This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: Martin E. Marty in Sightings, the newsletter of the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
12-17-07
The images and prophecies connected with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the biblical book of Revelation seem horrifying enough. But in a "you-ain't-seen-nothing-yet" spirit, Philip Jenkins in December 10th's New Republic warns of disastrous implications for religious conflict after studying the results of climate-modeling by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
More than anyone else we read, Jenkins regularly writes about global Christianity for broad
Source: Mr. Phelps in an article at the website of Inside Higher Ed
12-17-07
[Christopher Phelps teaches American history at the Ohio State University at Mansfield. He changed the names of each of the three students here to protect their privacy, but all are actual students who were enrolled in his fall 2007 classes.]
... At the beginning of every term, I hand out blank cards to students. I ask students to share something unique about themselves, so I can attach a personality to the name. Usually students tell me about their favorite video games or sports. N
Source: Harvard Crimosn
12-13-07
What do an astrophysicist, oceanic chemist, archaeologist, literary historian, and a paleobotanist have in common?
According to Professor of Medieval History Michael McCormick, they are all key players in the interdisciplinary cooperation needed to better our understanding of the history of humanity.
“We know more today than we did last Friday about the past. And last Friday we knew more about the past than any other human civilization that’s ever existed on the face
Source: NYT
12-17-07
Diane Wood Middlebrook, a biographer, poet and critic known for her best-selling, controversial life of the poet Anne Sexton, died on Saturday in San Francisco. She was 68.
The cause was cancer, her family said.
At her death, Ms. Middlebrook was emeritus professor of English at Stanford University, where she had taught since the 1960s. Her other biographies were a joint life of Sylvia Plath and her husband, Ted Hughes, and the story of the cross-dressing jazz musician B
Source: http://www.news-press.com
12-17-07
[HNN Editor: This story is about the son of Al Camarillo, a professor of history at Stanford.]
MIAMI — There were three people wearing Greg Camarillo's No. 83 jersey in Dolphin Stadium on Sunday.
And at the end of the game, all three were getting mobbed.
There was the Miami wide receiver, who caught a 64-yard, game-winning touchdown pass to give the Dolphins their first win of the season and prevent the team from going 0-16. As he celebrated with fans at t
Source: NYT
12-16-07
Allan Bérubé, a MacArthur Award-winning independent scholar whose history of gay men and lesbians in the military in World War II is widely considered the definitive book on the subject, died on Tuesday in Liberty, N.Y. He was 61. A former resident of Manhattan, Mr. Bérubé had lived in Liberty in recent years.
The cause was complications of stomach ulcers, a friend, Wayne Hoffman, said.
“Coming Out Under Fire” (Free Press), published in 1990, explores the uneasy but at
Source: George Packer at the New Yorker blog
12-11-07
A curious piece of trivia embedded in the eight-hundred-plus pages of Arthur Schlesinger., Jr.,’s “Journals”: Jimmy Carter so repelled this Democratic fixture that he left his ballot blank in 1976 and voted for the hopeless independent candidacy of John Anderson in 1980, having decided that Ronald Reagan wouldn’t be that bad. “Had Ford been reëlected in 1976,” Schlesinger wrote in August, 1980, “we would have had the Panama Canal Treaties without trauma, SALT II would have passed, domestic polic
Source: Robert KC Johnson at HNN blog, Cliopatria
12-13-07
Professors in the University of Iowa's History Department have had some unusual explanations about the department's partisan imbalance. Several weeks ago, for instance, department chairman Colin Gordon cited the registration figures for Johnson County (home of the University) to account for the fact that his department has no registered Republicans. The University, I assume, has a policy of actively recruiting its membership from beyond county
Source: AHA Perspectives
12-1-07
President
Gabrielle M. Spiegel (Johns Hopkins Univ.)
President-elect
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (Harvard Univ.)
Vice President, Professional Division
David J. Weber (Southern Methodist Univ.)
Council
Position 1: Trudy H. Peterson (Consulting Archivist)
Position 2: Prasenjit Duara (Univ. of Chicago)
Division Representatives
Professional: Kristin L. Ahlberg (U. S. Dept. of State)
Research:
Source: Robert Townsend in Perspectives, the magazine of the AHA
12-1-07
The federal government is inviting comments (at www.hhs.gov/ohrp/documents/20071026.htm) on a draft policy on institutional review boards (IRBs). This is a rare opportunity for historians to comment about federal policies that could potentially have an intrusive impact on their work. Every historian who conducts oral history, or who advises students who use oral history methods, should respond to this request especially since previous
Source: Robert A. Schneider, editor of the American Historical Review, in Perspectives
12-1-07
Shortly before this article went to press we learned of the death of our friend and colleague, Roy Rosenzweig. As a vice president of the AHA's Research Division (which oversees the AHR), as a member of the editorial board, as a moving force in the founding of the History Cooperative, as a pioneer in the field of digital publishing, and as contributor and cherished adviser, Roy's influence on this journal has been immeasurable. There will be many tributes to Roy's contributions across the profes
Source: Barbara Weinstein in the AHA Perspectives
12-1-07
... Three principal forms of state intrusion into academic affairs have diminished or threaten to diminish academic freedom for historians and other scholars. The first is the denial of visas to scholars from abroad; the second is the withdrawal of government records and other documentation from public and scholarly scrutiny; the third is the campaign spearheaded by David Horowitz to have state legislatures pass what Horowitz calls the "Academic Bill of Rights" (ABOR).
Source: National Coalition for History blog
12-14-07
On December 7, 2007, the National Coalition for History and thirty other organizations sent a letter to four U.S. Senators currently running for president urging them to cosponsor the S. 886, “The Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007.” The joint letter was sent to Senators Joseph Biden (D-DE), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ). Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is currently the only presidential candidate who has endorsed S. 886.
Presidential ca
Source: Detroit Free Press
12-14-07
The author of one of Princeton University Press'"100 most influential
books of the past 100 years" will be a scholar in residence at Wayne
State's law school in 2008.
Detroit native Thomas J. Sugrue's book"The Origins of the Urban
Crisis: Race and Inequality in Post-War Detroit" made the Princeton
list in 2005. His latest book is called"Sweet Land of Liberty: The
Unfinished Struggle for Racial Equality in the North."
Most recently, Sugrue, who will be the Izumi Scholar in Residence,
Source: AP
12-13-07
A far-right Greek historian was sentenced to 14 months in prison Thursday for inciting racial hatred with a book that denies the Holocaust took place, court officials said.
Historian Costas Plevris appealed his sentence and was not taken into custody.
A three-member panel of judges voted 2-1 to find Plevris guilty of inciting violence and racial hatred. The court cleared three other defendants of similar charges: the publisher, the editor and a journalist at a small ri
Source: Gay City News
12-13-07
Allan Bérubé, a pioneering gay historian who was also a renaissance man of sorts - as an anti-war organizer during the Viet Nam War, the proprietor of a bed & breakfast in the Catskills, the owner of an antiques and collectibles business and more recently an office design firm, and the recipient of a "genius grant" from the John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation - died on December 11.
Raised in a trailer park in Bayonne, about which he wrote in the anthology &quo
Source: LAT
12-13-07
A San Juan Capistrano high school student and his parents filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday alleging that his history teacher violated his constitutional rights by making "highly inappropriate" and offensive statements in class regarding Christianity.
James Corbett, who teaches Advanced Placement European history at Capistrano Valley High School, consistently "demonstrates a sense of hostility toward religion," causing Christian students to "feel ostracized
Source: VOA
12-12-07
Now, we continue our discussion from last week about the pay for professors in the United States. We looked at the averages. Today we narrow that to one example.
Andrew McMichael is a young history professor in his sixth year at Western Kentucky University, a state school in Bowling Green. He started as an assistant professor, teaching seven courses a year.
His starting pay was forty-three thousand dollars, plus benefits. These included health insurance for himself and
Source: Bloomberg News
12-12-07
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan ignored warnings about the Fed's low interest rates that fueled real estate speculation and the current housing recession, said Allan Meltzer, professor of political economy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
"I think he lets himself off much too easy,'' said Meltzer, author of a 2002 book on the early history of the central bank, in an interview. "He acknowledged maybe his policy had a little bit to do with it. But
Source: Telegraph (UK)
12-13-07
Gordon Brown says we have so much to be proud of in this country and our history and moral values should be central to the school curriculum. The Prime Minister puts his weight behind our campaign for a national museum of history.
