Sea Birds, Castaways, and Phantom Islands off Newfoundland
On the twentieth of April 1534, Jacques Cartier sailed from St. Malo, France, with two ships and sixty-one men aboard each. On the tenth of May they came to Newfoundland at Cape Bonavista. On the twenty-first of May they sailed Northeast until they came upon an island encompassed by a jumble of broken ice which Cartier named l’Isle des Ouaisseaulx (Isle of Birds), as it’s surface was covered with nesting sea birds and the cries of thousands more filled the air overhead.
Continue ReadingBlack History Month Post: ‘All Englishmen Were Not Shakespeares’: William Craft’s Attack on Scientific Racism in Britain
African American William Craft’s public act of humiliating scientist and anthropologist Dr James Hunt was a powerful confirmation of his strength and identity, and he seized this chance and used logic, wit and intelligence to win over his audience and to challenge the foundations of racial science.
Continue ReadingReview: ‘The Historical “Dispute of the New World”: European Historians of the United States and European History, Culture and Public Life’
The vast majority of speakers emphasized the importance of geographic location in writing U.S. history, albeit with different nuances. For example, diverse focuses included migration among Swedish Americanists, the state in France, and transatlantic relations in Italy, clearly showed the relevance of location in defining the different national contexts of U.S. historiography.
Continue ReadingStorify of our #bookhour chat on THE WATER MUSEUM by Luis Alberto Urrea
During September’s #bookhour discussion, Dr Gwen Boyle, Dr Laura Smith, Dr Mila Lopez-Paleaz Casellas and #boohour organiser Dr Donna Maria Alexander conversed about The Water Museum by Luis Alberto Urrea. The stories in Alberto’s collection gave way to a discussion about the range of genres and styles evident across the collection, from cli-fi to magical realism, and how these genres and styles reflect on the themes of environmental destruction, borders, loss and disappearance. Check out the storify here.
Continue ReadingShadows in History: Religious and Intellectual History in Higher Education
The final post in the ‘Teaching America’ series is by Professor Raymond J. Haberski Jr. (Indiana University School of Liberal Arts) , author of God and War: American Civil Religion Since 1945, (Rutgers University Press, 2012) , who discusses his approach to teaching intellectual and religious history in higher education.
Continue ReadingTeaching America ‘Online’: Designing and delivering the Online Distance course ‘A History of the Blues’
The sixth post in the ‘Teaching America’ series is by Dr Christian O’Connell (University of Gloucestershire), author of Blues, How Do You Do? Paul Oliver and the Transatlantic Story of the Blues, who discusses the benefits to online distance learning when teaching the history of U.S. music.
Continue ReadingMore Bang for Your Buck: Teaching Nuclear History
The fifth post in the ‘Teaching America’ series is by Dr Malcolm Craig (University of Edinburgh) who reflects on his own approach to designing and teaching a course around nuclear history.
Continue ReadingExploring the French Caribbean and Joseph Zobel
Researching the life and works of the French Caribbean author Joseph Zobel has taken me all over the world and – as a direct result of my collaboration with the Eccles Centre at the British Library – led to what the Guardian called my “Indiana Jones Moment” but more on that later…
Continue ReadingAfrican Americans and Anti-Colonialism
The fourth post in the ‘Teaching America’ series is by Dr Nicholas Grant (University of East Anglia), author of the forthcoming monograph ‘We Shall Win Our Freedoms Together’: African Americans and Apartheid, 1945-1960, who discusses his approach to teaching a transnational history of African American Civil Rights.
Continue ReadingUS History as Myth-Busting
In the third post of the ‘Teaching America’ series Dr Andrew Hartman (Illinois State University), author of the forthcoming monograph A War for the Soul Of America: A History of the Culture Wars, discusses the ways in which graduate students can be encouraged to engage with ‘America as an idea’ in intellectual history modules.
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