Unwritten Histories

The Unwritten Rules of History

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Jewish Tradition on Rosh Hashanah

September 19, 2020 / / 4 Comments
image of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Simmie Knox, under commission of the United States Supreme Court / Public domain

I was originally planning to write a blog post sharing the new interview that I did with Samantha Cutrara, on my research on Jewish women and cultural traditions, especially around food (more on this below). But I’ve also been troubled by the news coverage and responses to death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. So I ended up writing a Twitter thread, about it, and I decided to share what I wrote over here. Also because, for reasons(?), it got all out of order on Twitter.

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Stronger Together: The Potential Collaborative Agency of Historians and Archivists

June 22, 2020 / / 0 Comments

by Andrea Eidinger and Krista McCracken

(Cross posted on Active History)

Over the past few years, the historical community in Canada has been rocked by a few scandals. No, we are not talking about the endless discussions around monuments. Rather, we are referring to the numerous public disputes between historians and archivists relating either to the discovery of or access to archival material. For example, you’ve liked seen various historians announcing that they had “discovered” a long-lost historical document by looking in a seemingly forgotten corner of the archive. To which archivists often reply, we knew it was there the whole time. Sometimes we also see these conflicts erupt into larger disputes, as has been the case with respect to the recent announcement that the BC Archives would be closed until 2021 to ensure that proper procedures were in place to protect staff and visitors from COVID-19.

 

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Learning from Past Pandemics: Resources on the 1918-1919 Influenza Epidemic in Canada

April 15, 2020 / / 2 Comments

 

Influenza epidemic poster

Poster issued by the Provincial Board of Health about the influenza epidemic, Alberta. Glenbow Archives, NA-4548-5.

Note from Andrea: Check out this awesome resource guide we created in collaboration with Sean Carleton, Carolyn Podruchny, and Active History!

 

By Sean Carleton, Andrea Eidinger, Carolyn Podruchny.

We are living in unprecedented times, or so we are being told by many commentators, health experts, and politicians these days.

Just last week, Dictionary.com released a list of “The Best Words to Use During Unprecedented Times” to help people describe their experiences during the COVID-19 crisis. The first word was “unprecedented.” The website explained, “If you’ve been keeping up with the news, you’ll have seen this word used quite a lot. Instead of defaulting to “I’ve never seen anything like this before,’ say ‘This is completely unprecedented.’”

Though the world has never seen a coronavirus pandemic quite like we are currently witnessing, that does not mean that what we are experiencing is “completely unprecedented.”

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Stephanie Pettigrew on Active History

March 24, 2020 / / 1 Comment

Hey Folks! Make sure to check out Stephanie’s new post over on Active History, looking at her family history and hooked rugs. It’s fantastic! Here’s a preview:

When my sister and I imagined ourselves getting married as kids, we imagined our Mémére being there, just as she had been for all our moments, big and small. Mémére was everything for us. Mother, protector, teacher, and provider. My memories of her as a child are wild and varied, and would likely not align with most people’s archetypal French-Canadian “grandmother” figure. I remember her chopping wood in the backyard. I remember her teaching me how to cook an egg and crêpes. I remember the enormous meals she would prepare for company, and the time that I got stung by a wasp and she grabbed the wasp’s nest with her bare hands and threw it into a fire out of pure spite. But most of all, I remember watching her hook rugs in the evenings, after the day’s work was done.

Check out the rest of it here!

Wet’suwet’en Pipeline Dispute PowerPoint Presentation

February 21, 2020 / / 1 Comment

Title slide of a presentation on the Wet'suwet'en Pipeline Dispute in Historical Perspective

Hey Folks!

I’m currently teaching a course on Public History at Concordia University. On Thursdays, we do workshops where we learn hands on skills, and I give my students the chance to decide the topics that we cover. This week, they wanted to learn more about the Wet’suwet’en Pipeline Dispute. And as I was writing it, it occurred to me that there might be other people who might want to also cover this topic in class, but don’t know where to start or don’t have the time to do the extra research. So in the spirit of sharing, I have made the full PowerPoint, including notes, available below.

This PowerPoint presentation covers the following subjects:

  • Settler Colonialism
  • Treaties and the Indian Act
  • Background Information
    • Who are the Wet’suwet’en?
    • Delgamuukw vs. BC
    • Hereditary chiefs vs. elected band councils
  • The Conflict
  • The RCMP and Indigenous Resistance
  • Conclusion

And also includes a list of sources and additional resources.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind, however.

 

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2019 Holiday Gift Guide for Historians and History Professionals

December 10, 2019 / / 1 Comment

Header image of three toy Christmas trees against a white backdrop

Do you know a Canadian historian? (::nods::) Are they impossible to shop for because they already own all the books? (::nods vigorously::) Then have we got just the thing for you!

As promised, we’re back with our Fourth Annual Holiday Gift Guide for Historians and History Professionals! This is becoming a veritable Canadian history holiday tradition. I’ll keep the preamble short, but as usual, standard caveats apply:

  • Warning to loved ones of historians and history professionals: It is so lovely that you remembered that we love history and that most of us love reading. However, we strongly recommend against the purchase of history books for holiday gifts, unless they are specifically requested. If you are dead-set on buying a history book for your loved-one, at least make sure that it is: from an academic press (it will say the word University in the title of the publisher) and it is by a person with a Ph.D. in history (Google is your friend – just put their name and the word history to find out). You may also want to make sure that your loved-one doesn’t already own the book in question, or have easy access to it from their institutional library. We have provided a couple of suggestions for non-history books that might be a better fit.
  • While I am Canadian, and many of the recommendations I’ve included down below are specific to Canadian history, this list should be helpful to history professionals no matter their country of origin or residence.
  • Finally, while there are plenty of options here for history enthusiasts, this guide is specifically intended for individuals who are shopping for historians and historical professionals.

I also know that our gift guide is out rather late this year, mostly because I wasn’t planning to do one. And I’m sure that all of my fellow historians and history professionals have already completed their holiday shopping, so this guide is entirely unnecessary, right? 😉

Don’t forget to check out our guides from 2016, 2017, and 2018. While not all of the links work anymore, there are still plenty of fantastic ideas to be found. The leather book weight from 2018 is still a highlight. And don’t forget that the 2017 guide contains additional information if you will be purchasing or making gifts for your Jewish friends.

Once again, I have cheekily divided this list according to academic rank, mostly because I still think it’s funny. Enjoy!

 

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Is This Thing Still On?

December 6, 2019 / / 0 Comments

 

Mic against a colourful background

Tap tap tap

Before you get excited, I’m not actually back! I’m just popping in with some news!

So, first of all, if you’ve been missing my writing, I have good news for you. I’ve recently started writing the University Affairs’s Careers Café column! You can check out my first two pieces, on opportunities and online job announcements.  Here’s a preview of the latter:

Digital technology, including social media, has dramatically transformed the academic landscape over the last 10 years. Some of these changes have been positive, and some negative. Some platforms like Twitter have facilitated the creation of online communities for academics, creating spaces where we can provide support for each other, engage in conversation, and share our work. But at the same time, new publication venues, like blogs, have put even more pressure on graduate students and early career academics to produce material. Other changes are less easily categorized, but raise important questions that we, as a field, need to address. In this case, I’m speaking about the increasingly common practice of online job announcements. To be clear, I’m not referring to job ads, but rather, the announcements from the individuals who get the jobs and/or promotions.

Secondly, Stephanie and I have been chatting about what to do with Unwritten Histories. We’ve basically come to the conclusion that we’d like to keep everything up, and write occasional posts when the mood strikes us. I don’t think we’ll reactivate the Patreon account right now, though maybe we can consider switching to a per-post model. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

And on that note, keep your eye out for a brand new blog post on Tuesday. I wasn’t planning to do a gift guide for this year, but I couldn’t resist it. See you then!

Lord Dalhousie Scholarly Panel on Slavery and Race

September 10, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Screenshot of the website on the Lord Dalhousie Scholarly Panel on Salvery and Race

You may remember that last year, Dalhousie University announced that it was forming a panel to study the history of the university with respect to slavery and race, with a focus on moving forward. The panel was led by Afua Cooper, and consisted of experts from across the country, including Françoise Baylis, Camille Cameron, Ainsley Francis, Paul Lovejoy, David States, Shirley Tillotson, Harry Amani Whitfield, and Norma Williams, with research support from Jalana Lewis, Kylie Peacock,  and Wade Pfaff, as well as contributors Karly Kehoe and Isaac Saney.

The final report was released late last week, and found that the nine Earl of Dalhousie actively worked to expel Black refugees from the War of 1812 from Nova Scotia, helped enforce the British order that all formerly enslaved Black persons be returned to their masters following a coup in Martinique in 1794, and used proceeds from trade with slave-owning West Indies produces to establish Dalhousie University. And both he and the first two presidents of Dalhousie University openly espoused anti-Black rhetoric.

The reported includes thirteen recommendations for the university, with respect to regret regarding the university’s historical and present connection to anti-Black racism and a commitment to taking steps against anti-Black racism; recognition of the lived realities of Black Nova Scotians, including their contributions; and take concrete steps to repair the harms that are the legacy of slavery. There is a special emphasis on education, and I would encourage all educators to pay special attention to these recommendations and work to enact them.

Two of the recommendations have already been enacted. The first is an apology from the president of Dalhousie University expressing regret regarding the university’s and its founders’ connections to slavery and ongoing anti-Black racism. The second has been the creation of a website where all of the panel’s materials and any related documents will be stored.

To see the Lord Dalhousie Scholarly Panel on Slavery and Race website, go here: https://www.dal.ca/dept/ldp.html 

To read the final report from the panel, go here: https://www.dal.ca/dept/ldp/findings.html

To read the formal apology from the president of Dalhousie University, go here: https://www.dal.ca/dept/ldp/university-response.html

I would like to personally thank Dr. Cooper and all of the project members for their work on such an important topic. I hope to see more universities following suit.

An Interview with Historica: Making a Heritage Minute

August 13, 2019 / / 0 Comments

image of Acadian woman in field

Welcome to the last of our Summer Series on Acadian history! This week marks not only the end of our series, it’s also the fête nationale d’Acadie on August 15th! From the amount of people who tried to wish me a “Joyeux Saint Jean Baptiste” on the 24th of June, there seem to be quite a few people who are unaware of the fact that Acadians have their own national holiday, chosen specifically to be separate from that of the Québec St-Jean Baptiste day by the convention nationale d’Acadie in 1881. (If you want to find out more about that process, both Chantal Richard and Ron Rudin have written about it.)

This year’s fête nationale comes with its own special surprise – our own heritage minute! I’ve been a big fan of the heritage minutes since I was a kid, so to get one that features Acadian history is pretty special. The debut will be on stage in Moncton during the Congrès Mondiale Acadienne 2019, after which everybody can see it on YouTube! I’ll be sure to post it on twitter for everybody to see, so be sure to watch that space! And, as always, you can catch the rest of the summer series here.

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