I'm pleased, but a little late in announcing that an exhibit I co-curated with Dr. Florence Hsia, Dr. Robin Rider, and Dr. Jim Lattis has opened in Special Collections at Memorial Library. As the title suggests, the exhibit focuses on Jesuit and knowledge production from the order's establishment in 1540 to its repression in 1773. The disciplines commonly associated with the early Society like astronomy and mathematics are well represented, however we wanted to demonstrate the richness of early-modern Jesuit scholarship. As it turns out, we have a ton of rare books that could have been part of this exhibit and we ultimately had to make hard choices of what to include and exclude. The final display features over 100 works and includes a long list of books in our collections that didn't make the cut.
In helping select books for the exhibit, I really got a feel for the panoptic nature of early-modern Jesuit scholarship. As has often been said, the Jesuits were everywhere in the early modern world and the fruits of this globetrotting can be seen in their studies on hydrography, natural history, and cartography. The Society was clearly proud of the global nature of their mission, which is evidenced by the motto "unnus non sufficit orbis." Meaning "one world is not enough," this motto is inscribed in many engraved illustrations on display.
One particularly striking image in which it appears is a large map of the Society in the form of a tree. The trunk of the tree represents Rome, while the branches of the tree are the major missions of the world. A sundial clock is associated with each region of the world where the Jesuits were stationed, allowing the viewer to calculate the time difference between Rome and its provinces. Another one of my favorite images is a large, detailed selenography that appears in Riccioli's Almagestum novum (1651). Produced forty years after Galileo's telescopic study of the moon, much of Riccioli's lunar nomenclature has stuck. (Nick Jacobsen and I are hoping to produce a new interpretation of this image, possibly for HSS next year...)
None of these images can be adequately described in words and I've purposefully omitted links to images in order to encourage people to check out the exhibit, if possible. It will be up through December. However, I will be posting again about another related project: The Jesuit Iconography visual culture database.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Anna Zeide on Grist
Don't forget to check out our own Anna Zeide's recent posts on Grist, on the history of canned food in America!
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing
As the history of science has moved beyond strict intellectual history, our work has gotten more and more interdisciplinary. At the same time, because we are in one of the few independent history of science departments in the country, even our colleagues on the other side of Bascom Hill can sometimes seem like they're from another world. When beginning work on a new project, you inevitably realize that other subdisciplines of history likely have valuable contributions to offer. But catching up on decades of historiography in a field that impinges on your work takes time and hard work. And especially for those of us who come from backgrounds other than history, figuring out how to start can be bewildering.
Probably the most important thing to do is ask a friend in the "regular ol' " History Department for suggestions about what to read and who to talk to. Syllabi and textbooks from survey courses can also point you in the right direction.
I just stumbled upon a useful source, though, that can help make tracking down and understanding unfamiliar historiographies just a little bit easier: The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing. Trying to decide whether it's more correct to say that your work will be relevant to "diplomatic historians" or to "historians of international relations"? Want to know who the most important authors in legal history are? Wonder what the heck Arnold Toynbee argued, anyway? This is the place to go.
Now, I obviously haven't read the whole thing, so I can't say whether every article is spot-on, but this is definitely a resource to add to your toolkit when venturing into new areas of history (especially if you find yourself suspicious of Wikipedia's handling of the topic). Unfortunately, our library system does not have it in electronic form, and only part of Volume 1 is available at Google Books.
While we're on the subject, how have you approached the problem of familiarizing yourself with relevant historical subdisciplines? Any tips to share or frustrations to vent?
(P.S. I'm hoping we can get more vigorous discussion going in the comments section of this blog, though maybe the low volume is just a result of the quality of our brownbag and happy hour conversations!)
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
The History of Cartography Project @ UW
Among the many research projects residing at UW-Madison, the History of Cartography Project stands out as having produced the well-received multi-volume History of Cartography series of books about the history of maps, mapping, and mapmaking. Begun by J. B. Harley and David Woodward in the 1980s, the Project is now edited by an international team of scholars who are working on the next three planned volumes to be published by the University of Chicago Press.
Volume 3: Cartography in the European Renaissance, came out as a two-book set in 2007. Four previous volumes have been published (recently available online at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/) : Volume 1: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean (1987); Volume 2, Book 1: Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies (1992); Volume 2, Book 2: Cartography in the Traditional East and Southeast Asian Societies (1994); and Volume 2, Book 3: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies (1998).
These volumes have become a standard reference not only for their outstanding scholarship, but for their extensive illustrations (over 1,000 images in Volume 3; 80 in color), detailed footnotes, and reference maps. For information about the Project and these volumes, visit the Project’s web site at http://www.geography.wisc.edu/histcart/.
As a graduate student who has worked at the Project for nearly 12 years as their Illustrations Editor, I’ve gained excellent experience and research skills in locating images needed for the volumes from archives and libraries worldwide. Given my own interests in this field, which pairs nicely with the history of science, I’ve made numerous professional contacts that will be beneficial to my current and future research.
Volume 3: Cartography in the European Renaissance, came out as a two-book set in 2007. Four previous volumes have been published (recently available online at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/) : Volume 1: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean (1987); Volume 2, Book 1: Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies (1992); Volume 2, Book 2: Cartography in the Traditional East and Southeast Asian Societies (1994); and Volume 2, Book 3: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies (1998).
These volumes have become a standard reference not only for their outstanding scholarship, but for their extensive illustrations (over 1,000 images in Volume 3; 80 in color), detailed footnotes, and reference maps. For information about the Project and these volumes, visit the Project’s web site at http://www.geography.wisc.edu/histcart/.
As a graduate student who has worked at the Project for nearly 12 years as their Illustrations Editor, I’ve gained excellent experience and research skills in locating images needed for the volumes from archives and libraries worldwide. Given my own interests in this field, which pairs nicely with the history of science, I’ve made numerous professional contacts that will be beneficial to my current and future research.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Historical Methods & Resources For the Greenhorn Historian
Dear HSMTers (and their fans),
I have compiled a list of all the books and resources that I have found to be particularly helpful for learning historical methods and teaching. I also included a section on managing the lifestyle of being a graduate student and budding scholar. These resources may be a little basic, but they might be helpful for those with little or no historical or pedagogical training.
Books:
Becker, Howard Saul, and Pamela Richards. Writing for Social Scientists : How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article. 2nd ed, Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. The Craft of Research. 3rd ed, Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Chandler, James, Arnold I. Davidson, and Harry D. Harootunian. Questions of Evidence : Proof, Practice, and Persuasion across the Disciplines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Davidson, James West, and Mark H. Lytle. After the Fact : The Art of Historical Detection. 2 vols. New York: Knopf, 1982.
Grafton, Anthony. The Footnote : A Curious History. [Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Jordanova, L.J., and LJ Jordanova. History in Practice: Arnold London, 2000.
Murray, Rowena. "Writing for Academic Journals." Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill International (UK) Ltd, 2009.
Rampolla, Mary Lynn. A Pocket Guide to Writing in History. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2010.
Rosen, Leonard J. The Academic Writer's Handbook. 3rd ed. Boston: Pearson Longman, 2012.
Tosh, John. The Pursuit of History : Aims, Methods and New Directions in the Study of Modern History. 5th ed. Harlow, England ; New York: Longman, 2010.
Turabian, Kate L., John Grossman, and Alice Bennett. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. 6th ed, Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Research:
Perspectives on History: Finding the Story
On Taking Notes
Managing the Terror
How Writing Leads to Thinking (And not the other way around)
"Building a Mystery":Alternative Research Writing and the Academic Act of Seeking
Web 2.0 A Useful Tool for the History of Medicine (and Science and Technology...)
Teaching:
What Does it Mean to Think Historically?
Learning Historical Research
http://www.williamcronon.net/researching/index.htmLapham’s Quarterly Lesson Plans/Handouts
Helpful hints for deciding “What is happening?” and “Where do I stand?”
Teaching/Writing Handouts
Digital Resources:
UW Database Library: History of Science, Medicine, Technology
Directory of History Journals
University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center
Archival Resources in Wisconsin: Descriptive Finding Aids
The Knight Digital Media Center and Source Guides
Wisconsin Division for Libraries, Technology, and Community Learning: BadgerLink
Oral History Tools
Historical 'Hardware':
Transcriptions: Transcribing Audio to Text Software Aid (for Mac only)
Chicago Manual of Style Crib Sheet
RefWorks/EndNote/Zotero Features Comparison
All Bookstores Search Engine
Internet Disablers
Mac Applications Disabler
Desktop Screen Darkener
Free Trainings & Workshops:
Library Workshops: Historical Research
Library Workshops: Graduate Support Series
Library and Information Literacy Instruction
Writing Center Workshops
Software Training Workshops by DoIT
For Inspiration:
Why Become a Historian?
Why Study History?
Why the Past Matters
Advice Against Despair: Caring for the Whole ... and for Ourselves:
Professional Development:
Campus Humanities Portal
Grad School Survival
Scholarly Pursuits: A Guide to Professional Development During the Graduate Years
Publishing Without Perishing: A Handbook for Graduate and Professional Students
Graduate Student Professional Development Career Planning
The Professor Is In
Careers for History Majors
How to Find a Job Outside of Academia, Even if You Aren't Sure That You Want One
Friday, September 30, 2011
The Academic Job Search Handbook
I just got a copy of The academic Job Search Handbook (2008, 4th ed.) by Julia Miller Vick and Jennifer S. Furlong. Wow. I wish I'd known about this earlier.
Not only does it include a timetable for planning job searches, but it has examples of vitas, cover letters, teaching philosophies, etc. There are also discussions of the job interview, and strategies for job searching when your partner is also an academic. I haven't read the whole thing yet, and I realize that it is not tailored to our particular discipline, but it looks like a great way to get familiarized with the general process in a way that is not overly intimidating.
I ILLed it, as the on-campus copies apparently don't allow borrowing privileges. You can preview it at Google Books.
Have any of you come across this before and have any opinions about it before I dive completely in? As far as I know, there's not another book like this (though many online discussions of similar topics).
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
“The Canadian Reindeer Project: Experimenting with Science and Development in Northern Environmental History”
Hello readers of this blog!
I'm hoping I can use this space to share some writing with you--to gather your input and to let you know what I've been working on recently.
I have been invited to contribute a chapter for an edited volume on northern environmental history. This field of scholarship has academic kin in environmental history, Canadian and Alaskan history, and Arctic studies. The longer piece of writing below is actually a blog post about my chapter for this edited volume. (I know, this is a very involved introduction--but please, dear reader, keep reading).
The blog post is part of a series of posts released by the contributing authors, meant to promote the collection and to start conversations among the authors. We are gathering as a group in late October to offer feedback to one another and to build cohesion into our project. You can check out the existing posts and read more about our group here.
Any feedback on this post is welcomed and appreciated. You'll soon see that I'm writing to a very specific audience, so apologies for jargon and ambiguous references. Also, to learn more about the shape of my contribution to the book project--and my dissertation--please attend next week's brownbag. I will be presenting on the Canadian Reindeer Project and adding flesh to the skeleton of an argument I lay out below.
All the best-
Andrew Stuhl
--------------------------------
I'm hoping I can use this space to share some writing with you--to gather your input and to let you know what I've been working on recently.
I have been invited to contribute a chapter for an edited volume on northern environmental history. This field of scholarship has academic kin in environmental history, Canadian and Alaskan history, and Arctic studies. The longer piece of writing below is actually a blog post about my chapter for this edited volume. (I know, this is a very involved introduction--but please, dear reader, keep reading).
The blog post is part of a series of posts released by the contributing authors, meant to promote the collection and to start conversations among the authors. We are gathering as a group in late October to offer feedback to one another and to build cohesion into our project. You can check out the existing posts and read more about our group here.
Any feedback on this post is welcomed and appreciated. You'll soon see that I'm writing to a very specific audience, so apologies for jargon and ambiguous references. Also, to learn more about the shape of my contribution to the book project--and my dissertation--please attend next week's brownbag. I will be presenting on the Canadian Reindeer Project and adding flesh to the skeleton of an argument I lay out below.
All the best-
Andrew Stuhl
--------------------------------
On December 8th, 1948, a motley crew of civil servants, military officials, and academics huddled together at the Royal Canadian Air Force mess on Gloucester Street in Ottawa. Calling themselves “The Arctic Circle,” they formed to confront matters of national importance in the north. At this inaugural meeting, botanist A.E. Porsild reported on the reindeer experiment in the Mackenzie Delta, a government program he helped establish in the 1930s. Admitting some difficulties in recruiting local Inuit as herders, Porsild boasted that the Canadian Reindeer Project had demonstrated “considerable and sustained progress."
This scene hints at several themes I will explore in my contribution to this collection. Consider first the interplay between expertise and administration embodied in A.E. Porsild. Hired by the Department of Interior to study the Alaskan reindeer industry in the mid 1920s, Porsild had no academic training in botany nor experience managing reindeer. He was selected as the man for the job despite internal grumblings in a nascent northern bureaucracy—a so-called systematic botanist was no match for a “practical reindeer man” who could travel in the remote, unforgiving north. Yet by the 1940s, Porsild was hailed as an authority on Arctic vegetation, partly because of his tenure with the body assembled to manage the Canadian Reindeer Project, the Interdepartmental Reindeer Committee. His career is a rich case study for understanding the conditions by which professional scientists entered the realm of Arctic leadership.
At the center of Porsild's report to The Arctic Circle sat reindeer, an animal he had grown to know well. The story of reindeer has heretofore been confined to popular accounts of the drive from Alaska or presented as a corollary to histories of game management. Thanks to historian John Sandlos, we understand the reindeer as representative of conservation politics in the early 1900s and as emblematic of a pastoral Arctic ideal. Emerging from a Royal Commission on developing muskox and reindeer industries, the reindeer experiment created a 7,000 acre Reindeer Grazing Preserve, protected by permits for trapping or hunting within its boundaries. Yet the introduction of a foreign species to the Western Arctic has more nuances to unpack, beyond the ways officials used reindeer to regulate northern life and landscapes.
At play with the Canadian Reindeer Project was not just a politics of conservation, but also a politics of conversion. We glimpse this as Porsild bemoans the issue of attracting Inuit from the trapping economy to the grueling practice of herding. Enchanted by the animal's innate abilities to transform barrenlands into grazing pastures, bureaucrats hoped the animals would convert primitive hunters to domesticated herders—creating Canadian citizens who, by their labor in a new reindeer economy, demonstrated sovereignty in the Western Arctic. Here, in the reindeer, we witness a tool capable of restricting the “wanton slaughter” of caribou—and establishing a wholly different commerce among bureaucrats, Saami, and Inuit. The Reindeer Project thus begs for contextualization alongside other Canadian imperial gestures in a post-Depression era push for low-cost paternalism and high-value development.
The timing of this first meeting of The Arctic Circle presents a final riddle, for my chapter and for northern environmental historians. One of the grand narratives of northern historiography postulates that Ottawa neglected northern territories until mid-century, when defense needs provoked unprecendented intervention into Arctic life. That The Arctic Circle would convene in 1948 to consider a twenty-year-old development scheme may then seem out of place. Building on recent scholarship that challlenges the simplicity of this narrative, I argue that relationships between the government and the north should not be measured with post-World War II characteristics as a baseline. Rather, we must situate manifestations of expertise and development, as has been achieved with the idea of “the North,” in historical, geographical, intellectual, and political contexts. Doing so yields a complex, if more complicated, picture of northern environmental history.
Indeed, as native northerners, scientists, and civil servants made sense of the federal presence in the Western Arctic in the 1950s, they turned to the reindeer for guidance. Like Porsild above, officials in Ottawa found in the animal hope for a happy union among science, enterprise, and government. In contrast, for Inuit in Aklavik and Inuvik, reindeer epitomized governmental exploitation of and experimentation with northern lands and people. Reindeer had not suddenly appeared as symbols of progress or control. Rather, these meanings were imbued in the animals because of a deep history and despite a radically changing present. For those at mid-century and for us today, then, the Canadian Reindeer Project brings into focus textures of northern environmental history that might otherwise be overshadowed.
Using the Biodiversity Heritage Library
Recently, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) asked me to answer some questions about how I use their database for their ongoing blog series of BHL users. If you do anything related to the history of the life sciences, you probably already know what a helpful resource it is. How do you use BHL or similar databases? In the interview, I brought up the fact that I have found it helpful to use hardcopies alongside the BHL's searchable text for some types of sources. Have you had similar experiences? Other reactions to the post?
FYI, they asked me to do this after commenting on one of the BHL's Facebook posts, so it pays to interact online!
Friday, September 23, 2011
Brown Bag (September 23, 2011): Oral History
This week's brown bag was our second at the beautiful new Union South, this time in the Governance Room:
We hear our own Judy Houck and Troy Reeves, of the UW Oral History Project, speaking on the topic of oral history.
Troy started the discussion off by discussing the role of his project: the Curate, Communicate, and Collaborate oral history related to the University. Some of their projects are as recent as the political protests that began this February in Wisconsin and others go back much further, such as the history of the GLBT community in Madison.
Then Judy shared her experience as a "reluctant oral historian" on her recent project on Feminist women's health centers in California. The clinic she is focusing on still exist and therefore have no archives beyond boxes in someone's attic, so oral history is essential for it's content, access to written documents, and for finding futher subjects to interview.
In her own work and through her study of oral history different problems and challenges have come up, such as finding contacts, their reluctance (or alternatively, exhuberance), the difference between documents and memory, the power dynamics of interviewing, what is left unspoken, the ethics of speaking for someone else, conflicting agendas, interviewing people you may not like, and how to deal with "off the record" information as a historian.
Some useful sources and discussions concerning oral history that were brought up include:
We hear our own Judy Houck and Troy Reeves, of the UW Oral History Project, speaking on the topic of oral history.
Troy started the discussion off by discussing the role of his project: the Curate, Communicate, and Collaborate oral history related to the University. Some of their projects are as recent as the political protests that began this February in Wisconsin and others go back much further, such as the history of the GLBT community in Madison.
Then Judy shared her experience as a "reluctant oral historian" on her recent project on Feminist women's health centers in California. The clinic she is focusing on still exist and therefore have no archives beyond boxes in someone's attic, so oral history is essential for it's content, access to written documents, and for finding futher subjects to interview.
In her own work and through her study of oral history different problems and challenges have come up, such as finding contacts, their reluctance (or alternatively, exhuberance), the difference between documents and memory, the power dynamics of interviewing, what is left unspoken, the ethics of speaking for someone else, conflicting agendas, interviewing people you may not like, and how to deal with "off the record" information as a historian.
Some useful sources and discussions concerning oral history that were brought up include:
- After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection by James West Davidson
- "Evidence, Empathy, and Ethics: Lessons from Oral Histories of the Klan" by Kathleen M. Blee
- "The Comfort Women" Controversy: History and Testimony" by Yoshiko Nozaki
Victoria Nourse on Eugenics Laws in 20th Century America
My apologies for posting this late: Here are my thoughts on the first brown bag of the year.
History of science can boast a long standing concern for interdisciplinarity, and, in this spirit of bridging departmental divides, it seems appropriate that our first brown bag speaker should be a guest from outside the History of Science. On Friday, Victoria Nourse, Burris-Bascom Professor from the School of Law, discussed her book, In Reckless Hands (2008), which has provided enlightening social and historical texture to the landmark Supreme Court decision of Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942).
We can assume that Professor Nourse’s research offers fresh insights and challenges to the field of legal history. For instance, Nourse argues that the Skinner v. Oklahoma decision, striking down certain eugenics laws by invoking the “Equal Protections” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, has wrongly been depicted as vindicating individual rights. Characterizing the case in terms of privacy and personal liberties, as many legal experts have done, would be anachronistic even if Skinner v. Oklahoma does seem to resonate with later court decisions advocating these rights, such as Roe v. Wade (1973). Nourse also pulls no punches in her depiction of Oliver Wendell Holmes (a sweetheart of many contemporary legal scholars) as a champion of the eugenics movement and a staunch defender of compulsory sterilization.
In addition to these historical revisions, Nourse also levels a methodological challenge for legal historians to engage in “dirty history.” Apparently in the field of legal history, most historical evidence is drawn from the published pages of court opinions and case law. Nourse is calling for more work to be done on the individual people who successfully brought their cases to trial.
Recalling the grit and dust that accumulated on her fingers while flipping through files in the Oklahoma Historical Society, she explained that the term “dirty history” does not simply refer to the nitty-gritty details of social history, but also the tactile experience of handling documents that have gone unnoticed for decades.
The story of Skinner v. Oklahoma is not simply a legal history, however. It is also a history of science. Nourse begins her book with a quote from the renowned biometrician and founder of the eugenics movement, Francis Galton (1822-1911): “Eugenics is a virile creed, full of hopefulness, and appealing to many of the noblest feelings of our nature” (as quoted in In Reckless Hands, pg. 13). Scientific pronouncements on the heritability of deviant and criminal behavior became the foundation of an argument for control over certain races and social classes. In many respects, Nourse’s is a cautionary tale of what can happen when scientific theories enter into the social, political, and legal arena. It also documents the malleability of certain categories, which, initially, may seem firmly established. For instance, the word “race” itself took on multiple meanings as it was used in the documents that Nourse uncovered in her research. It could be used to identify a person’s ethnicity, but also their social class or gender.
Nourse’s presentation serves as a reminder of the many research opportunities that might be discovered at certain intersections of a society. The dynamic interplay between legal and scientific thought – in the United States and in general – seems to be an area of study that has yet to be fully explored.
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