Ancient, medieval, Islamic and world history -- comments, resources and discussion.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Resources for medieval deeds of arms
Enjoy!
Image: jousting in the time of Emperor Maximillian.
Democracy: a philosophical/moral/political or an empirical concept?
Thursday, February 26, 2009
E-books: in general and specifically at Nipissing University
Thanks, Charlotte!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
What is "medieval modern" fashion?
And then maybe you'll have more respect for the creator of the Deluxe Barbarian Queen.
Update: Once you are tired of the Deluxe Barbarian Queen and other forms of fashionable (or not) "medieval modern" and are in the mood for some dense scholarly discussion of serious issues, go here and surprise! -- you may find the medieval modern Deluxe Barbarian Queen looking right back at you!
Humble petition
“Scholarships granted by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council will be focused on business-related degrees”.
This retrograde and ideologically-driven proposal might kill funding for the purposes that the SSHRC was originally designed to promote. Therefore MP Ashton is sponsoring a petition to delete the sentence.
Please go here, read the petition, and if you are a Canadian citizen or resident, endorse it if you can.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Muhlberger as blogger
Anyone who wants to witness my moment of fame should scoot on over.
Of course Peter has lots more there, too. Give the site a look.
Brad DeLong as humble economist
Not that historians don't have their vices...
Here is the post:
Justin Fox Is Still Perplexed
He wonders:
Brad DeLong tutors me on fiscal stimulus :: The Curious Capitalist - TIME.com: I guess what continues to perplex me at least a little is how lacking in the customary rigor of modern academic economics the arguments for stimulus are. It's basically just, We ran gigantic budget deficits during World War II and the economy got better. That's the kind of argument I would make, not the kind of argument I'd expect from the chair of the Political Economy of Industrial Societies major at the University of California Berkeley. It's just all so seat-of-the-pants. But it's better to be approximately right than precisely wrong, I guess...
"Lacking in the customary rigor..." Justin could mean either of two things:
1. Rigorous economics should produce tightly-estimated conclusions based on statistical sieving of mountains of data, like: when Safeway cuts grocery prices by 1%, its sales rise by 1.456%.
2. Rigorous economics should involve lots of theoretical equations with sigmas and rhos and betas in them.
With respect to the first possibility, Justin's expectations are just too high. We cannot build models up from precisely-known microfoundations--we are not chemists who can calculate how molecules should behave because we know how the electrons and the nucleons that make them up do behave. We don't have that many past examples of large-scale fiscal stimulus programs, and so we do the best that we can--and to be up-front about the partial and uncertain state of our knowledge is part of doing the best that we can.
With respect to the second possibility--well yes, I could make a bunch of arguments with lots of theoretical equations with sigmas and rhos and betas in them, but once again these theoretical equations would not rest on any solid microfoundations. Chemistry theory is built on top of physics theory. But economic theory--it is just a bunch of people looking at historical episodes and saying: "it looks like this is what happened a bunch of times in the past; let's build a model of it." Economic theory is crystalized history. But when the historical episodes out of which theory is being crystalized are as rare and as scarce as they are in the case of large-scale fiscal stimulus programs, why crystalize? Why not just take the history raw?
Barbarian invasions!
Image: The Total War fantasy version of Barbarian Invasions from Gamershell.com.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Why We Immunize
Kids my age were still getting polio in the USA when I was young.
I think that mass purification of water/proper sewerage and mass immunization are the most worthwhile collective enterprises that humanity has ever undertaken. They are practically the definition of civilization.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Icon
An illustration of the adaptability of just about any system of symbolism; a Joseph Stalin/Virgin Mary icon, hanging in a church in Strelny:
The church's Beneficiary Evstafy Zhakov said the legend has it that Stalin would often hold discourse with Blessed Matrona of Moscow. And that is the scene depicted on the icon. However, church visitors didn't think it was a good idea and the icon was placed in the church's remote corner.
Beneficiary Zhakov explained that he sees Stalin as one of the nation's fathers, no matter how bad he was. He does not believe Stalin was an atheist.
Someone on the Mediev-L discussion list points out that Stalin has his back to the Virgin and seems to be striding away. Oh, well, he wasn't Russian, either.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
A new blog on Before Taliban
The Afghanistan-Pakistan border
See the Pakistan portfolio at the Big Picture.
Battle in Bloomington, Illinois
This weekend I stumbled across this video at the newssite Pantagraph.com and it was a revelation. I had no idea there were so many people involved in stripped-down, easy-participation, cheap, low-impact "medieval combat." Or that had it had been going on in an organized fashion for so long. (Here's the same yearly event for 2007 and 2008 videoed by the sponsoring group.)
Also, it was a bit like a trip back in time to my early days in the SCA, when our gear and level of "re-creation" was not much better than what you see in the video (though most of us moved beyond this level pretty darned fast, and we always had more than fighting in our activities). And what the Warlord of Belegarth said in the news video sounded awfully familiar in places. It was a bit spooky.
This is where the young and broke go for their fun now!
I hope that some of the people who love to sneer at SCA eclecticism and uneven quality have a look at this!
Religion in Iraq today
On last Saturday, I started a long journey to Karbala city to commemorate the anniversary of Imam Hussein. The distance to the holy shrine in the holy city of Karbala is 67 miles. I haven't been practicing much sport for the last twelve years because of the type of life I live. So, walking such a distance was a big challenge to my will and abilities as I always show off being a very good athlete for years and years. My colleague came to the office where I spent the night around 5:50 a.m. and the journey started at 6. We reached Mussayib city around 6 p.m. I was completely exhausted but all the pain became a source of joy and happiness when I was received by people from the city begging me to spend the night in the big tents they set everywhere in the city. Young boys were working with their parents to serve us. The people were shouting "Dear the visitors of Imam Hussein, please come and spend the night here, we have everything for you, food and bed. Please give us the honor of taking care of you" Others wrote on big pieces of black fabric "serving the visitors of Imam Hussein is our honor." I chose one of the tents randomly. A tent set by a Sunni tribe who decided to serve the Shiite pilgrims.
More here.
Image: Pilgrims at the shrine in 2008.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Chivalry and religion in the Middle Ages
Image: Galahad receiving the Grail from the Grail maidens, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (19th c.).
The Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Laura Rozen's War and Piece put me on to this article in Foreign Policy: Panic in Kabul, is Islamabad next? and it led me to a recent publication by the same author, Shuja Nawaz, on the FATA, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.
Image: Kabul.
Reminder: Cooper speaks on justice in ancient Athens
All welcome!
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Orion's belt
I can see these stars outside my front door, every clear winter night.
From Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Preparing for Before Taliban: some online reading
Just last Sunday, Juan Cole published along piece at his blog Informed Comment on the challenges of the situation. He has quite pessimistic view of the possibilities for the success of Western intervention. But he just doesn't assert an opinion, he supplies some interesting material through his links and I strongly suggest you take advantage of them.
After that, maybe you would like to meet the new generation of Taliban, the current batch of fighters, a generation or more removed from the people you'll be reading about Edwards' book. The Globe and Mail back in March had a feature called Talking to the Taliban, in which an Afghan correspondent spoke to various insurgents about what was important to them. It might be worth your while to see this, since it is your taxes and neighbors who are being devoted to defeating these people.
The 300 Spartans (1962) and Charlie Wilson's War (2007): two historical movies
I saw The 300 about a year ago and enjoyed it, though I did not think it was a particularly serious movie. Lots of perhaps unintentional laughs in that treatment of the battle of Thermopylae. Certainly in decades to come, people will kill themselves laughing at the cultural hangups revealed in the movie. But it was enjoyable. At least once.
Like Frank Miller, I saw the older movie treatment as a child and I wondered how the previous film would hold up. The answer is, not very well at all. It had its virtues: Greek landscapes, reasonably good depiction of military operations, some good sets (for instance, Xerxes' royal pavilions). The story, however, was slow and plodding and really not very much truer to the real situation than the Frank Miller version. It was a movie made up of old Hollywood clichés of character, and if you have seen enough old movies you could've written it yourself. My guess is that very few people today would write something similar from scratch. The year 1962 as seen through this particular lens, seemed a long way back.
I am not familiar enough with the small details of US policy towards the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to critique Charlie Wilson's War as a depiction of history, but it certainly is a modern movie. Movies go a lot faster now, they are much more efficient in setting the scene and characters and establishing plot points. Of course this movie was produced by Mike Nichols and written by Aaron Sorkin, who are consummate pros, but what they are professional at is noteworthy.
Interestingly enough, this weekend I also saw the classic British flick Darling (1965), when Julie Christie burst upon the film scene and won an Academy award for one of her first roles. She was fabulous but so was everything else. It had that same efficiency of pacing that I noted in Charlie Wilson's War. Perhaps someone better acquainted with the history of film could tell me how unusual those qualities were when they appeared in Darling.
As for yesterday's two films as historical films, let me quote something that a friend of mine posted at her blog two days ago. Sandra Dodd said:
So I'm sewing and watching Brother Sun, Sister Moon, a movie [about St. Francis and St. Clare -- SM] I will love for life despite that criticism of those who can't appreciate religious-art in the form of a movie. Had it been a painting with discrepancies from the historical record, or a sculpture, or a medal, no one would care. But make it HUGE, with real scenery and real medieval buildings and costumes and music, and people say "the armor is crap" and "Clare wasn't that age," and blah blah. ART. Art.You know, I hear a lot of that, too, and I too get impatient.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Cuneiform, politics, and international law
From the Tehran Times:
About 700 Iranologists and Iranian cultural heritage lovers have recently signed a petition asking President Barack Obama to prevent confiscation of Iran’s 300 Achaemenid clay tablets loaned to the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute.
The petition has been organized by the European Iranologist Society (Societas Iranologica Europaea, SIE) in its website www.societasiranologicaeu.org.
The petition reads the artifacts “being cultural property, should not be considered as a common property, whose financial value can be exploited for the purpose of legal compensation.”
“The antiquities belong to the cultural heritage of Iran on behalf of human kind and should therefore remain in public hands.
“We therefore, well aware of the separation of powers, nevertheless apply to you in order that this unconscionable decision with irreversible consequences should be avoided.
“A country such as the United States should not be complicit in the sale of the world’s cultural heritage.”
...
In spring 2006, U.S. District Court Judge Blanche Manning ruled that a group of people injured by a 1997 bombing in Israel could seize the 300 clay tablets loaned to the University of Chicago and the university cannot protect Iran’s ownership rights to the artifacts.
...
The tablets were discovered by the University of Chicago archaeologists in 1933 while they were excavating in Persepolis, the site of a major Oriental Institute excavation.
The artifacts bear cuneiform script explaining administrative details of the Achaemenid Empire from about 500 BC. They are among a group of tens of thousands of tablets and tablet fragments that were loaned to the university’s Oriental Institute in 1937 for study. [My emphasis, SM] A group of 179 complete tablets was returned in 1948, and another group of more than 37,000 tablet fragments was returned in 1951.
Image: One of the tablets, showing Old Persian written in cuneiform.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Canterbury Tales Prologue: as it really was?
Someone over at the MEDIEV-L mailing list alerted me to this piece of art, which reminds me of the early adventurous days of rap, when I would not have been surprised to hear Plato's Republic on the radio.
It is my personal opinion that since Chaucer was 14th century writer, addressing a 14th century audience, that there is some real chance that this is the original form of the Canterbury prologue. They were weird back that, almost as weird as we are.
There's that much misused "we" word. You know what to do with such statements...
It's all around us, all the time
The Medieval Material Culture Blog here reprints an article from the Times Online, which talks about one of the more interesting and accessible sources of historical trash, the Thames estuary in England. I have lots of friends who own medieval artifacts that were recovered from this area. Says the journalist, Huon Mallalieu :
When the tide is low and the weather fine, I sometimes walk the dog on the London Thames foreshore. After a good many years I am still amazed at what you come across if you train yourself to see what you are looking at.
Naturally there are broken pub glasses, plastic bags, bottles and buckets, disposable cigarette lighters, condoms, all the detritus of a string of nights before, but the leavings of the past are often strewn even more thickly. There are the half-decomposed, near-petrified, balks of timber going back to Neolithic times, the remains of barge-beds, medieval bricks, tiles and fragments of glass; rings and medals, pins and nails from many centuries; clay pipes and, more rarely, clay wig-curlers, bones, masses of ceramic shards, shoals of Victorian oyster and mussel shells; and strange fragments of marine equipment, hanks of unravelling rope — even the skeleton of a boat left to moulder a couple of hundred years ago.
Once, on the pebbly strand between Blackfriars and Southwark Bridges, where the Millennium Bridge is now, I interviewed Mike Webber, the archaeologist who headed the Museum of London’s 1998 survey of the tidal Thames foreshore. I thought I knew that stretch, and could guess what might turn up on it, but I was proved utterly wrong when he casually bent down and handed me a short, curved object.
“Have a walrus tusk,” he said. “Look, there,” he continued. “A waster. That’s a London delft floor tile, where the glaze spoiled in the kiln, so they chucked it away. Probably from the Bear Lane pottery over there.
“That pottery ring is the mouth of a sugar mould, like a rhubarb forcer for making sugar loaves. Look, there’s the base. Perhaps there was a sugar wharf here …”
Luca Marchio, intrepid traveller
Image: tourist shopping in Falluja. Also, below, the statue of Scheherazade in Baghdad from another New York Times article.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
A champion historical re-enactment
Duplicating the reported ancient Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa! Complete with months-long delays!
A really good article at Sail-world.com.
I am truly impressed.
Image: the ship, Phoenicia.
Protochronism
I think that perhaps all historians, once they have found their speciality, should then be forced to take a course on the period before it. It’s so often tempting to emphasise a particular phenomenon of one’s field and then say that it started with your subject population, but as with rock music (which all goes back to Chuck Berry, really, except that which he stole from the blues, which is quite a lot, and wherever the bluesmen (and blueswomen) got it from…) there’s always someone out there working on an earlier period going, “but I could point you to twenty of those from my stuff!” or similar. I’m most used to this with high medievalists claiming the discovery of the individual, or autobiography, or sovereignty, which could easily be paralleled from Carolingian or Anglo-Saxon source material if they wanted to ask anyone, but that might challenge their unique selling point…1 But it happens in my period too, and then the answer is usually “the Romans got there first”. And often the Greeks before them. And hey, if we had sources from Mesopotamia, who knows? Obviously at various times people have actually originated stuff, but not half as often as it is alleged.
Hey, Jonathan, we have mountains of sources, literally, from Mesopotamia...but I suspect you know that and simply jest. (Lots of those sources, BTW, concern sovereignty, or something that looks a lot like it.)
One thing I didn't see spelled out in this little essay is that the moment of the origination of whatever key feature is identified with a dividing line between real history (right up to the present) and a prehistory of slope-browed troglodytes who don't really count. The protochronistic moment isn't an isolated innovation, however important, but the origin of MODERNITY! And US! In ALL OUR PRE-DEPRESSION GLORY!
Yeah, I tend to be skeptical of such claims.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
30th anniversary
February marks the 30th anniversary of the climax of Iran's Islamic revolution. RFE/RL has an article asking whether this durable revolution can also be seen as a successful one. Well, the question remains unanswered, but there is some good material in the article nonetheless. Also at the same location you can find a collection of famous pictures of the Iranian revolution, or at least the huge crowds that turned out against the Shah. And don't miss the launching of an Iranian satellite, the first such launch without foreign help.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Reminder: Robin Gendron speaks on Inco and Indonesia on Wed., Feb. 4
Update: Jessica Parkes, a student in our MA program, should have been listed as co-presenter.