Posts

Kavanaugh: This Was No Witch Hunt

I recently wrote this piece in response to the comparisons of Kavanaugh's hearings to the witch trials in Salem in 1692 on behalf of Voices Against Injustice, a Salem-based nonprofit organization: The winds of Salem are rising.  From Canada’s Calgary Herald to Fox News, in blogs and tweets,  reporters, columnists and pundits have compared recent Senate hearings on the confirmation of  Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to the witch trials that consumed Salem, Massachusetts  in 1692.  Their claims, righteous and protective, defend Kavanaugh from his accusers and point to  a “witch hunt,” an hysterical web of conspiracy and lies. “No evidence!”  They clamor that Kavanaugh is “a convenient scapegoat” for those who identify with  the political left.  He is innocent, unjustly accused, caught in the turmoil of a political and cultural tempest  much like the victims of Salem.  The notion that Kavanaugh is a victim has been splashed all over  media. These claims are unfo

A Poem about Home

Just a few nights after my mother died, my sister Ellen and I were driving to a hotel near the small cottage at a senior community where my parents have lived since 2013. "What are we going to do?  Mom was home." she said. "I feel homeless," I said. It is true.  Our mother's heart was our port in the storm, an open welcome, a space of rest and respite.  The bricks and mortar surrounding her didn't matter.  She, herself, made us feel safe and loved, always and unconditionally. I came across this poem by Ruth Carr, that reminds me of our family home, and even more of our mom: There is a House there is a house whose door will not close in my face where there will always be a place for one more at the table. there is a house that lets in light all the year round even in the winter the weakest of suns reaches in. there is a house with walls that hold me like branches with a roof of summer leaves and roots that go deep. there is a house

When Someone You Love Dies: Notes for the Living

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I never gave a lot of thought to death until my mother died unexpectedly two months ago.  Now, I think about it all the time. Until confronted by it ourselves, we tend to ignore death and grief.  For something that is all around us, all the time, it seems invisible ---  right up until we become the ones blindsided by the news of the death of someone in our intimate circle -- parents, spouses, children, siblings, close friends.  My friend Erik said to me, "As the Greeks say, eventually, time and tragedy come for all of us."  Truth.  I am in the process of writing down some thoughts. Here is a list of things that, in retrospect, I wish I could have articulated to people in the wake of my mom's death about how to help and what they could anticipate from me.  There is no order and this list might not help you.  But I hope it helps.  If you are grieving, I send comfort and love.  If you want to help someone who is grieving, I send comfort and love. To My People: I

June 9 - the Feast of Saint Columba

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Credit: Museum of Free Derry The celebrations of Saint Columba in Derry City represent one of my favorite examples of what Eric Hobsawm and Terence Ranger named "an invented tradition."  In 1897,  the Catholic residents of Derry began a tradition of honoring their patron saint publicly in the streets of the city, as well as in its Catholic chapels. Here is an excerpt from my manuscript about the process, and reasons, for doing so. The celebrations of the thirteen hundredth anniversary of the death of St. Columba scheduled to be held in Gartan, Donegal, provided the catalyst for Long Tower's Father Willie Doherty to expand his vision of Derry as a city inspired by Columba and to invite the city’s Catholic population to join together to show religious reverence and pride for their cultural heritage. Father Willie served as a conduit, providing the stimulus and organization that enabled local Catholics to express publicly a broader Irish community identity in a way

Public History Summer Course

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Take a class with me this summer! Online conversations, field trips, occassional class meetings.  You will love it.  Registration Information: click here.  

Piracy or Exchange? The Fate of Ideas in the Avaricious Academy

Recently, a friend and fellow historian read a section of my manuscript for me.  She made an acute observation about the ways my protagonists consistently dug deep into the past whenever faced with a new conflict or challenge. "Interesting how they always take the long view," she noted in a comment. The long view. I love the phrase.  So much so, in fact, that I am determined to use it.  I might even incorporate it into the title of my book when it emerges.  I will acknowledge my colleague's general brilliance and specific contribution in the acknolwedgements that preface the book.  I will figure out a way to cite her.  If her phrase makes it into the title, I will buy her a bottle of wine.  As a tenured faculty member at a research university, my colleague will probably feel duly recognized and appreciated. This, after all, is part of our job -- to exchange ideas freely for the benefit of others.  As a tenure-track faculty member at a regional public university, I too

Listen to Veterans: the Student, Citizen, Soldier Oral History Project

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Veterans of the armed services aren't visible in our public and political culture because they aren't statistically significant.  That's what Tom Landers, an Army veteran and a graduate student in History at Salem State University, reminds us in an oral history with historian Andrew Darien for an important oral history project that launches for Veterans Day. Support for veterans' benefits and accolades for their service spike during campaign season, but once the spotlights fade, political leaders shirk their promises.  U.S. veterans fade back into the shadows of American society.  We rarely see or hear them speak for themselves about war, politics, or the short and long term effects and implications of their military service.  They become a convenient soundbyte.  In many cases, their history gets used for others' gain. Over the past five years, Salem State University has grown its enrollment of veterans, thanks in large part to the Veteran Assistants Vetera

Places Project Summary

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I copied over this article from the UMass History Dept blog.     In 2015, I set off for south-central Tennessee’s South Cumberland plateau to take up a two-year  Mellon fellowship with the Collaborative for Southern Appalachian Studies at Sewanee: the University of the South.  The Collaborative, a partnership with Yale, envisioned starting and sustaining multidisciplinary, community-engaged, curricular projects that had place as their focus. In other words: pretty much any public history endeavor would fit the bill. I had some basic goals for my Mellon project.  I wanted it to be something I could begin and complete in two years.   I wanted it to be digital.  I wanted it to engage local history and memory.  I wanted students with different interests and strengths to have meaningful roles to play.  Most of all, I wanted to undertake a humanities project that the pragmatic people of the region would see as useful — if not while I was doing it, then at least when

Art of Memory: Spill, Simmer, Falter, Wither

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This is one of those books.   You devour it because it is beautiful and unnerving and compelling and also because, deep down, you know this is not a book you can live with for days or weeks.  It is not a book that you can stare at on your bedstand or your living room table.  It is a book to be consumed.  Afterwards, you might want to forget it. But you won't be able to.  In other words, it is an Irish novel. Do I recommend it? I do.  I think. Maybe. I'm not sure. I am writing this blog post less to tell you about this book because I am not ready to talk about it than because I want to try to hold onto some of the language without having to actually pick up and revisit the book.  The language astounds me.  It is not derivative.  At least I don't think so.  If it is derivative, it is of Joyce with maybe a tiny bit of Patrick McCabe.  It is less, I don't know, inexorable, than either of those authors.  And yet the story told here is much more haunting than theirs

The Museum of Free Derry Needs to Keep the Names Up

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The Museum of Free Derry has recently drawn fire from all sides for an exhibit that lists the names of all those killed in the area during the early Troubles.  On one hand, relatives of RUC officers killed during the Troubles "find it disgraceful " that their loved ones are identified in a space they consider a bastion of republicanism and which supports "terrorism."  On the other hand, some relatives of Bloody Sunday victims and others object to the full display of names of those killed on the grounds that it shows "complete disrespect for those on the list that have been murdered by the establishment" by having members of "the establishment" listed alongside the Bloody Sunday dead and other victims of state violence.  While the exhibit has been up for a decade, it has received attention recently because of the reopening of the museum after renovations. I was so glad that the Museum of Free Derry received £2.4m to fund renovations and an ex