December 2010

Eugenio Menegon winsHumanities Foundationsenior fellowship

Professor Eugenio Menegon(photo inset), who was pro-moted to the rank of associate

professor earlier this academic year, haslearned fromthe BostonU n i v e r s i t yHuman i t i e sFounda t ionthat he haswon a Hender-son SeniorHuman i t i e sFellowship for

2011-12. His project and the subject ofhis research during this time, entitled“Amicitia Palatina: Court Networks andthe Europeans in Imperial Beijing, 1601-1820,” will focus on the relationshipthat China’s Qing dynastic householddeveloped with its closest servantswithin the palace and the capital city,from the establishment of the dynastyin Beijing in 1644 to the early nine-teenth century. He aims to demonstratethe importance of the informal dimen-sion of Chinese political culture as anintermediate and connecting space be-tween monarchical autocracy and im-perial bureaucratic institutions. Hisgoal is to link his work to more generalscholarship of the last two decades fo-cusing on early modern state-buildingwhich has resuscitated the importanceof the royal court and of the ruler’shousehold at the heart of the dynasticstate. “Finally,” he says, “I hope that

this study will offer to students of com-parative court cultures materials and in-terpretations to continue challengingpast modernization narratives that rele-gated ‘oriental despots’ to the dustbinof history, showing instead the dyna-mism and complexity of Asian monar-chies in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies.”

Professor Houchang Chehabi pub-lished “Li Kulli Fir’awn Musa: TheMyth of Moses and Pharaoh in theIranian Revolution in ComparativePerspective,” Crown Paper No. 4, Oc-tober 2010.... He also started his two-year term as president of the Interna-tional Society for Iranian Studies.

On November 12 Professor NinaSilber participated in a panel discus-sion, along with historians Eric Fonerand Charles Bryan, examining variousquestions related to the coming of,and developments during, the USCivil War. The discussion, sponsoredby the History Channel and timed tocoincide with the Civil War sesqui-centennial, will appear on the HistoryChannel’s website in March 2011.

Professor Arianne Chernock’s arti-cle on “Feminism in the Provinces: T.S. Norgate and the ‘Rights of Woman’in Norwich” will appear in a specialedition of the journal Enlightenmentand Dissent, organized around the sub-

ject of “Intellectual Exchanges:Women and Rational Dissent.”...Herresearch is featured this fall in BU’sonline Research Magazine (www.bu.edu/research/highlights/magazine/features/family-matters/).

On November 4 Professor AllisonBlakely presented a lecture entitled“The Black European Response to theElection of Barack Obama,” as fea-tured lecturer for the Fiftieth Anniver-sary of the Robert D. Clark HonorsCollege, University of Oregon, in hiscapacity as recipient of the HonorsCollege 2010 Alumni AchievementAward.

In November Professor Betty An-derson gave the paper “Liberal Edu-cation and the Nature of Authority:The Case of the American Universityof Beirut (AUB)” at the History of Ed-ucation Society conference in Cam-bridge, Mass.... Also in November shewas the discussant for the panel “Ap-proaches to the Cultural History ofEducation in Mandatory Palestine”for the Middle East Studies Associa-tion (MESA) Conference in SanDiego, California.... She publishedthe article “The SPC Man” forMainGate, the alumni magazine ofthe American University of Beirut.

Professor John Thornton’s article“Angola e as origines de Palmares”was published in Flavio Gomes, ed.,Mocambos de Palmares: histórias e fontes(seculos XVI-XIX) (Rio de Janeiro:Letras, 2010). Thornton gave a depart-ment seminar a couple of years agoon an article on this same communitythat was subsequently published inAnnales in French. This article, in Por-tuguese, is a different work with a

Page 2 NEWS

NEWSof the History Departmentat Boston Universityis published monthly Septemberthrough May at the department office,226 Bay State Road, Boston, MA02215.

Telephone: 617-353-2551E-mail: history@bu.eduWebsite: www.bu.edu/history

Editor: James T. Dutton, Depart-ment Administrator

Items of interest for publication andchanges of address should be sent tothe editor.

different angle from the earlier one.Anyone who is interested but whocannot read these languages may re-quest Professor Thornton’s originalEnglish versions as a Word file.

Professor James McCann haslearned that his most recent book,Stirring the Pot: A History of AfricanCuisine (Ohio University Press), hasbeen named by the online LibraryJournal second on the list of “best sell-ers in African history” (appearing justafter a recent biography of NelsonMandela).

Professor Marilyn Halter was aninvited speaker on the subject “Be-yond the Bodega—from Local toGlobal” at the Statewide Conferenceon Immigrant Entrepreneurship spon-sored by The Immigrant LearningCenter, Inc., and Babson College (No-vember 17).... She was also the desig-nated discussant for a presentation atBU’s Center for the Study of Asia en-titled “From Cultural Anxiety to So-cial Mobilization: The Making of aChinese American Community inBoston, 1840s-1930s” (November 15)....Finally she led two workshops this fallon tracing migratory roots for stu-dents involved in BU’s Family His-tory Project initiative co-sponsored bythe New England Historical Genea-logical Society (September 29 and No-vember 3).

See EVENTS OF NOTE, page 8

Revision of undergradate history majorapproved

After three years of experience with the concentration in history approved in2007 (which offers five tracks strictly within history—general, American, Euro-pean, world/regional, intellectual/cultural, plus three interdisciplinary options—history and art history, history and religion, history and international relations),department faculty have decided to simplify dramatically the requirements forthe major.

In faculty deliberations last spring, Director of Undergraduate Studies Jona-than Zatlin pointed out that “The tracks were not uniform in their requirements[one required 10 courses, four required 11, three required 12], which not only in-troduced serious administrative loopholes into our curriculum but also sowedconfusion about the major among students and faculty.” The new major estab-lishes 12 as the number of classes required of all concentrators. “Raising the re-quired number of courses to 12,” Professor Zatlin continued, “sends a signalabout the intellectual rigor of the History major. The new requirement has thevirtue of permitting History faculty moreopportunities to work with undergraduatesby eliminating the possibility that studentscan take a mere seven courses in our depart-ment (by applying three AP courses to theGeneral track, which requires 10 courses). Atthe same time, History faculty do not be-lieve that 12 is too onerous for students. It isworth pointing out that even the 12 requiredcourses for the interdisciplinary tracks havenot prevented many students from double-majoring in History and another discipline,and that most students complete our re-quirements without too many problems.”Most majors in CAS require 12 (or evenmore) courses.

The three most popular tracks in the post-2007 major have proved to be (1) general, (2)American, and (3) History and InternationalRelations. The new major is composed of ageneral track, but students who prefer to specialize in a certain field may selectoptional tracks; thus the emphases offered by the current “Option B” (the spe-cialty tracks) may still be selected, but the tracks will not need to be declaredofficially in CAS. A student desiring one of these tracks will meet with an advi-sor to select courses that are appropriate; in addition, the departmental websitewill include guides to these tracks—those in American, European, intellec-tual/cultural, and international history are in the process of being written, andnew tracks in Asian and African are already complete.

Restrictions on the levels of courses are being changed. At present studentsmay take no more than four courses below the 300 level; in the revised major,they may take no more than three classes below the 200 level. This change was ne-cessitated by the fact that courses at the 200 and 300 levels are being renum-bered; as of fall 2011, the span of classes between hi 201 and hi 399 is to be con-sidered a single range of lecture courses, divided only by topic, not by degree ofdifficulty. Thus hi 333 (French Revolution), taken before fall 2011, is the samecourse as hi 266 (its new number as of next fall). This change will take some get-ting used to (on everyone’s part), but it was necessitated by the ever-growing

See REVISED MAJOR, page 5

“The intellectualexchange that occursin small classrooms,where close proximityto professors ispossible and classdiscussion is promoted,constitutes thecenterpiece of ourmajor.”

December 2010 Page 3

by Donald AltschillerHistory Bibliographer

The number of electronic databases in the BU libraries seems to grow exponen-tially. Although most of these 312 databases offer specialized subject information(Contemporary World Music, Education Full-Text, etc.), a growing number provide in-terdisciplinary coverage of academic journals (Academic OneFile, FRANCIS,JSTOR, etc.). The following databases may be of particular interest to history fac-ulty and both undergraduate and graduate students. The easiest way to access thesehistory-related databases is to go to the BU main library webpage (www.bu.edu/library) and click on the “Databases” link, then scroll down the alphabetical list forthe following resources. If you have any questions about these or other databasesor want any other information about the library, feel free to contact me(donaltsc@bu.edu). Please note: Most of our journals are still available in print(some titles are only in print) or microfilm, so faculty should inform students aboutthese multiple journal formats, which are noted in the BU library catalog.

�Academic OneFileAn interdisciplinary database offering a large number of full-text articles. This

resource provides access to more than 200 historical journals.

�American Newspapers, Series 1, 1690-1876Offers fully searchable issues from more than 700 historical newspapers pub-

lished in 23 states and the District of Columbia. These newspapers were scannedfrom the collections located at the American Antiquarian Society, the BostonAthenaeum, and the Library Company of Philadelphia, in addition to a few otherarchives and libraries.

�America: History and LifeThe pre-eminent resource for finding journal articles (a growing number are full-

text), book and media reviews, and dissertations on the history and culture of theUS and Canada.

�American National BiographyA successor to the Dictionary of American Biography, this database provides al-

most 19,000 biographies of notable American women and men.

�British History Online (BHO)Created by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament

Trust, BHO is the digital library of core printed primary and secondary sources forthe medieval and early modern history of Britain.

�Eighteenth Century CollectionsOnlineAn extraordinary resource for

source materials in history, social sci-ences, religion, philosophy, and manyother subject areas. The history collec-tion offers a wide variety of full-text pri-mary sources, including Hume’s His-tory of England and Burke’s Reflections onthe Revolution in France, in addition todozens of other major and minorworks. The database is especially usefulfor researching English social history,travel accounts, fashion, recreationalactivities, and other cultural and politi-cal history during this time period.

�Harper’s Weekly (1857-1912)Considered the pre-eminent US

19th- and early 20th-century newspaper,with both national and internationaldistribution, this digitized publicationprovides superb replication of all its ar-ticles, illustrations, cartoons, maps, andother features.

�Historical AbstractsComplementing America: History

and Life (see above), this database is themajor source for finding the contentsof international history periodicals (ex-cept for the US and Canada) from 1450to the present.

�Humanities Full-TextDespite its name, this interdisciplin-

ary database has a large number of full-text articles, but it still provides mostlysummaries and citations. Since the da-tabase includes many non-historicaljournals which publish history-relatedarticles, this resource is an excellentsupplementary source to America: His-tory and Life and Historical Abstracts.

� International Medieval Bibliogra-phyFounded in 1967 with the support of

the Medieval Academy of America, thisresource provides the most compre-hensive and current bibliography ofmedieval history articles published injournals and miscellany volumesworldwide.

Page 4 NEWS

� JSTORThis database provides full-text cov-

erage for over one thousand academicjournals in the humanities, social sci-ences, and sciences. Almost 250 historytitles are included, and the databaseprovides complete retrospective accessto each journal since it began publica-tion. Previously, the content of themost recent issues was not available dueto copyright issues, but beginning in2011, some current journal issues will beavailable.

�New York Times Historical (1851-2006)This remarkable database can be

searched for every word that was pub-lished in the “newspaper of record” (in-cluding advertisements and death no-tices) since it began publication in themid-19th century. The article is dis-played in its original format, and userscan also see a total page view when it ap-peared. [The Boston Globe Historical(1872+) and the Chicago Tribune Histori-cal (1849+) are also alphabetically ar-ranged on the Databases page.]

�Oxford Dictionary of National Bi-ographyContains biographical portraits of

more than 57,000 people who “shapedthe history of the British Isles and be-yond” from the 4th century bce to the21st century.

�Oxford Reference OnlineThis aggregated database brings to-

gether a wide variety of Oxford Univer-sity Press reference works—formerlyavailable only in book form—in the hu-manities, social sciences, and sciences.The history collection is wide-rangingincluding The Oxford Companion toAmerican Military History, The OxfordCompanion to British History, etc. Pleasenote: These works are general ready-ref-erence sources mostly useful for pro-viding a good overview of a topic andespecially helpful for students consid-ering a research topic.

�Project MuseStarted in 1993 by the Johns Hopkins

University Press to make the JHU journals more accessible to readers, Project Musehas greatly expanded its collection to include a wide variety of university press andother academic journals. This database has some overlapping coverage withJSTOR but also provides unique access to many humanities publications, includ-ing history journals.

�WorldCatAlthough there is no comprehensive national library catalog that lists all the

books and other items held in American libraries, this database is the best currentlyavailable resource to find library holdings. Continuously updated, this databaseoffers many superb features: BU-owned books are highlighted and users can per-form searches by keyword, language, and/or format (including websites, videos,etc.). �

HarperCollins issues new book from Robert Dallek

Former BU faculty member Robert Dallek has authored The Lost Peace: Leader-ship in a Time of Horror and Hope, 1945-1953. “This is a book,” Dallek begins, “aboutthe generation of leaders in the years of upheaval between the close of World WarII and the early Cold War. It is not a comprehensive history about why and howthe Cold War began. Rather, it is an attempt to underscore the misjudgments andunwise actions that caused so much continuing strife and suffering, and suggestalternatives that might have made for greater international harmony. While Ihighlight the fail-ings of the notablemen who domi-nated the sceneduring this time, Iam not intent ondenying themtheir due, or in thecase of the greatestvillains of the day,revising their repu-tations for wrong-doing. My greatestinterest is in revis-iting the decisionmaking and eventsof the period as acautionary tale—areprise of whatwent wrong as acall for future im-provement inworld affairs, or aneducator’s lessonof what mighthave been done toavoid the diffi-culties that besetstrong and weaknations around theglobe.”

December 2010 Page 5

Two very active alumni have recentlysent us updates on their scholarly activ-ities:

Ronald A. Wells (CLA 1963, GRS1964 & 1967), Professor of HistoryEmeritus at Calvin College, Michi-gan, published his new book, Hopeand Reconciliation in Northern Ireland(Dublin: The Liffey Press, 2010). Pro-fessor Wells attended, and spoke at,the Irish book launch at the UlsterMuseum in Belfast on October 30 andthe English launch at Coventry Ca-thedral on November 3. The book isbeing published in Ireland, not NorthAmerica, by the terms of the grantWells received from the Joseph Ken-nedy Foundation, which supports pro-jects for the common good in Irelandand Britain. It is available in NorthAmerica through Amazon.com (seephoto of cover below).

Douglas Wheeler (MA in 1960;PhD in 1963; Visiting Assistant Profes-sor of African History, 1969 and 1972;and member of several PhD orals anddissertation committees) writes: Hereis news of three new books of minewhich were published this year: Co-author with R. Pelissier of História deAngola (published by Tinta da China,Lisbon, 2009) an updated, expandededition in Portuguese of our Angola(1971, 1977); 3rd edition of my Histori-cal Dictionary of Portugal (ScarecrowPress, 2010), with new co-author, Wal-ter Opello; and História Política de Por-tugal, 1910-1926, published in Lisbonby Europa-America, Lda, the 2nd ed.in Portuguese, with new bibliographyand preface—first ed. published 1985by same publisher, from English ver-sion, Republican Portugal (Madison,WI: University of Wisconsin Press,1978).

Though I retired from full-timeclassroom work at the University ofNew Hampshire in 2002, I continueto lecture on history, especially his-tory of intelligence and espionage, toaudiences in New Hampshire, Massa-chusetts, and Maine, and will teach acourse on that topic again this winterterm at UNH’s adult learner division,Granite State College, at Rochester,N.H.

number of courses offered in the de-partment and by the fact that Interna-tional Programs courses require num-bers within the History listing—the de-partment was literally running out ofnumbers.

There are no changes in the revisedmajor in the basic required courses (hi200 and two seminars—formerly calledcolloquia). The department facultycontinue to see these courses as thecore of the concentration: As Profes-sor Zatlin pointed out, “The intellec-tual exchange that occurs in smallclassrooms, where close proximity toprofessors is possible and class discus-sion is promoted, constitutes the cen-terpiece of our major. It is often thehallmark of the student’s educationalexperience.”

To summarize the History concen-tration as of fall 2011:

There are no official tracks—just asingle “concentration in history.”

12 courses are required of all stu-dents.

The basic distribution requirementremains the same: one course eachin American, European, world, pre-modern.

hi 200 is required of all students—and must be taken at BU.

Two seminars (formerly called col-loquia) are required of all stu-dents—and must be taken at BU orin a BU abroad program.

No more than three courses below200 may be counted toward themajor.

Students may select optional tracks(American, European, intellec-tual/cultural, African, Asian, inter-national history—with others to bedeveloped); refer to information onthe website and consult with a fac-ulty advisor to choose a track.

Current majors may continue inthe tracks they have already selected(they are “grandfathered in”) until

REVISED MAJOR (cont. from page 2)

South Asian searchcancelled

To the dismay of department fac-ulty, the search for a new assistantprofessor of south Asian history wascancelled by the College a few daysbefore the search deadline.

Inevitably departments submitmore proposals for new faculty thancan be funded; those that make theinitial cut (such as the south Asia one)are allowed to advertise “pendingbudgetary approval.” Unfortunatelythis year the History Department wason the wrong side of the final divide.

The department received 60 appli-cations for the position.

Page 6 NEWS

graduation, and the department willsupport them with advising as usual.As of fall 2011 only the revised majorwill be available for new History con-centrators. One word of caution: Cur-rent students who have not declared atrack within the current major (thisproblem affects a substantial number)run the risk of having to switch to thenew major and thus being subject tothe 12-course requirement; theyshould declare a track (in cas b3) im-mediately.

The department will have a guide tothe major on the website by nextspring’s registration period. �

Eugenio Menegonguides HI 175 SilkRoad Project

After a week-long preparation,the 53 students in ProfessorEugenio Menegon and

Teaching Fellow Kallie Szczepanski’scourse “World History to 1500” (hi175) presented in class a series of skits,PowerPoint presentations, a shortmovie, and poetic and musical perfor-mances on life along the Silk Road.The topics selected by students in-cluded social and gender relations,arts, religions, trade, ecology, and em-pires along this far-flung network ofcommercial and cultural routes ex-tending from China through CentralAsia, Persia, and India all the way tothe Mediterranean, between the 3rdand 10th centuries ce. With imagesfrom Buddhist sites, Central Asianmusic and costumes, monks’ robesand other props, students imagina-tively interpreted the biographies ofseveral Silk Road social types duringthe 8th-9th centuries, based on SusanWhitfield’s Life Along the Silk Road(Univ. of California Press, 1999). Fourprojects were selected as winners intwo categories (“Best Researched” and“Most Creative”) and received giftcard prizes provided by the CAS Aca-

demic Enhancement Fund. Below are samples of the students’ work from sev-eral projects:

Silk Road Newscast (Jade Anderson, Avery Churchwell, Hallie Fischberg,Webster McEvoy, and Christina Rencis, director)

These students produced a short newscast, with footage shot both indoorsand on the Boston Common. The show began: “Good evening and welcome to7:00 evening news on Silk Road TV, your number one source for all things East-ern Eurasia. I’m Webster and this is my cohost, Hallie. Tonight: Panic hitsChina as the Black Death sweeps across the nation into Europe and SoutheastAsia. Reports confirm that the plague is being carried along the caravans of theSilk Road.” In the scene below, anchors Hallie Fischberg and Webster McEvoyannounce from the studios of EMTV [see the logo at the bottom of the screenbelow—we weren’t previously aware that the course instructor owned a TV net-work] the outbreak of disease along the Silk Road. Webster has just discoveredstrange black dots on his arms, a sign that pestilence has struck him too. He willshow more symptoms soon (better not to describe them!) and later pass out infront of the camera.

On the following pages are some poetic renderings of the life of a Buddhistartist and of a long-distance merchant:

Rap: The artist at the Buddhist caves of Dunhuang (Melissa D’Anna)

Hey my name is Dong BaodeI’m a pretty big deal on the Silk RoadI’m an artist baby can’t you seeThe king and everybody love meYou may think an artist is pretty low classBut ya you have that wrong cuz I’ve got pretty big tasksYou know that ginormous statue of Buddha in TibetAlong with all those crazy Chinese silken silhouettesYea that was thanks to meThe Nuns and those religious Buddhists pay thee

See HI 175, page 7

December 2010 Page 7

Class on “Jews in the ModernWorld” visits Lower East Side

Our class “Jews in the Modern World” recentlytook a day trip down to New York City. The ideawas to add substance to our class discussionsabout Jewish migration to the United States andthe changes (and continuities) in Jewish employ-ment, politics, living conditions, and family lifethat this substantive demographic shift precipi-tated.

Since we had just a day, we focused our touringin the Lower East Side, the section of New Yorkthat absorbed many generations of immigrantsand in the late nineteenth century became the lo-cus of east European Jewish immigration to theUnited States. If the Lower East Side were a city,by World War I it would have had the largest Jew-ish population in the world. Jews didn’t just live

on the Lower East Side, they worked there too, and in its shops and factories produced much of the women’s garments sold inthe United States.

We took a walking tour of the neighborhood and visited a number of landmarks such as the former Yiddish Daily Forwardbuilding, the Jarmulowsky Bank building, and the Eldridge Street Synagogue. We also took a guided tour of the Tenement Mu-seum (www.tenement.org) that took us to the reconstructed apartments of two Jewish families working in the garment trade (seephoto below). Perhaps most importantly, we ate pastrami at Katz’s (photo above), a Lower East Side deli that opened in 1888.The trip was paid for by the CAS Student Academic Enhancement Fund.

Simon RabinovitchAssistant Professor of History

Students in the “Jews in the Modern World” class (clockwise from left): Sun Je Kim,David Smigen-Rothkopf, Chelsea Elkaim, and Lizzie Bassett.

During their trip to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Professor Simon Rabinovitch’s class visited the TenementMuseum and did the “Piecing It Together” tour, which takes one through the reconstructed apartments oftwo Jewish families working in the textile trade.

Photo by Lizzie Bassett (a member of the class) of the back of an old tenement building.

Cuz yea I’m a pretty hot commodityI’ve got my patrons like King Cao and

Lady ZhaiBut also the monks and nuns wanna

see my dyeSo thanks to my amazing works of art

and monumentsThe future can discover the Silk Road

settlements.

So now it’s time to hand over mymakeshift mic

So you can hear from my commis-sioning nun

Get Psyched

Poem: Forever a Merchant (JavierBonilla)

A Turk, a Chinese, or an Arab I couldbe

HI 175 (cont. from page 6)

See HI 175, page 8

Department of History226 Bay State RoadBoston, MA 02215

Professor Eugenio Menegon wasone of the organizers and presentersat the “Leisure and the State in Eur-asia” Workshop, held at the Instituteon Culture, Religion, and World Af-fairs at Boston University, on Novem-ber 5-6. This was the first workshop ina series organized in the multi-year re-search project at BU entitled “Leisureand Social Change Across Asia,” sup-ported by the BU Humanities Foun-dation in alliance with the Cluster ofExcellence “Asia and Europe in aGlobal Context” at the University ofHeidelberg (Germany). The work-shop’s four panels (12 presenters) fo-cused on the relationship between lei-sure activities and the state in pre-modern and modern Eurasia, fromTurkey to South Asia to East Asia, anddealt with courtly life, aristocratic andliterary networks, and leisure; urbanlife, the state, and leisure; leisure assource of tension as well as symbolicand political capital for the modernstate in nation-building and societalcontrol. Among the presenters wasProfessor Suzanne O’Brien of theHistory Department. �

EVENTS OF NOTE (cont. from page 2)

Their languages I can speakMy grandfather, my father, his brothers, his cousins were all like meMerchants on the Silk Road we were meant to be.

We travel thousands of miles across arid desertsIn caravans with camels humped and tallComplain of the scorching heat these beasts of burden won’tDrink tons of water they don’t.

We brave the blinding sandstorms to glimpse the pot of gold at the end of theroad

Endure the blazing torrid sun to refresh our pockets with riyals and lirasFrom selling our wares of Turkish wool and Chinese silkDazzling gems and exotic jadeWeather the freezing and biting cold to bask in cozy pleasureThat riches will assure.

Be warned, my wise old man saidSteer clear of hot spots where Arab and Chinese armies clashOffer coins to border guards to let you goDon’t cross paths with ruthless banditsLest you lose those precious carats of stone and coveted satin clothesFight those greedy creatures to keep their hands off your cashAnd the gifts of sparkling jewels for your doting wivesThe bright-colored woolen furs for your darling babes.

We’ve got grit and guts, we’ve got glory,Jesus Christ, Allah, Buddha, bless me,A merchant I will forever be. �

HI 175 (cont. from page 7)