, though the judges did not rule out political action to remove the law in question.

Charles Pierce at Slate has as good an argument as any for why all of the hoopla over the Patriots in the last week may simply drive them to dominate the NFL this season. I hope so.

Finally, and most self-indulgently, I've been busy over at the South Africa Blog, where I have lots on Zimbabwe and a whole host of other topics related to South Africa and the region. Enjoy!