Franco-American Culture Wars

Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives

American multiculturalism and intellectual influences are increasingly threatening French identity, according to French President Macron and his ministers.

The New York Times reports on the developing Franco-American Culture Wars: “Stepping up its attacks on social science theories that it says threaten France, the French government announced this week that it would launch an investigation into academic research that it says feeds ‘Islamo-leftist’ tendencies that ‘corrupt society.’ News of the investigation immediately caused a fierce backlash among university presidents and scholars, deepening fears of a crackdown on academic freedom — especially on studies of race, gender, post-colonial studies and other fields that the French government says have been imported from American universities and contribute to undermining French society.”

Questions of race and laïcité (secularism) seem to be at the heart of the French political debate over American intellectual influences and French identity.

French concepts of religious toleration and laïcité developed during…

View original post 302 more words

Newberry Graduate Student Conference in Premodern Studies

Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives

The Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library will be holding its annual Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Conference in Premodern Studies as a virtual conference on 8-13 February 2021.

Graduate students in History, English, and World Languages and Cultures at Northern Illinois University often participate in the Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Conference in Premodern Studies. NIU graduate students have served as organizers, chairs, and presenters in previous conferences.

Here is the announcement from the Center for Renaissance Studies:

2021 Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Conference
#NLGrad2021
February 8-13, 2021
Online via Zoom

Join us for a special virtual edition of the Newberry’s Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Conference in Premodern Studies from February 8-13, 2021!

Each year, graduate students from the Consortium and beyond join us at the Newberry for a friendly, fascinating multidisciplinary conference. This year’s conference has been split between several remote asynchronous seminars, in which participants have built new intellectual networks and received feedback…

View original post 164 more words

A Violin and the Mechanisms of Peace and Reconciliation

Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives

A violin constructed by Giuseppe Guarneri, an eighteenth-century violin maker from Cremona known as del Gesù (of Jesus), has become the center of a controversy over the legacies of Nazi coercion and looting of artworks belonging to Jewish victims of Nazi intimidation, discrimination, and the Holocaust.

Hildesheimer violin (New York Times)

Felix Hildesheimer, a Jewish music instrument dealer, purchased the Guarneri violin in 1938, perhaps hoping to sell it abroad. Hildesheimer and his wife apparently were attempting to depart Germany and move to Australia, but they could not get the appropriate visas. Felix Hildesheimer committed suicide and the violin disappeared from the records….

Felix Hildesheimer (New York Times)

The New York Times reports: “The government’s Advisory Commission on the return of Nazi-looted cultural property determined in 2016 that the violin was almost certainly either sold by Hildesheimer under duress, or seized by the Nazis after his…

View original post 308 more words

Politicized National Guard Poses Threat

Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives

In the aftermath of the Storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2020, political tensions and civil violence continue to grow across the United States, creating a dangerous situation that National Guard forces is now being called to address. At least 20,000 National Guard troops from the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York are already deployed in the nation’s capital and additional National Guards troops from other states have been mobilized.

Hundreds of National Guard troops hold inside the Capitol Visitor’s Center to reinforce security at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021. The House of Representatives is pursuing an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump for his role in inciting an angry mob to storm the Capitol last week. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The reasons for the lack of the participation of National Guard units in defending the Capitol is still under…

View original post 1,264 more words

Siege Warfare and the Storming of the Capitol

Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives

The Storming of the Capitol of the United States of America on 6 January 2020 represented an insurrectionary act and a military operation, not a riot by a mob.

The Pro-Trump supporters who participated in the “Save America” rally and march to the Capitol came to Washington, D.C., armed and organized for storming the Capitol in order to halt the legitimate certification of the Electoral College vote. Many groups who organized the “Stop the Steal” campaign clearly aimed to coerce, take hostage, or kill targeted U.S. Representatives and Senators and their staff members that they viewed as treasonous. The Make America Great Again (MAGA) crowd also targeted Vice President Pence and members of Congress for execution as traitors.

Many journalists and politicians have referred to the Siege of the Capitol, a description that does not precisely capture the nature of the event. Nonetheless, the history of siege warfare offers an…

View original post 1,200 more words

Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement

Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives

It is more important than ever to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this year and to remember his vital work for racial equality and social justice.

The killing of George Floyd and so many other African Americans over the past year has underscored the urgent need to continue Martin Luther King’s campaign against racism and injustice. The Black Lives Matter movement continues to pursue many of MLK’s civil rights and social justice aims through non-violent protest and social activism that were at the core of his civil rights campaign in the 1960s.

Martin Luther King’s powerful speeches from the Civil Rights Movement continue to be relevant today because of continuing racism and injustice in American politics and society.

The New York Times reports that “Amid the change and upheaval, the words of Dr. King, both those celebrated and the less familiar, feel more urgent then perhaps ever before, both…

View original post 247 more words

Doctoral Fellowships in European History

Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives

The European University Institute in Fiesole, Italy, is offering fully funded doctoral fellowships for students wishing to pursue Ph.D. studies in European history.

The European University Institute (EUI) is located on a majestic hill overlooking Firenze (Florence), Italy, an inspiring historic setting for studying medieval, Renaissance, and early modern history. The EUI is a major higher education institution of the European Union, with professors, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students from all EU member states.

I held a Jean Monnet Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of History and Civilization at the European University Institute after completing my Ph.D. dissertation and I can highly recommend the History program at the EUI.

Here is the European University Institute’s announcement:

The call for applications for the European University Institute fully-funded four-year Ph.D. programme will be launched on1 November 2020. The EUI Department of History and Civilization offers exceptional opportunities to study global connections within…

View original post 197 more words

Saint Sebastian and the Arrows of the Plague

Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives

The Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library has published a new episode of its series on Learning from Premodern Plagues on “Saint Sebastian and the Arrows of the Plague.”

Students in my courses on HIST 110 History of the Western World I and HIST 422 Early Modern Europe at Northern Illinois University are studying the Black Death and recurrent plague this semester and may be interested in this video presentation, which is available for streaming on YouTube.

Here is the announcement from the Center for Renaissance Studies:

Saint Sebastian and the Arrows of the Plague
Learning from Premodern Plagues

CRS is pleased to announce the latest episode of “Learning from Premodern Plagues,” a series of videos exploring peoples’ experiences of plagues from the sixth through the eighteenth century. Each short (3-5 minute) video focuses on one object that tells the story of a particular moment in plague history, and…

View original post 149 more words

Speech as Protest: Being Heard and Taking Up Space in the Premodern World

Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives

The Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library is hosting a virtual conference on Speech as Protest: Being Heard and Taking Up Space in the Premodern World.

This virtual conference is organized by Elisa J. Jones (College of Charleston) and will include a keynote address by Ada Palmer (University of Chicago).

I am looking forward to participating in one of the roundtable sessions at the conference and presenting on “‘There is Not a Single Catholic in This City’: Public Preaching and Conversion during the French Wars of Religion.”

Graduate students in medieval and early modern history at Northern Illinois University are invited to attend the virtual conference. See the announcement from the Center for Renaissance Studies and a registration link at the Speech as Protest: Being Heard and Taking Up Space in the Premodern World conference page on the Newberry Library website.

Speech as Protest:
Being Heard and Taking…

View original post 235 more words

On the Business of War

Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives

The business of war is unfortunately all too present in today’s world, yet the activities of weapons researchers and developers, arms manufacturers, military contractors, military gear designers, military trade shows, gun dealers, military suppliers, and private military companies are not well understood.

Secrecy, arms accords, military espionage, corporate spying, and economic competition often result in military logistics and arms issues being obscured from public view. Certainly, Hollywood tends to treat the business of war as a nefarious underworld in war films—and perhaps that is completely justified.

Unfortunately, there continue to be few comprehensive studies of the business of war.

David Parrott’s The Business of War: Military Enterprise and Military Revolution in
Early Modern Europe (2012) is thus especially welcome. This book provides an important historical study of the business of war in the early modern Europe and lays the groundwork for future studies of the business of war in different…

View original post 59 more words