Department of History, UC Santa Barbara

The Racial Politics of Bernstein's On the Town (1944)
2011-04-07 00:00 (America/Denver)
Lecture I: An Integrated Cast in a Segregated AmericaThursday, April 7, 4 p.m., Karl Geiringer Hall (Music 1250)
On the Town (1944) was the first Broadway show of Leonard Bernstein (music), Betty Comden and Adolph Green (book and lyrics), and Jerome Robbins (choreography). It featured three sailors enjoying a one-day leave in New York City, and it did so in the midst of WWII, when the U.S. military remained firmly but contentiously segregated. A number of African Americans performed in the show’s otherwise all-white cast. Black male dancers donned sailor uniforms, and black women danced hand-in-hand with white men. This lecture explores the transgressive message and silent-but-powerful political back-story of this now-forgotten racial landmark.
Lecture II: A Japanese-American Star on Broadway during WWII
Friday, April 8, 4 p.m., Karl Geiringer Hall (Music 1250)
At the same time as On the Town contributed a chapter to the Long Civil Rights movement, it also challenged the virtual exclusion of Asians from Broadway by hiring the dancer Sono Osato as the show’s star. On the day after Pearl Harbor, Osato’s father had been arrested as an “alien enemy” and he remained on parole in Chicago when the show opened. This lecture explores the cultural complexities of Osato’s presence in On the Town .
Carol J. Oja is William Powell Mason Professor of Music at Harvard and on the faculty of its Program in the History of American Civilization. Her Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s won the Lowens Book Award from the Society for American Music and an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. Other titles include Copland and his World (co-edited with Judith Tick) and Colin McPhee: Composer in Two Worlds . She is past-president of the Society for American Music, and she is completing a book tentatively titled Bernstein Meets Broadway: Collaborative Art in a Time of War .
These lectures are sponsored by the UCSB Department of Music.
jwil 28.iii.2011

The Anatolian Past and the Roman Beholder
2011-04-06 00:00
In Roman antiquity as much as now, the landscapes of Asia Minor were strewn with the traces of prior human habitation, from Hittite rock-cut reliefs to abandoned Urartian fortifications. Anatolian authors writing under Roman rule—notably during the second and third centuries CE—had a keen interest in exploring mythological and pseudo-historical narratives about the local past; echoing these literary concerns, the sculptural and numismatic production of cities throughout Roman Asia Minor celebrated remote foundation myths and kinship ties. But was anyone interested in manipulating material remains to imagine the Anatolian past? And were the traces of prior human habitation used to substantiate a preferred one version of local history over others? Who cared about Anatolian realia and why?
Felipe Rojas received his Ph.D. in Classics from UC Berkeley. He is a 2010-2011 postdoctoral fellow at the Getty Villa.
This event is sponsored by the Ancient Mediterranean Studies program and the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group.
jwil 09.iii.2011

Teach-In against Corporate Greed
2011-04-05 00:00
Faculty are invited to bring their classes.
From 1100AM to 1230PM the national teach-in will be streaming live on the
big screen. From 1230 to 200PM we will have local speakers and discussion
about the current assault on unions, students, the poor and elderly, women,
people of color, and gays. There will be a lot to talk about, but at this
point some of the key issues are these:
Corporate and particularly Wall St fraud and looting of the public via
regressive redistribution of taxation and social provision of all types: in
education, health care, public transport etc.
Efforts to rescind hard-won rights: workers’ rights to organize and bargain
collectives, women’s rights to abortion, contraception, and a variety of
health services, students’, poor people’s, and people of color’s right to
vote, gay people’s rights to marry and domestic partnership, a variety of
civil rights and liberties, and others….
In respect to these rollback efforts it is most notable that few of them
have any relationship to the US fiscal crisis, which was the supposed big
issue in the 2010 elections; where there is a significant relationship, it
usually involves worsening and deepening that crisis, for example by
cutting corporate taxes and further reducing the already limited tax burden
of the wealthy.
Although there was no advance indication that newly elected leaders were
planning this on either the federal, state, or local levels, a coordinated
national initiative is underway to undermine the Democratic Party in
advance of the 2012 elections, both by restricting its access to funds and
by curtailing the voting rights of its main constituency bases: unionized
workers, people of color, young voters, and women. None of these groups
have any significant relationship to the fiscal crisis of the state at any
level, although propaganda efforts are underway to suggest that public
sector workers, abortion rights, and such programs as HeadStart are the
sources of the problem. We are talking largely about Republican strategy
here, but it is notable that at thus far there has been little Democratic
effort to counter these assaults.
The purpose of this Teach-in is to raise consciousness on campuses across
the country about the present political crisis, and to help mobilize
students in their own (and the public) interest.
hm 3/24/11

Whiskey Goes to War: American Distillers and the Politics of Food and Alcohol during WWII
2011-04-05 00:00
The invasion of Normandy, the creation of an industrial war machine, and the falling reputation of rum—how does whiskey tie them all together? Lisa Jacobson answers this question by exploring the political and cultural ramifications of domestic whiskey shortages during World War II. Contrary to the common assumption that the federal government steered clear of alcohol questions after Prohibition’s repeal, her paper shows how large distillers emerged from the war both more powerful and more distrusted thanks to delayed federal intervention on their behalf. Distillers might have scored a much-needed public relations victory when they converted their entire production to industrial alcohol to aid in the manufacture of smokeless gun powder and synthetic rubber. Their substantial reserves of aging whiskey, however, could not keep pace with rising wartime demand and the resulting liquor shortages gave way to price gouging and black markets. The distillers campaigned for (and eventually won) “liquor holidays” from war production to replenish dwindling whiskey inventories, but the state’s ambivalent response to liquor shortages and the liquor trade’s own eagerness to profit from them damaged whiskey makers’ reputation.
This paper workshop is designed to provide the author with feedback on work-in-progress. Please contact Ali Hendley at ahendley@umail.ucsb.edu to obtain a copy of the paper to read beforehand.
Sponsored by the IHC’s Food Studies RFG and the Dept. of History.
hm 3/30/11

Next Generation Nano? Narratives of Synthetic Biology
2011-03-30 00:00
This talk will explore how narratives of novelty and familiarity have been routinely deployed by practitioners, analysts, and policymakers alike in synthetic biology, and what this may mean for a consideration of synthetic biology as “the new new thing” for studies of emerging technoscience.
Luis Campos is a graduate of Harvard’s History of Science Department and is now an assistant professor, focusing on the history of biology, at Drew University.

Spring Quarter Classes Begin
2011-03-28 00:00
Spring Quarter 2011 classes begin on Monday, March 28.
If you are enrolled in a discussion section that meets before the main lecture meets, you should still attend section that week.
See calendar link below for details.
Spring 2011 final examination schedule
hm 3/16/11

From the Valley of the Kings to Philae: Ancient and Modern Pilgrimages
2011-03-28 00:00
Dr Cruz-Uribe will examine the role of pilgrimage in ancient Egypt, especially during Roman and Byzantine times. Using both newly-discovered and well-known Coptic and Demotic texts, he will compare the pilgrimage practices of the traditional Egyptian and Nubian populations with the practices of the contemporary Christians, investigating why the Egyptians went on pilgrimages, how the Christians began to emulate “pagan” pilgrimage practices, and the conflicts that arose between the groups over control of pilgrimage destination points.
This talk is sponsored by the Archaeology Research Focus Group with cooperation from the Ancient Mediterranean Studies program.
jwil 07.iii.2011

Rationing Food in Wartime: Doomed to Fail?
2011-03-10 00:00
Food shortages in Occupied Europe offer a marked contrast to the experience with food rationing in the United States and Britain during World War II. Adding the French experience with rationing to comparative work on Britain and the United States offers a broader perspective on what was really important in wartime food rationing and its relative successes and failures.
Kenneth Mouré is Professor and Chair of the Department of History, University of Alberta.
This event is sponsored by the IHC Food Studies Research Focus Group.
jwil 03.iii.2011

Gender Studies in Kazakhstan
2011-03-07 00:00
Prof. Nazym Shedenova Dept. of Sociology, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Almaty, Kazakhstan
Prof. Shedenova is a founder of Gender Studies in Kazakhstan and an expert on the role of women in the Kazakhstan labor force. She has participated in a wide array of programs focused on gender in Germany, Ukraine, Hungary, United Kingdom, and India. Professor Shedenova is currently a visiting scholar at the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
Sponsored by IHC RFG on Identity, Feminist Studies, and Political Science.
hm 2/28/11

Changing Values in Egyptian Burial at the End of the Late Bronze Age
2011-03-07 00:00
Egyptian 20th and 21st Dynasty (1190-945 BCE) funerary arts from Thebes find their origins within the social unrest of the Late Bronze Age. In Thebes, funerary preparations were challenged with limited burial space, scarce material resources, tomb robbery, and re-use. Surviving funerary materials reflect a variety of defensive innovations while at the same time preserving the ability of elite families to shore up social power by means of funerary displays.
The mummy is perhaps our best evidence for these defensive burial adaptations, as it was the only part of the Egyptian burial that could not be re-used by someone else and returned to the sphere of the commodity. Investments in mummification probably provided psychological security for Theban elites, with the heightened intent of perfectly preserving the flesh and bone of the deceased for eternity.
Kathlyn (Kara) Cooney is Assistant Professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture at UCLA.
This talk is sponsored by the Archaeology Research Focus Group, with cooperation from the Ancient Mediterranean Studies program.
jwil 23.ii.2011

Early Hellenistic Corinth Between Antigonid Macedon and the Achaian League
2011-03-07 00:00
Corinth, like many Greek poleis (”city-states”), did not enjoy full autonomy and freedom during the Hellenistic period. Between the battles of Chaironeia (338 BC) and Cynoscephalae (197 BC), Corinth was almost continuously under the control of Antigonid Macedon, except for a brief time (243-224 BC) when it belonged to the Achaian League. This talk focuses on Corinth’s experience as a member state of the Achaian League. It scrutinizes the widely-held perception that the Corinthians enjoyed greater freedom and autonomy under the Achaian League than they had under the Macedonians.
Michael Dixon is Professor of History at the University of Southern Indiana.
This event is sponsored by the Ancient Mediterranean Studies program and the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group.
jwil 05.I.2011

The Jewish Odyssey: An Illustrated History
2011-03-06 00:00
Marek Halter is an international best-selling novelist, filmmaker and human rights activist.
Sponsored by the Harman P. and Sophia Taubman Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies, cosponsored by UCSB Arts & Lectures, Dept. of Religious Studies, Congregation B’nai B’rith, Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Hillel
hm 12/7/10

The Crisis and the Global Economy
2011-03-04 00:00
Please join us for a talk by BARRY EICHENGREEN, Economics and Political Science, UC Berkeley. “The Crisis and the Global Economy.” A former advisor to the International Monetary Fund, Eichengreen is the author of Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System (2008) and Global Imbalances and the Lessons of Bretton Woods (2006).
The talk, and subsequent discussion, is part of the History 294: Colloquium in Work, Labor, and Political Economy, 2010-2011 lecture series.
The Winter Quarter topic is “The Financial Crisis and its Origins.”
The Colloquium meets on Friday, March 4 at 1 p.m. in 4041 Humanities and Social Science Building.
jmj 01/03/2011

An Ax Falling under the Candle Light: A Royal Murder Mystery, History Writing, & the Political Culture of Song China
2011-03-02 00:00
The Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE) is known for its remarkable political stability. Yet, its very first royal succession was shrouded in mystery– murder mystery. Why did the founding emperor, Taizu, pass over his grown sons to designate his younger brother Taizong to be his heir? Or did he? Did Taizong kill his older brother Taizu, possibly with poison or an ax? This paper will discuss how the memory of the murder mystery was simultaneously hushed up and preserved during the Song, and what the subtle influence of this memory can tell us about history writing and the political culture of the Song period. And of course, the murder mystery itself will also be discussed.
Dr. Xiao-bin Ji teaches in the Department of History at UCSB.
This lecture is sponsored by the UCSB East Asia Center.
jwil 01.iii.2011

Communities, Development and the Cold War: The Peace Corps in South America during the 1960s.
2011-03-02 00:00
This presentation will examine the work and experiences of United States Peace Corps volunteers who served in South America during the 1960s. Paying particular attention to the interaction of volunteers with South American people, their multiple interests and contradictions and to their motivations for becoming volunteers, the talk will evaluate the way in which the global Cold War was experienced at a community level. This is part of an ongoing research project that combines both a diplomatic as well as a socio-cultural approach and incorporates non-state actors to understand the global Cold War in South America.
This is a UCSB(LAIS) and CSU-Los Angeles collaborative talk event.
It is free and open to the public.
hm 2/23/11

Dead Kings and National Myths: Why myths of founding and martyrdom are important
2011-03-02 00:00
Prof. Sabrina Ramet. Professor of Political Science, The Norwegian University of Science &Technology Visiting Scholar, Northwestern University, 1 Sept 2010–31 March 2011
Location: Lane Rm, 3rd fl, Ellison Hall
Sponsored by RFG Identity.
hm 1/30/11, 2/27 image

Public Memorial Service honoring Tom Sizgorich
2011-03-01 00:00
There will be a public memorial for Tom Sizgorich at UCSB on a date around early March, to be announced.
Hal Drake has also set up a fund for the Tom Sizgorich Memorial Incoming Graduate Student Award. It will go to an outstanding incoming graduate student from an economically disadvantaged background pursuing any of Tom’s fields of interest:
Ancient History,
Late Antiquity,
Early Islamic History or
Borderlands Studies.
Checks should be made out to:
UC Regents/UCSB History Associates
Thomas Sizgorich Memorial Fund
and mailed to:
Thomas Sizgorich Memorial Fund
Office of Community Relations
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-1136
hm 2/12/11

When Wall Street Met Main Street, 1890-1932
2011-02-25 00:00
Please join us for a talk by JULIA OTT, New School for Social Research, “When Wall Street Met Main Street, 1890-1932.” Ott’s book of the same title will be published by Harvard University Press in the spring of 2011. Her next project considers the enduring influence of financial institutions and pro-investor ideology in recent U.S. political history.
The talk, and subsequent discussion, is part of the History 294: Colloquium in Work, Labor, and Political Economy, 2010-2011 lecture series.
The Winter Quarter topic is “The Financial Crisis and its Origins.”
The Colloquium meets on Friday, January 25 at 1 p.m. in 4041 Humanities and Social Science Building.
jmj 01/03/2011

Migrant Rights and Migrant Melodrama, or Elvira Arellano as Suffering Mother and Evil Mother, Criminal and Saint
2011-02-24 00:00
Date: Thursday, Feb. 24th from 5:00-6:00 p.m.Location: 2nd Floor conference room, #2135, Social Sciences and
Media Studies building
Abstract of Talk:
Ana Elena Puga trains a theater/performance studies lens on the
struggle to control public perception of undocumented migrant rights
activist Elvira Arellano, who was deported in 2007. Puga coins the
term “migrant melodrama” to describe how key media coverage,
cultural production, and social performance in Arellano’s case
recycled and deployed tropes from nineteenth-century melodrama.
Migrant melodrama was used by Arellano herself, as well as by both
supporters and detractors of the single mother, who sought
sanctuary in a Chicago church together with her US-born son. Can
melodramatic spectacles of suffering insist on a common humanity
and make ethical claims for inclusion into an imagined community?
Yet can they also backfire by setting the price of inclusion at an
impossibly high level of virtue?
Bio of Speaker:
Ana Puga’s current book project, Desperate Acts: Melodrama and
Spectacles of Suffering in the Performance of Migration,
interrogates the reliance on melodrama in late twentieth and
twenty-first century artistic and social performances featuring
undocumented migrants from Latin America, especially women and
children. Desperate Acts shows how performances that involve
suffering migrant bodies often re-circulate nineteenth-century
melodramatic tropes from race, domestic, and sensation melodramas,
asking how those tropes circumscribe contemporary political agency.
Puga is the author of Memory, Allegory, and Testimony in South
American Theatre: Upstaging Dictatorship (Routledge 2008) and
translator, with Mónica Núñez-Parra, of Finished from the Start and
other Plays, an anthology of six works by Chilean playwright Juan
Radrigán (Northwestern University Press 2008). Puga has published
articles in Latin American Theatre Review and Theatre Journal,
among other journals. She co-founded LaMicro Theatre, dedicated to
the staging of contemporary Spanish, Latin American and US Latino
plays in English and bilingual productions.
hm 2/21/11; jwil 22.ii.2011

4th Annual Ask-A-Vet Forum
2011-02-23 00:00
A panel of UCSB student veterans will participate in this event, now in its fourth year. The students will discuss their experiences in the armed forces, including service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their transition to university life. This event is sponsored by Student Veterans at UCSB, a non-partisan student group sponsored by the Office of Student Life. Professor John Lee from the Department of History will serve as moderator for the forum.
jwil 15.ii.2011

Galileo's Middle Finger: Struggles of Science and Identity Politics in the Internet Age
2011-02-18 00:00
Dear friends of Lawrence Badash and members of the community,
The UCSB Center for Science and Society is pleased to announce the second annual Lawrence Badash Lecture. The Badash Lecture honors a scholar of science and society whose work has advanced not only the history of science, but also the larger aims of social justice, civil liberties, peace and disarmament, public health, or environmental protection.
The first annual Badash Lecture, held in 2010, honored Gregg Mitman,
Director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the
University of Wisconsin. This year’s address will be given by Alice
Domurat Dreger, Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics
in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Please
join us for this exciting event.
Abstract:
This talk explores the nature of contemporary scientific controversies
regarding human identity. We will consider several case studies
(including one involving UCSB emeritus professor Napoloen Chagnon) to
parse out the similarities and differences among these cases, and to
consider what scientists and identity activists can do to more
effectively engage in productive, fair dialogue. The speaker
approaches this topic as an historian of science and medicine who has
been studying this issue as part of a Guggenheim book project, but
also as someone who has been an advocate in the intersex rights
movement and as someone who has been subject to scathing criticisms by
some transgender rights advocates for her historical scholarship.
About the Speaker:
Alice Dreger is Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics
in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, and a
Guggenheim Fellow. Her books include *Hermaphrodites and the Medical
Invention of Sex* and *One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of
Normal* (both from Harvard University Press). She served as Chair of
the Board of the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) for seven
years. Dr. Dreger’s essays on science, medicine, and life have
appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the
Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. In 2009, W. W. Norton
selected her essay, “Lavish Dwarf Entertainment,” for inclusion in its
annual Best Creative Non-Fiction volume. She has appeared on numerous
broadcasts as an expert on sex, including on HBO, CNN, the Oprah
Winfrey Show, and Savage Love. Dr. Dreger is a regular blogger for
Psychology Today and a contributor to the Hastings Center’s Bioethics
Forum. More information is available at her personal website,
alicedreger.com.
About Larry Badash:
Professor Emeritus Larry Badash passed away in 2010 after a 36-year
teaching and research career at UCSB. A specialist in the history of
physics and nuclear weapons, Larry was the author of seven books and
dozens of articles. He was also a popular mentor, avid outdoorsman,
and community activist who worked for civil liberties and
environmental protection. For more about Larry’s life and
accomplishments, please see:
SB Independent obituary, Sept. 2010
This event is hosted by the UCSB Center for Science and Society, and
cosponsored by the UCSB departments of Anthropology and Feminist
Studies.
hm 1/25/11

A Long Strange Trip: The State and the Market for Mortgage Securitization, 1968-2010
2011-02-18 00:00
Please join us for a talk by NEIL FLIGSTEIN, Sociology, UC Berkeley. “A Long Strange Trip: The State and the Market for Mortgage Securitization, 1968-2010.” Fligstein is the author of Markets, Politics, and Globalization (1997) and The Architecture of Markets: An Economic Sociology of Capitalist Societies (2002). His current work evaluates how policies in the 1980s and 1990s to “maximize shareholder value” effected the organization of American industries and working conditions.
The talk, and subsequent discussion, is part of the History 294: Colloquium in Work, Labor, and Political Economy, 2010-2011 lecture series.
The Winter Quarter topic is “The Financial Crisis and its Origins.”
The Colloquium meets on Friday, February 18 at 1 p.m. in 4041 Humanities and Social Science Building.
jmj 01/03/2011

The Career and Influence of Apple Computer's CEO, Steve Jobs
2011-02-17 00:00
When Apple Computer recently announced that CEO Steve Jobs wastaking a medical leave, its stock dropped 5 per cent in one day and
pundits began to speculate about the company’s future. How did the
fate of a multi-billion dollar enterprise come to rest so heavily on the
health of a single individual? Join us February 17 as local author Daniel
Alef tells the fascinating story of one of America’s most intriguing and
complex business leaders. Since he co-founded Apple, Steve Jobs has
led an evolution in American technology and culture that has affected
the way Americans think, write, and communicate; the way we buy
and listen to music, even our concept of animated films. Daniel Alef
will describe the defining moments and events in Jobs’ life and attempt
to pierce the iron veil that accounts for his mystique.
Daniel Alef is an award-winning novelist, author and former
syndicated columnist. In addition to his novel, Pale Truth
(named Book-of-the-Year in general fiction by Foreword
magazine at BEA in 2000), the former lawyer and CEO is
the author of articles ranging from the Journal of Taxation to
American Biography, a book on tax law, and more than 300
biographical profiles of America’s great titans of fortune. He is
also a contributor to Sage Publishing’s just released Gender &
Women’s Leadership: A Reference Handbook. A member of the
History Associates Board of Directors, Alef received his J.D. from UCLA Law School
and an LL.M. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He did
post-graduate work at Cambridge University (Queen’s College). He is also one of the
head coaches (senseis) of the UCSB Judo Club.
$20 (HA members and guests) $23 (non-members)
For more information or to reserve your spot, call (805) 617-0998.
This event is sponsored by UCSB’s History Associates.
Since 1987, UCSB History Associates has brought together community members and UCSB faculty through an annual program of history-focused lectures, lunches, and tours. The History Associates raise money to support graduate training in History at UCSB. Support from the History Associates makes an essential contribution to the success of our graduate students.
hm 2/5/11, 2/7

Solvang Past and Present
2011-02-16 00:00
Solvang’s particular Danishness has evolved in step with the American twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. An emphasis on tourism has both preserved and distorted the heritage that fueled the community’s origin. By looking at the details of Solvang’s architecture and objects, we learn what lures recreational shoppers from around the world. Interviews with Solvang’s residents reveal points of view on a cultural production that packages Danish traditions with a dependence on a Latino workforce. Esther Jacobsen Bates will discuss the history of Solvang and how it became the Danish enclave it is today. Ethan Turpin will share short films on his hometown and what he learned in the process of documenting its cultural space.See Solvang presentation page.
Sponsored by the IHC’s Local Places and Geographies of Place series.
About the Local Places Series
How did Solvang become Danish? How did Santa Barbara become California’s first Hollywood? How did Isla Vista become home to one of the most distinguished artists’ presses? Join the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center as we delve into these and other fascinating regional histories in our talks on Local Places.
For more information, please visit: http://www.ihc.ucsb.edu/series/local-places/

Language Vitality in Southern Mexico: Histories of Forced Relocations
2011-02-14 00:00
From the mid 1950s to the late 1980s, thousand of indigenous people -particularly Mazatecos and Chinantecos – were relocated from their towns in the state of Oaxaca to the state of Veracruz, to make way for two large dams. There is no record of how many families where relocated, and only few anthropological accounts followed these processes, They all agreed in describing these relocations as ethnocidal, and that the languages were in risk of disappearing. Half a century after the relocations, contrary to what was predicted, we find linguistic communities of Mazatecos, Chinantecos, Nahuas and Zapotecos in the region of southern Veracruz. Due to their lack of territory, language has become a determinant factor in the reproduction of identity and the social, economical and political organization of these communities. In this presentation we discus some of these communities and the conditions under which their languages have persisted.
hm 2/7/11, 2/13

What's the Matter with Marriage? Some Early Christian Answers
2011-02-14 00:00
Abstract forthcoming.
Elizabeth Clark is John Kilgo Carlisle Professor of Religion and Professor of History at Duke University.
This event is sponsored by the Ancient Mediterranean Studies program and the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group.
jwil 05.I.2011

Painting the People’s Court: Art and Democracy in Postwar Japan
2011-02-11 00:00
This paper introduces the work of a group of miner-artists at a coal mine in northern Japan, as an exampleof how art and other forms of cultural expression became vehicles for building new forms of democratic
subjectivity after the end of WWII. The miner-artists’ vision was but one of a multiplicity of visions that
jostled and jockeyed in the dispersed cultural environment of the early postwar, but their efforts to represent
and memorialize an important moment in their recent history can be seen as part of a broad movement
among ordinary people to participate in the formation of their own culture and lay claim to the franchise of
authorship.
hm 2/9/11

The Politics of Heritage from Madras to Chennai.
2011-02-10 00:00
Discussant: Prof. Amit Ahuja, Political Science, UCSB
The Politics of Heritage from Madras to Chennai examines the dynamics of public memory in the southern Indian city of Chennai, a former colonial port that now hosts new economic ventures such as software engineering, back office services and export processing. Over the past two decades of neoliberal globalization, state and municipal authorities have launched new efforts to attract investment and consumption through regulatory changes and by fashioning a heritage-conscious cityscape. Working from specific sites (museums, temples, vernacular architecture projects and memorials), Hancock grapples with the question of how people in Chennai remember, represent and debate their past, considering the political and economic contexts and implications of those memory practices.
Mary Hancock is Professor in the Departments of History and Anthropology at UCSB, where she teaches courses on public memory, religion and the anthropology of space and place. She earned her PhD n Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, and is the author of The Politics of Memory from Madras to Chennai, as well as numerous articles that have appeared in Modern Asian Studies, American Ethnologist, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, and the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
Amit Ahuja, Assistant Professor of Political Science, UCSB, conducts research on the participation and mobilization of marginalized ethnic groups. His interests are located in the areas of ethnic politics, political development, security studies, and South Asia.
Download chapters from the Book: Chapters 1 and 4 from the
RFG Identity website.
Chapter 1 provides background information and we will focus our discussion on Chapter 4.
Sponsored by RFG Identity.
hm 1/30/11

The Evolution of Arab- and Muslim-American Activism in the Post-9/11 Decade
2011-02-09 00:00
The talk is sponsored by the Center for Cold War Studies and International History (CCWS) and cosponsored by the Department of History.
The event is free and open to the public. A brief reception will follow Dr. Ibish’s presentation.
Please join us for this exciting event!
Hussein Ibish will discuss Arab- and Muslim-American activism after September 11, 2001. He will address immediate reactions to the terrorist attacks, examining how the communities coped with various kinds of fallout and backlash and organized politically in response. He will also consider the longer-term ramifications for Arab and Muslim Americans’ political and community organizing, and the prospects for their empowerment and integration into the American social, cultural, and political scene. Finally, Dr. Ibish will look at the rise of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism in the broader American cultural and political discourse, and responses to it from various sources.
Hussein Ibish is a Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) and Executive Director of the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership. Dr. Ibish has made thousands of radio and television appearances and has written for many newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. He was the Washington, DC Correspondent for the Daily Star (Beirut). Dr. Ibish is editor and principal author of three major studies of hate crimes and discrimination against Arab Americans and the author of numerous articles on Middle Eastern politics, U.S. policy, civil liberties, and Arab-American life. His most recent book is “What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda? Why Ending the Occupation and Peace with Israel is Still the Palestinian National Goal” (ATFP, 2009).
hm 1/29/11

Magic and Religion in Ancient Corinth
2011-02-08 00:00
Located at the narrowest part of the Greek peninsula and controlling land and sea traffic in all four directions, Corinth became famous as one of the greatest commercial centers in the ancient world. Her mighty rock fortress of Acrocorinth also made her almost impervious to attack. Corinth was a prime player in all the important historical events of antiquity, succumbing at one point to destruction by the Roman armies in 146 B.C. and abandonment for roughly a century. Revived by Julius Caesar, Corinth became a provincial capital and once again a thriving center of trade and culture, attracting a large and diverse population of Italians, Egyptians, Jews, Syrians, and many others.
From at least as early as legendary times Corinth also had a reputation as a center for magic and the occult. The city was the venue for some of the most striking adventures of the most notorious witch in Greece, Medea. Many tales about ghosts, haunted houses, the supernatural, and monsters were set in Corinth. Excavations by the American School of Classical Studies have revealed a “cell” where black magic was practiced at night high up on the slopes of Acrocorinth in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone. It was established at roughly the same time as St. Paul’s famous Christian mission to Corinth in the middle of the first century after Christ.
This lecture will present some of the special magical equipment used in these secret activities, as well as the texts incised on lead tablets carrying curses that were deposited in this shrine. Named individuals are singled out for destruction and merit special attention because both writers and targets of many are women.
Ronald Stroud is Klio Distinguished Professor of Classical Languages and Literature Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.
jwil 29.vii.2010
