feed the balance of the people.

I was teaching Voices of Protest this week, and like my students, I was startled by the familiarity of speeches delivered 75 years ago. 

‎"How many men ever went to a barbecue and would let one man take off the table what's intended for 9/10th of the people to eat? The only way to be able to feed the balance of the people is to make that man come back and bring back some of that grub that he ain't got no business with!" - Huey Long

This infographic is worth meditating on as well. 

dispatches from comps, part 2.

"If we renounce a conspiracy of silence that simplifies popular culture, expunging its internal hierarchies, complexities, or disagreements, we must also break the silences that help us reproduce the simplicity of politics more generally. Politics is not, except in an official version, about the triumph of one class, idea, great man, nation, world region, or socioeconomic system. As a struggle over power, politics has always been about coalition and conflict along many lines of hierarchy; it has always involved the transformative power of discourse and confrontation. 

Politics is also about hegemony, as process and outcome. In the making of nation-states, the discursive, intellectual, military, and political struggles of Latin American peoples, rural and otherwise, were central to defining both success and failure. Only by excavating the archaeological layers of these struggles, embedded in successful and unsuccessful hegemonic outcomes, can we understand present-day institutions and conflicts. 

As was the case with Xochiapulco's bones, excavation is always a two-part process. First you dig, and then you struggle to identify what you found. We will never all agree on what the bones are, or why their identity matters. But historians can and must continue to dig and to place what we find in relation to present-day concerns, issues, and debates. In so doing, our labor in articulating past and present remakes both, endlessly."

-Florencia Mallon, Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru, 1995.


I love Mallon's thoughtful and elegant prose. It gives her the power to be boldly provocative in a way that seems natural and seamless.  She's so persuasive in her application of subaltern studies as a means of tempering the teleological tendancy of institutional scholarship. I know struggle with teleology, as do, I think, many scholars in the New Institutionalism: how do we understand institutions and policy without their power seeming inevitable or unchallenged, permanent even?  Mallon's argument appeals to the social justice mission I see as intrinsic to my own work. I love her sense of hope and power- historians can change things. 


I love what happens when I put the historian into that equation-
"In doing so, our labor in articulating past and present remakes us, endlessly." 


A slightly different use of history than Hartz. I love how everything always fits together.

dispatches from comps, part 1.

Since I'm busybusybusy studying for my comprehensive exams, I thought I'd share with you some choice snippets along the way.

"The liberal society analyst is destined in two ways to be a less pleasing scholar than the Progressive: he finds national weaknesses and he can offer no absolute assurance on the basis of the past that they will be remedied. He tends to criticize and then shrug his shoulders, which is no way to become popular, especially in an age like our own. But even if there were not an integrity to criticism which ought to be kept inviolate at any cost, this mood is not without constructive virtue. It reminds us of a significant fact: that instead of recapturing our past, we have got to transcend it. As for a child who is leaving adolescence, there is no going home again for America."

-Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1955), 32.

I wondered how this quote could be read for our own times, when it seems like everyone's a hopeless cynical critic of our national state of affairs (perhaps I must rethink my understanding of the 1950s). It is useful to remember that American history should be used not as an aspiration, that there is no "return to normalcy," that the solutions of the past are not always the best fit for the present. What a strange and critical task for historians and citizens alike, to love the past but not idealize it; to learn the lesson of Lot's wife and look forward at the crucial moments. Simpler times, they never were. Should we think less of what needs reforming and think more of what can be formed? Can inventiveness replace restoration? Can we transcend our past?

what is the matter with pennsylvania?

Nothing like a little indulgent historical writing for you. I love that in 1935 you could publish an incredulous essay on your state's mediocre national political contributions. Russ uses the phrase "What is the matter with Pennsylvania?" so many times that it merits a bumper sticker.

"Pennsylvania has become used to pulling the chestnuts out of the fire for others, by throwing its huge electoral vote for the Presidential candidate from some other state. Like a good-natured muzhik, it does all the work and gets none of the credit. One second-rate President, one Vice-President who is often not even mentioned in our history books, two or three well-known Congressmen, not one Chief Justice, a fair showing in several cabinet positions and a good record in one or two others, a string of political bosses whose only reputation comes from machine politics and corruption, an imperviousness to reform, and until recently, a total lack of pride (perhaps justified) in the state's contributions to history? In fine, a century and a half of utter futility. What price glory!"

William A. Russ Jr, "What is the matter with Pennsylvania?" Pennsylvania History  2, No. 1 (January, 1935), pp. 17-35. Accessed on JStor today.

For more on Pennsylvania political culture, check out this episode of This American Life from October 2008.

bright spots stockpile, part 4.

I emailed a professor a couple of days ago asking for two book recommendations to round out a five book historiography* I'm working on (political networks of the early republic! so good!) and he finally got back to me today.  


With recommendations for seven books I should look into.  


I know that the expectation isn't that I read them all, but that's the difference between being an undergraduate and a graduate student, I feel. I will read them all.  My learning journey with this professor this semester has been so positive and enlightening and mind-stretching that I know the books will be useful and I want to go down that path.  I am happy that I get to be here, learning from such nice, brilliant people.  I am happy that I'm living a life where I can drop everything and race off to the library.  I am happy to have work that is so blissfully consuming and challenging.  I am happy, I am happy, I am happy.


*a paper that is a brief overview of a specific field-- like a multi-book book report, with more analysis.

on graduate school, clifford geertz, and the process of finding peace.

Earlier this semester I swore off the academic study of religion.  It was an abrupt conclusion I came to as I realized that it put needless constraints on what topics I approached and how I approached them, so for the time being I decided to set it aside.  It’s been freeing to just hunker down and get to know the methods and possibilities of the field of political culture, especially in this odd moment when I don’t have any kind of major research going on. 

Of course, I got my start as a historian studying religion- going to a Lutheran school as a devout Mormon can have that effect on a person- and they say you can leave home but it never really leaves you.   (Now that I think about it, though, my efforts to swear off religious studies were in vain because I’m in a religion class right now- ok, so I’m around the study of religion but it’s so steeped in ethnic terms that I’m not noticing it.  Which probably gets to this whole other notion of “being present” in my life that I’m working on, for obvious reasons that include my forgetting that I just spent 3 hours of my day talking about Catholicism.)

At any rate, I don’t think a lot about religion as it relates to myself any more, that is perhaps the real change here. I am happy with my relatively unexamined life (which it turns out IS worth living).  I lack a religious identity rooted in present practice- the best I can usually muster is an oblique "I used to be Mormon." As the flat on the ODT remains unfixed and I find myself worshipping at the Church of the Folding Bike—a sacred space I tend to plow through so relentlessly that I do very little actual reflection—I just don’t have much of a spiritual focus anymore.  That realization, somewhat ironically, gave me  pause this evening.

I didn't come to it in overtly spiritual consideration, but more in pondering the question of what I might take from my experience in graduate school if I were to quit now and go to work full time.  I’m not necessarily contemplating dropping out as much as I am trying to extrapolate some meaning from this life that I chose a year ago—a life in Philadelphia that is intensely fulfilling and abundant, and simultaneously wrought with deprivation and uncertainty.  The best answer I could come up with was that my time in graduate school has given me a framework to help me understand and appreciate my world.  I felt that as an undergraduate, but there is something deeper and richer about that awareness in the midst of year three of graduate school and year twenty-five of life.  It is a feeling that is difficult to express.

So I was happy tonight, reading an essay to prepare me to start grading a stack of midterms tomorrow, to find an eloquent articulation of what I felt.  It was, perhaps not unsurprisingly, in an essay about religion.  Clifford Geertz writes:

"There are at least three points where chaos—a tumult of events which lack not just interpretations but interpretability—threatens to break in upon man: at the limits of his analytic capacities, at the limits of his powers of endurance, and at the limits of his moral insight.  Bafflement, suffering, and a sense of intractable ethical paradox are all, if they become intense enough or are sustained long enough, radical challenges to the proposition that life is comprehensible and that we can, but taking though, orient ourselves effectively within it—challenges with which any religion, however “primitive,” which hopes to persist must attempt somehow to cope."

(Here's the link for Geertz’s essay “Religion As a Cultural System”)

To some degree, as a historian, my supreme confidence in the interpretability of everything has made me somewhat impervious to chaos.  It’s a post-modern sense of confidence- there is so much gray area and there are so many possible right answers and explanations- but yet it''s a confidence that imposes a fair amount of order on my world.  The intensity of “bafflement, suffering, and a sense of intractable ethical paradox” is tempered both by the overwhelming scope of history and the inherent mysteries imposed by silences and forgetting and losses and suppressions.  To “do” history is to dedicate myself to the possibility that I am capable of understanding in spite of my limits, and maybe even because of my limits.  It is a simple, stark, and seldom acknowledged sense of hope that has relieved me of the constraints of what in the present seems possible, necessary, or planned.  Even adrift, I am oriented.

I would have never imagined finding the infinite and spiritual and plain in the secular realm of my work, but it is one of many unexpected encounters that has made this process  worth the effort. And for me, right now, that's the answer I need.

for the freedom of the human spirit.

One of the joys of being a historian is developing a sense of the big picture.  Martin Luther King Jr. Day evokes a little twitch from me.  Certainly, the influence of his vision for America has been felt across the generations, but I can't help but feel that something is lost in commemorating just one man's sacrifices and opinions and efforts when so many people gave something, or even gave all, to begin the still incomplete process of achieving equality for all Americans.  

lucky me, to have such an awesome mural on the side of my house

"Even if segregation is gone, we will still need to be free; we will still have to see that everyone has a job. Even if we can all vote, but if people are still hungry, we will not be free... Singing alone is not enough; we need schools and learning... Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit, a larger freedom that encompasses all of mankind."
-Ella Baker, founder of SNCC

confronting the hard parts.

I like what I do. It's a privilege to tell the stories of others. I've enjoyed meeting the people I study. I love going to conferences, I love going to class, I love the feeling the feeling of opening up a box and not knowing what I'm going to find. The challenges of interpreting the past engage me deeply. I have made a lot of sacrifices because being a historian is so satisfying and rewarding that I want to do it for my whole life, and I want desperately to learn how to do it well.

I love to study New Right conservatives. I admire their passion and temerity. Their rhetoric and writing captivates me. Making sense of a time in which my parents came of age and the moment I was born into has great appeal for me. I have come along way since I started studying these people, and I really, genuinely appreciate what they have to say and how they challenge my worldview.

I say all this because today I had to confront the aspect of my topic I hate the most. It's impossible to write about the New Right without talking about abortion.  For many social conservatives, it's the reason they mobilized, the one thing in the world that they would give anything to change.

I hate reading about it. I hate talking about it. I would do anything to avoid it all together.

The descriptions in pro-life literature, while well-intentioned, are often grizzly and grotesque. They depict excessive and unusual procedures, and overemphasize poorly handled situations.  I concede that it is purposeful and deliberate language. But I think that by and large pro-life accounts are as decadent as the behaviors they are intended to critique.

It has little to do with the fact that I'm pro-choice. I believe that women should have  access to safe medical procedures should they elect to do so. I stand with Linda Gordon in acknowledging that women have made this choice throughout history regardless of its legality, and with Barack Obama who feels that unwanted pregnancies should be prevented through affordable birth control and comprehensive sex education. Like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I believe that it is not a question of either / or. But my politics seldom enter the picture. I am guided by professional ethics and exercise a level of restraint that others have called judicious and even admirable. What I write is not about me. I am not trying to change anybody's mind, nor am I open to my mind being changed.

I just don't like reading about blood and tissue. Needles, suction, disposal, no thank you. I think it's a terrible way to spend the day. It makes me miserable. I don't find it enjoyable to try to understand what's going on in the text; I find it so abhorrent that I struggle to get motivated when I have to address the issue. It's impossible to focus on, requiring breaks, endless coffee, snacks, checking of blogs, email, twitter, and anything that might offer relief from the task.  If someone called and said, "Hey, would you like to come clean my toilet?" I would probably opt for that.  My work ends with descent into exhaustion and then unsatisfying naps. I wind up feeling drained and find it near impossible to shake off the dirty feeling I get from reading this rubbish. To use a turn of phrase from my Mormon days, it offends my spirit.

I love what I do. I love what I study. I wouldn't change my path even if I could. 

But what do we do with the parts of our jobs- our vocations- that we hate? 

names, memorials, masculinity, and femininity.

The Paper has been a hotbed of soapboxing for historians and historical causes the past couple of days, undoubtedly as a means of giving the journos some down time. For example:

A missive on the problem of changing Rhode Island's name.

A plea for fixing grammatical errors at the Jefferson Memorial.

An exposition on the bachelorhood of the Founding Fathers.

A cool graphical representation of hairstyles of First Ladies.

It's nice to see the Gray Lady turning the holiday into a public history opportunity. Like Christmas in July for some folks, really- but hey, we could all use a little distraction from this mess.

freedom is the only way, yah.

Wishing you a happy Independence Day from the land of "absolute despotism."
May we all honor our liberated heritage by "opposing with manly firmness... invasions on the rights of the people."

And of course, make sure you take a minute to thank a Vet. Freedom isn't free.

bear with the donut analogy.

I've been reading a collection of stories called Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. I climbed in bed to read two and a half hours ago, feeling exhausted, and her poised and constant gazing into the depths of peoples souls rejuvenated my mind (my body is still tired, from what? shopping?) and I just had to write down the title of an inevitable paper that must someday be created (my mind wanders). It's problematic, not knowing my future but knowing that this research would pull me back to Utah, were research a possibility (dark, as of late, I shun all possibilities, allowing only the purgatory of vacation to enter into my mind). Already I feel the tug of Utah and I have yet to leave.

I never expected Utah to become woven in to who I am. I left Washington with the rocket-powered urge to escape, thinking of what awaited me in the intimate terms of ward and potential husband and in the ironically penal description of "doing my time in Utah." (there is no better way to sum up those few months I did in the Seventh Ward). Such language was quickly replaced with the distant vocabulary of the historian comprised of far away events and vaguely titled theories. I too became distant. The shattering of self followed by consuming bouts of tears that somehow glued me back together are as remote to me as the intense spiritual warfare I waged everyday but never fared all that well at. At arms length, I offer you my interpretations as I neglect the private pages of my journal.

Utah has been so elusive. Occasional trips into the mountains or the desert have yielded confused awe; I have no frame of reference to compare Utah's anomalous scenery against. The same with its history. As much as I decry regional exceptionalism, American exceptionalism, or really anyone saying that some place is truly different (HA! there is no truth!), Utah really is the center in a Western donut, it doesn't fit. Preferring Boston Creams, it would seem that Utah is made entirely of pudding.

So Utah is unique, and baffling, and I have been content to write around the strangeness, to dismiss Utah as a character in the story I am trying to tell. Only when I got back from Washington did I even try to engage it, to accept that this embattled jilted territory made of stone and salt and Mormons and not is what I am and to know-- suddenly and strikingly-- the feeling of ownership. The milieu is odd but familiar, even familial.

Leaving is inevitable, but lacking the propulsive feeling, the thought elicits a sense of desertion rather than relief. I daresay that putting my things in my car and driving out of the comforting embrace of the mountains will tear my heart right out of my chest.

finals week math.

Today's been a good day on the school front-- turned in a big paper, got a paper back with a very nice compliment, had a productive chat with a lady who cleared up some questions on my thesis.

That

+

Hot Buttered Rum (if you spill it on yourself, you'll smell like Christmas)

+

NYT talks to Julian Zelizer (I read this for pleasure)
+

This:


= a pretty good Wednesday!

the internet indulges my distaste for california exceptionalism.

something for everybody.

For the health issues folks: A very interesting story about how abortion providers are trained.

For the design people: FONTS! The 'Aller Sans' font is really nice for an every day font, I think it's going to replace 'Corbel' as my default font.

For the history and juvenile lit nerds out there: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Twitter account.

For the bike riders: Speculation on whether or not Obama's transportation secretary will be a bike proponent. Survey says probably not.

Something for everyone:
Only two days left until we get past the biggest barrier to wholesale Christmas obsession (although the whole 'being a grad student' thing may cramp my style a bit). The fact that Thanksgiving has not yet happened is not stopping me from listening to Christmas music. Not even my pumpkin-pie-free state of being could keep me away from wishing I was one of Mariah's backup dancers.

Mariah Carey- All I want for Christmas I
by tktouz

i can't tell if this shows that i really care about what i do or whether it justs boasts about my ability to make a great sandwich.

I would just like to use this post to publicly thank the turkey-cranberry sandwich in front of me for preventing me from spontaneous combustion. You see, I turned down an invitation to a kegger in Logan (Logan? Really? Not even gas under two bucks a gallon can make driving that far seem like a good idea when I am this busy. It just occured to me that not even free beer could get me to drive that far this weekend. Who am I becoming?!) to spend the evening "getting ahead" on a paper not due FOR ANOTHER MONTH (Where is Melanie?! What have you done with her?! This is turning into Invasion of the Body Snatchers, clearly).

I say this because I think that such effort-- such devotion to my craft-- should certainly be rewarded by the magic of the text-- the six books I need to read are, after all, in my field! This should be an unending pleasure cruise of an evening! And then I opened up The Longest and Newest Book on My List that I Shall Not Name and my evening started to feel like that Office episode where they go on the cruise, only not even funny or entertaining. I have not been so enraged and annoyed by a book after reading only the introduction EVER. I already hate this book more than any book I've ever read, and I mean come on, I finished... no, nothing even compares. My sensibilities have been so assaulted. I feel so wounded, injured, insulted, and aghast that somebody entered my subject area, injected this nasty, biased, bourgeois consensus liberal intellectual elitism into it and then, THEN, called it OBJECTIVITY! The children of post-modernism weep at the very existence of such a book.

So I just wanted to thank artisan bread, mayonnaise, red leaf lettuce, salt and pepper, rosemary infused roasted turkey breast, homemade whole cranberry sauce and whipped cream cheese for settling down the bustling atoms that make up my body. I very nearly exploded.

love is... never having to equate equal rights with shoveling poo.

I submitted myself to a few hours of mindnumbing microfilmery today and the only things keeping me interested were the number of Love is... cartoons dispersed throughout the paper (1975 Ogden Standard-Examiner!), the fashion trends as manifest through the ads (very similar to what you'd see right now actually) and puff pieces like this:

Having equal rights really is like shoveling shit all the time! Somebody make this lady a candidate for vice-president, stat!, and for goodness sakes, make feminism stop!