Blogs > Cliopatria > Additionally Noted

May 14, 2006

Additionally Noted




History Carnival #31 goes up tomorrow at Brett Holman's Airminded. For making nominations of exemplary history posts since 1 May, you can use his contact page or Blog Carnival's submission form. Brandon Watson will be hosting an ancient/medieval rendition of Carnivalesque at Siris, in the next week or so. He will be posting an e-mail address to which you can send nominations of the best in ancient/medieval history since 13 March.

Ronald Reagan vindicated? The proliferation of trees, argues a University of Alaska researcher, led to the extinction of pre-historic mammoths in North America. Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the tip.

George Fredrickson,"They'll Take Their Stand," NYRB, 25 May, reviews David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World, and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese, The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders' Worldview. Essential reading. E-subscriber only, alas. Buggers don't even give access to those of us who subscribe to the print edition. Fortunately, you can read it, reproduced in full, at H-Slavery (scroll down).

An African-American researcher in Raleigh has discovered that St. Agnes Hospital, once located on the campus of Raleigh's St. Augustine College and known as"the best hospital for blacks between Hampton, Va., and New Orleans," participated in North Carolina's sterilization program. Between 1929 and 1973, the state program sterilized about 7,600 people and medical personnel at St. Agnes participated in it, at least from 1949 to 1961, when the hospital was closed.

Finally, as KC Johnson pointed out, Britain's National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) faces a vote to boycott all Israeli faculty members. Over 1200 academics have signed this petition calling for a rejection of the boycott. Among the historians who have signed the petition are: Irving Abella (York), Eric Alterman (CUNY), Jerald S. Auerbach (Wellesley), Gerald M. Berg (Sweetbriar), Brian Brivati (Kingston), John Gould (Yale), Gerald N. Grob (Rutgers), Ira Katznelson (Columbia), David Owusu-Ansah (George Mason), Ronald Radosh (CUNY), Howard Spodek (Temple), Michael Stanislowski (Columbia), and Michael Walzer (Princeton, IAS). You can add your signature to the petition here.



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Robert KC Johnson - 5/14/2006

I have never supported an academic boycott, based on nationality or anything else. I suppose some might consider that a hypocritical position, but I suspect that those who do so would be in the minority.


chris l pettit - 5/14/2006

I have a problem with the petition...and the boycott.

While the petition is correct in stating that a total boycott of Israeli academics is a really bad idea, the fact is that we should be discouraging those who support Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity from being able to indoctrinate a larger audience (similar to the way in which most intelligent individuals should be steered away from KC's ideological paucities concerning the Israel issue). In the same vein, we should be boycotting those organisations and individuals who support Islamic war crimes and crimes against humanity, US atrocities, Russian atrocities in Chechnya and the former republics, Chinese atrocities in Tibet, etc. There cannot be a double standard. Half of the "scholars" signing that petition are the kind of lunatics and ideological misfits that honest and committed scholars should have no association with.

We must condemn those who suport political manipulations and miseducation to further their ideological causes...ie those scholars who support atrocities committed by Israel, Islamic terror groups, the US, Russia, China, etc. The academy is no place for these extremists and fundamentalists...and those who base their positions on ideology, blind faith, and fundamentally flawed assumptions and misinterpretations.

It is simply hypocritical to support this petition...or the boycott...and then turn around and allow or justify the same sort of thing as long as it fits your agenda. This derives you of all credibility as you are unwilling to apply a universal value standard (or human rights standard to everyone).

But...as usual...I figure the hypocrites will be out in force...eh KC?

CP