Doing History One Breath At a Time
The terms “hip” and “hipster” probably came from the jazz age in 1920s Chicago and can be defined as:
a fanatic of jazz, alcohol, and cabarets who defiantly carried a flask hidden in a hip pocket
Source:
William Howland Kenney, Chicago Jazz: A Cultural History 1904-1930, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 152.
Think about the implications of this:
I was like a brain-damaged child born into the bosom of a hearty, muscular clan, and I felt guilty for a long time.
Young black writers will go through the same thing until we have established as a race here in America a tradition of books, literature, and writing. Once in this nation, it meant death for a black man to even learn to read; but we are freeing ourselves of this fear.
John A. Williams in his essay, “Time and Tide: Roots of Black Awareness.”
The Immigrant Experience: The Anguish of Becoming American ed. Thomas C. Wheeler (New York: Penguin Books, 1971)
For many years now, my friends and I have questioned the propriety of singing the national anthem before sports events. We never quite understood why this was such a tradition. Well, I’m here to tell you I now know the answer.
According to Gunther Barth in “Ball Park,” a chapter found in his book City People we can blame it on William H. Cammeyer, builder of the first enclosed baseball field in the country.
Cammeyer left his mark on the atmosphere of the ball park by playing at the beginning of a game a popular song, “The Star Spangled Banner,” which in 1916 by presidential order became the official anthem of the United States.
Let’s parse this some shall we?
So I think we can blame baseball for the tradition of singing the national anthem before sporting events.
Source
Barth, Gunther. “Ball Park” in City People. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). 167.
(required text for “American Urban History,” Spring 2008)
One of my classes this semester is Women in Medieval and Early Modern Britain. A student can take it and receive credit either in History, English Lit or Women’s Studies. Last week, we read some of the most appalling misogynistic diatribes I’ve ever read. I had heard Jerome and Juvenal were anti-women but I honestly had no idea how hateful they were. And yet, the Holy Roman Catholic church made Jerome a saint! As a historian I have to be aware that these attitudes existed and be careful not to impose my values onto this period of time. The trick is to tease out how women got around these attitudes to take care of business.
Tonight while perusing the internet, I found “Herodotus and the Power of Women”, an article which is really about what goes behind closed doors to move history forward.
Herodotus’ version of the story about Gyges, King Candaules and his gorgeous, unnamed queen and the role the queen had in the overthrow of the king is retold. But retold to make the point that there is much that goes on behind closed doors between men in power and their women that has an impact on history.
Go read the article, if only to see the humour in this:
The history of more than half of humanity is a side or specialist issue. How does this happen? To see the marginalisation clearly, imagine trying to frame a project entitled “The Role of Men in History”, and be taken seriously.
In a show of what can only be called continued, and blissful, ignorance, Sherri Shepherd of The View continues to be an example of how American education fails its students. She makes a good case for more, and better, teaching of history and science.
But thank the heavens for Whoopi Goldberg, who gently tries to guide Sherri into a more educated path. Whoopi often fails because it is clear that Sherri will not be guided, especially when it comes to matters of her Christian faith.
And it all started with a discussion of Epicurus and his definition of happiness, which somehow evolved into a discussion of religion (or rather, Christianity) in which Sherri showed her ignorance again by saying nothing predated Christians. Further, she argued, the Greeks knew about Christians because they threw the Christians to the lions.
This is a teachable moment, but the student needs to be willing to listen. Yes Sherri, there was a time when the Christ hadn’t been born and Christianity didn’t exist and Epicurus predated Christianity.
I certainly hope there was further discussion backstage afterwards in an attempt to make Sherri understand the meaning of BC and AD, or as I prefer BCE and CE.
There are times when I am surprised that people don’t know more about the world and religions that surround them. But because I am biased as an historian and a very curious person, I try to understand that others aren’t as fascinated as I am.
Take, for instance, the fascinating intersection of Islam and Christianity. Margaret Smith in her book The Way of the Mystics devotes an entire chapter (VI) to the influence of Christianity on Islam in the early stages of Islam’s development.
This came up for discussion in class a few weeks ago and I was satisfied to read in our assignments something I have been saying for years, Christianity had a profound influence on Islam. In fact, Mohammad (pbuh) believed Islam to be the logical extension of Christianity building upon the teachings of Abraham, Moses and Jesus.
Mohammad was a trader which meant he traveled through the Middle and Near East, meeting people of all stripes along the way. Of course he talked to them, learned from them and exchanged ideas with them. How can you not when your business, indeed your livelihood, depends upon making contacts?
We cannot think that Islam just sprang into being, like Athena born full-grown out of Zeus’ head. Islam grew as time went on and was influenced by the cultures around it and Mohammad’s influences, one of which was Syriac-Christian. The Qur’an was not written in a vacuum, and this needs to be acknowledged.
I think if people knew a little more history, they might be more tolerant of the world around them. Every day I encounter people who believe that Islam is a hateful religion based simply on a minority of maniacs who slammed planes into buildings. These people have not bothered to look beyond those images to see what the truth of Islam is and what its influences are, and that’s just sad for the entire world.
Now entering Week 10 of the semester and I am busily researching my paper for History of Islam due at the end of the semester. I was really excited and happy to spend most of my day reading one of the many books from my bibliography. It has been a very long time since that’s happened, usually I feel like I’m just slogging through.
My topic is Sufism and my approach will be a descriptive narrative using mostly secondary sources. I want to write about the origins of Sufism and its impact upon Islam itself. The book I am currently reading is J. Spencer Trimingham’s The Sufi Orders in Islam which turns out to be a book about the origins of the many different orders of Sufism. It wasn’t what I was expecting but it’s a good read anyway.
I choose this topic because mysticism always fascinates me and I remember copies of Idries Shah’s books about Nasrudin in the house when I was a teenager. I had no idea what they were all about and wanted to explore that. I am not reading any of Shah’s books for this paper but I am beginning to understand that Nasrudin is the clown found in all mystic traditions.
Happened upon this about Columbus Day.
Columbus was not the first European to successfully cross the Atlantic. Viking sailors are believed to have established a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland sometime in the 11th century, and scholars have argued for a number of other possible pre-Columbian landings. Columbus, however, initiated the lasting encounter between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere.
Notice the answer to the question of who got here first and why Columbus Day.
A lot of interesting things noted in this week’s readings and lectures.
A book recommendation from DrB: Race and Slavery in the Middle East by British historian Brent Lewis.
Further, on the topic of slavery, DrB says that Mauritania just abolished last month!
This map used in DrB’s lecture. Which led me to this photo essay and this article, “Does the Koran Condone Killing?”
“Al-Zarqawi,” says Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor of Western and Islamic law at UCLA, “searches for the trash that everyone threw out centuries ago and declares the trash to be Islam.”
The continuing news of the Jena 6 has brought comparisons to the Little Rock 9. Vanity Fair has a photo essay about one of the events that brought racism and the need for civil rights for all Americans into stark contrast.