01.29.08
Posted in Herodotus' Children at 12:14 am by Stephanie
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.
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09.28.07
Posted in Current History, Herodotus' Children at 11:01 am by Stephanie
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.
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Posted in Herodotus' Children at 10:38 am by Stephanie
The test for naturalization has been changed and will be implemented in 2008. There are 100 questions on it, of which applicants must answer 6 out of 10 correctly. I’d venture to say that a lot of native-born American citizens couldn’t answer some of the questions correctly. What do you think?
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09.26.07
Posted in Herodotus' Children at 4:46 pm by Stephanie
Play Time Lord at HistoryChannel.com and see how much history trivia you know. I don’t get very far but the questions and the audio/video clips are really interesting.
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08.22.07
Posted in Herodotus' Children at 6:15 pm by Stephanie
I just haven’t been able to nurture Breathing History the way I would like. Events conspire to keep me busy elsewhere. So I have decided that I am going to try to make it more personal and maybe write at least once a week about what I’m studying. Just a few paragraphs with maybe some links if time allows. Instead of reaching for the grand researched posts, I’m thinking that making it a bit more personal will allow for more frequent updates. It’s always driven me up the wall that Breathing History goes stale so often. So I’ll try smaller posts and that may satisfy me. Reality really does bite from time to time.
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02.17.07
Posted in Herodotus' Children at 7:38 pm by Stephanie
I received email at my home email address from someone named George Thomas Kurian inviting me to join something called The Forum on History and Literature. The attachment he sent is unreadable and a Google search turns up no biographical information about him or the forum; only a list of compilations he has had something to do with.
Has anyone else received similar email or ever heard of him? I don’t know whether to treat this email as spam or as an honest inquiry.
Thanks.
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10.15.06
Posted in Herodotus' Children at 10:35 am by Stephanie
The Vatican’s Pagan Cemetery - This is completely awesome. Not only does it force the Roman Catholics to face up to their pagan roots, it’s a really important historical find.
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08.18.06
Posted in Herodotus' Children at 12:23 am by Stephanie
I seem to ask that question a lot here. Something always gets in the way it seems and this blog about the love of my life goes stale.
I’ve just found the notebook I was using last year with notes about things I wanted to write about from my class.
This year promises to be much better. Even though classes haven’t officially started, I already have syllabi, schedules and reading assignments. Last year I went 2 for 3 on the bad teacher hit list. Dr. N was the only one who performed her duties admirably. The other 2 had non-existent communication and organizational skills. When your classmates get in an uproar over the lack of teaching skills, that’s a good clue it’s not just your imagination.
I am not taking any History classes this semester but I am sure there will be much to blog about. Not only am I taking a PoliSci class on Terr0ri$m*, I am also taking a class about ancient and medieval philsophy.
In addition, I am hoping to prepare a presentation to submit to the Pacific Coast Branch of the American History Association for their conference next August. I’ve begun preliminary research on my Master’s thesis and believe the theme of the conference reflects the theme of my thesis quite well. Of course, I am nervous. It seems that not many undergrads have made plans past graduating. That I am already thinking about and planning my Master’s seems to make me somewhat of an anomaly. (Like that’s anything new in my life.)
My hope is to be able to make better use of my time and post things about history more often. I need to figure out how to clean up the UI as well, the navigation isn’t what I think it should be. As always, I have a million things to do and a limited amount of time in which to do them.
*I am loath to begin spelling any word in a funky, cyberspacey way but given the times in which we live and never knowing who is watching, discretion overtook accuracy in this one particular instance.
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02.10.06
Posted in Herodotus' Children at 8:09 pm by Stephanie
Unknown tomb has been found in The Valley of the Kings in Egypt.
How absolutely stunning would it be to be involved in something that huge? To be part of the team that not only found something magnificent and important but to also be part of the team that gets to fill in some of the gaps of history and maybe even re-write it more accurately now that more information is going to be forthcoming? The mind boggles at the possibilities.
The team that found it is from Maryland. How exciting for them and for Ancient Egyptian scholars all over the world.
Not to mention a major coup for the university which I’m sure will make financial support easier to attain. (I know that’s rather cynical of me but that is the reality of academia of this sort. Those bones don’t just crawl to the surface by themselves.)
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01.21.06
Posted in Herodotus' Children at 1:01 pm by Stephanie
Oh! Very useful! Making Sense of Oral History.
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