Midweek Notes

Jed Perl,"The PICTURE: Nerd Rules," TNR, 15 September, looks at recent work on the history of material culture: Daniel Rosenberg's and Tony Grafton's Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline and Andrew Alpern's Catalogue of the Andrew Alpern Collection of Drawing Instruments at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library Columbia University. Don't miss Eric Messenger's slide show,"Cool Maps and Antique Tools".

Robert C. Morgan,"Kitsch and the Avant-Garde: How the Brotherhoods Set the Stage for Utopia," Brooklyn Rail, September, reviews"Utopia Matters: From Brotherhoods to Bauhaus," an exhibit at Berlin's Deutsche Guggenheim and Venice's Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

Adam Kirsch,"Tumultuous Time," Tablet, 14 September, reviews Antony Polonsky's The Jews in Poland and Russia, Volume II: 1881 to 1914.

Stanley Kutler, David Greenberg, Rick Perlstein, Melvin Small, Keith Olson, Ray Smock, John Dean and others are petitioning a federal court to unseal Richard Nixon's Watergate-related deposition of 23 & 25 June 1975. The petition and supporting documents are here.

Rachel Laudan,"In Praise of Fast Food," Utne Reader, September/October, argues for coming to terms with"industrialized food". Laudan has a doctorate in the history and philosophy of science from the University of London and has taught at Carnegie-Mellon, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, and Hawaii. Currently, she blogs from Mexico at Rachel Lauden: A Historian's Take on Food and Food Politics.