Things Noted Here and There
Rachel Leow,"the Third Rate intellectual salutes the Third World intellectual," a historian's craft, 28 March, reflects on the challenge of Indonesia's Soedjatmoko to the third world historian and the third world public intellectual.
Scott Jaschik,"Tenure as a Tarnished Brass Ring," IHE, 31 March, reviews recent discussion of tenure among several Cliopatricians, friends of Cliopatria, and other notable folk.
John Quiggen,"Verbing the Adjectivised Abstraction," Crooked Timber, 29 March, dings William Dalrymple's claim for the superiority of archival research over"the kind of ‘subaltern history' that pads out existing secondary sources with large dollops of theory to produce more or less interchangeable articles with titles of the general form ‘Othering the Imagined Construct'. ..." Sharon Howard,"Disciplinary pissing contests," Early Modern Notes, 29 March, lists archival obstacles for which points are awarded.
Rick Shenkman's"Reporter's Notesbook, Day 3," HNN, 30 March, has more coverage on the OAH convention.
Milton Viorst,"Outcast," Washington Post, 30 March, reviews Steve Coll's The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century.
Our colleague, David Kaiser's"New Insights Into Kennedy's Assassination," CHE, 28 March, is adapted from his new book, The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Martin E. Marty,"Prophet and Pastor," CHE, 11 April, is a well-balanced and well-informed reply to the critics of Barack Obama and his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ.