September 2008

New academic year begins Diana Wylie authors work on South African

The 2008-09 academic year opens artist with a substantial number of faculty on leave, several full-time replacements for Jacana Media of South Africa has recently published Professor Diana Wylie’s new- those instructors, one new tenure-track est book, Art and Revolution: The Life and Death of Thami Mnyele, South African Artist. appointee, and one faculty search. We are pleased to reprint part of the Preface to the work: Those on leave this year are Brooke Blower (full year), Charles Capper (full t began for me in an art museum in Africa. I was in Gaborone, Botswana, at year), Arianne Chernock (full year), lunchtime on a summer day in 1980 and the archives where I was researching Barbara Diefendorf (spring semester), Imy first book had just closed. With time on my hands, I wandered into the Anna Geifman (fall), Thomas Glick Botswana National Museum and Art Gallery. A one-man show was hanging on its (spring), Bruce Schulman (full year), walls. As I walked through the gallery, I saw images that brought me close to tears. Jonathan Zatlin (full year). Heléna The pictures showed me, better than words, how it felt to have a lid pressing down Tóth will replace Jonathan Zatlin; Paul on your hopes and dreams. The drawings didn’t shout. They weren’t adorned with Schmitz will replace Bruce Schulman; sentiment. They made statements that obviously came from deep inside the artist. Samuel Deese will teach courses in ‘Ah, yes,’ I said to myself, ‘now I see.’ American political history instead of Weeks later I met the artist, Thami Mnyele, whose story I tell in this book, and the anticipated hire in US history (that we became friends for a while. Five years later, when he died, I wrote down every- search is still in progress). thing I could remember him having said. It seemed the only way to hold on to a re- Suzanne O’Brien, a specialist in markably sensitive man who modern Japanese history, is the depart- had the talent to change the ment’s newest member; this year she way people look at things. I will teach the Japanese lecture course, a was struck by the disparity colloquium in Japanese history, a sec- between our fates. Born the tion of hi 200, and a new lecture course same year as I, he died just on the Samurai. weeks before I began my first The department has received autho- long-term academic job, rization (pending budgetary approval) teaching African history at to search for a scholar in modern Jewish Yale University. I couldn’t history at the assistant-professor level. help comparing my trajec- Advertisements have been placed, and tory with his: it was upsetting visits to campus are expected to take and humbling to come face place early in the new year. Professor to face with my relative privi- Thomas Glick is chairing this search. lege. Professor Nina Silber has been Hard times twisted, dis- named Director of Graduate Studies torted, and broke up the for 2008-09, and Professor Cathal story of Thami’s life. Docu- Nolan will serve as Director of Under- ments were lost and de- graduate Studies; Professor Louis stroyed. Much valuable in- Ferleger will chair the Curriculum formation was never re- Committee. ♦ corded in the first place, and

1 memories are fading. The times did not sonal goals cannot but be bound up equally unrevealing. Thami’s former always permit the sharing of confi- with political ones. Stories that stress comrade, Tim Williams, now deputy dences. Fearing that silence could lead one realm to the exclusion of the other national commissioner of police, to popular ignorance and finally to fail to capture how decisions are really found that all relevant police files had indifference and alienation, I have writ- made and play out. been destroyed before he began work- ten this book. Paradoxes necessarily emerge when ing there in 1994. Former comrades That this account is fragmented is the personal is given its due. We might launched a similar effort to find art ap- part of the story. Until I realised this recognise when apparently political propriated by the security police, but truth, my difficulties in research made acts had personal roots and when a de- came up with nothing. me anxious that I wouldn’t be able to cent man belied his ideals. An honest draw accurately even the major outlines and full-bodied biography makes it * * * * * * * * of the man’s life. Then I began to un- harder to subscribe to a simple defini- derstand that the silences and the dis- tion of the hero. When a hero is a mar- The pictures drawn by Thami tortions in fact revealed the extreme in- tyr, mythology is likely to flourish. helped me tell his story. In conjunction security that led Thami to make his po- Few conventional sources like letters with interviews, they opened the door litical choices. and diaries were available to help me on a man who was a player in key move- I never interviewed Thami. We sim- tell the story of Thami Mnyele. The na- ments that were not simply trying to ply talked: I never posed questions for tional archives contain only two refer- change, but actually to transform purposes of constructing his life story. ences to the Mnyeles: the documents South African society. A private and reticent person, he did pertaining to his parents’ divorce in Thami’s work, however, is hard to not mean to be the subject of a book. 1950, and an embargoed dossier on his find and it is not always well cared for. He might well have agreed with critic half-brother, David, who was arrested The staff at the National Museum and Janet Malcolm that biography is ines- in 1976. The schools Thami attended in Art Gallery in Gaborone ripped the left capably trivial because it cannot cap- Makapanstad and Natal kept no re- side of ‘Things fall apart’ when remov- ture the kernel of a man; it cannot re- cords of his work. In fact, his secondary ing it from its frame—a sign, perhaps, cord a person’s complexity as well as school moved out of the buildings that the work doesn’t have much popu- fiction can. where he studied; they are now occu- lar resonance in a country where refu- I have nevertheless soldiered on, pied by an entirely different institution. gees were often seen as a problem. In- partly because Thami’s life strikes me as I was reduced to photographing a sect holes and fungus afflict two other emblematic of his times. His story plaque on the wall and researching the Mnyele drawings stored there. Johan- shows how varied are the causes and school’s history in the state archives. I nesburg’s Standard Bank employees re- consequences of political commit- found the texts Thami was likely to cently discovered and put in storage the ment. We delude ourselves if we imag- have studied at school by visiting a 1976 version of ‘Things fall apart’, after ine we can understand the engine of so- nearly derelict building owned by the years of not knowing the bank owned cial movements without investigating Department of Education in Pretoria; the drawing. The security police confis- the private lives that drive them. Per- unused and unvisited, the building cated some of his work over the years, houses a library of dust-covered books but they destroyed large sections of revealing how the world was authorita- their archives. Short of cash, Thami’s tively presented to a child in the 1950s. I mother sold to an art dealer the draw- drove to Rorke’s Drift, his art school in ing entitled ‘There goes a man sad and NEWS rural Natal, only to find the place deep in sorrow, like a river under- stripped clean of records. ground’; the only art remaining in her of the History Department The written record proved thin right home is a faded reproduction of a sea- at Boston University through to the end of Thami’s life. In scape. is published monthly September 2003 I applied to the Department of De- Thami’s art can best be seen in the through May at the department office, fence, Centre for Military Intelligence, homes of his friends. Sometimes he 226 Bay State Road, Boston, MA for permission to read the files pro- gave them work to bring back to South 02215, telephone: 617-353-2551, E- duced by military officials planning, ex- Africa for safekeeping. At other times mail: [email protected], Website: fl he sold drawings for low prices as a sign www.bu.edu/history. ecuting, and re ecting on the raid that killed him. Nearly two years later, after of friendship. The pictures are lovingly, Editor: James T. Dutton, Depart- my request had risen through the though not publicly, preserved behind ment Administrator queue of documents whose declassifi- glass. They are dispersed around the cation was requested, I paid to receive globe, and can be found as far afield as Items of interest for publication and 889 changes of address should be sent to pages of ‘masked’ documents. (The Birmingham (England), Barcelona, the editor. names of all participants were con- Boston, London, Newry (Northern Ire- cealed.) Very little in those pages bears land), and Stockholm. on the raid itself. The police archive is How often did I use my imagination

Page 2 NEWS

2 to reconstruct the past? I tried to limit months in Ethiopia conducting field severely any flights of fancy. A careful interviews with farmers and malaria reader will note when I have inserted field staff for his current book project, hedging words like ‘probably’ to sug- “Landscapes of Food, Landscapes of gest a lack of hard data. (One example Disease,” which will reconstruct the of this technique is in chapter 6 when I agro-ecological history of a single vil- write that Mnyele was ‘probably’ of two lage in southwest Ethiopia.... This sum- minds about the fire-bombing of Sam mer he organized a mini-workshop on Buti’s library.) “Gender Knowledge and Disease Habi- I did not use my imagination, but Professor Simon Payaslian visited tat” (funded by the Rockefeller Foun- my professional training as a historian, Armenia and Karabagh for research for dation and BU’s Undergraduate Re- to write the Afterword. I wanted to end two weeks, July 10-24. He met with a search Opportunities Program) that in- the book with a statement of what the number of government officials, mem- cluded two Boston University under- story of Thami’s life and death might bers of parliament, university faculty, graduates and women from the village mean, seen from a broad historical and and political activists.... He is currently of Waktola in southwest Ethiopia.... artistic perspective and a vantage point working on a number of projects for Also in August, Professor McCann two decades after his death. That sum- publication, including the Armenian gave an interview on BBC/PRI’s pro- ming-up chapter reflects a deep appre- diasporan communities in the west and gram “The World” concerning the role ciation of Thami’s efforts to live honor- their relations with Armenia, an eco- of maize (corn) in the global economy ably in punishing times. Writing it, I nomic history of Armenia, and Arme- and its growing role in African econo- gained new appreciation of the dilem- nian nationalism and literature in the mies—especially in the southern Afri- mas facing revolutionaries who must nineteenth and twentieth centuries.... can country of Malawi. make leaps of faith that their actions Payaslian gave a day-long lecture at the Professor Nina Silber chaired and will bring about a better world. At the Genocide and Human Rights Univer- commented at a panel on Civil War vet- same time, I understood better than sity Program of the International Insti- erans at the Society of Civil War Histo- ever before that, if they are to land any- tute for Genocide and Human Rights rians meeting in Philadelphia in June.... where near their goal, those leaps must Studies at the University of Toronto, The following month she lectured in be tempered with a dispassionate un- July 30. The summer program was spon- Marblehead, Mass., on women and the derstanding of the strange and terrible sored by the Zoryan Institute of To- Civil War at a workshop for secondary- workings of history. ♦ ronto. school teachers for the “Using Essex Professor Allison Blakely presented History” project. a paper entitled “Black Identity in Professor Emeritus Fred Leven- France in a European Perspective” at a thal’s essay “Promoting the Anglo- Tenure and conference called “France Noire—Black American Alliance in Wartime, 1939- 1943 promotion France: The History, Poetics, and Poli- ” appeared in Projections of Britain in tics of Blackness,” held June 6-7 at Co- the United States of America, Australia and for Jonathan lumbia University’s Institute for New Zealand: 1900-1950, published by Zatlin Scholars at Reid Hall in Paris. the Centre for British Studies of the In July and August Professor James University of Adelaide. The volume in- In May, Jonathan McCann took part in an online “Con- cludes papers delivered at a symposium 2004 Zatlin learned that versation” of the American Historical Re- in March on “Images of Britain in fi he has been view on the topic of environmental his- the United States and the South Paci c fi 1900-1950 awarded tenure and promoted to the tory. This program included ve schol- ” that was organized to mark rank of associate professor, effective ars invited by the AHR editor to dis- Leventhal’s tenure as a Visiting Fellow fi September 1. A specialist in modern cuss the emerging eld of at the University of Adelaide.... In Au- German history, he is the author of The environmental history. Those invited gust he was in Washington, D.C., serv- Currency of Socialism: Money and Political to participate included Peter Perdue ing on a National Endowment for the ff Culture in East Germany (Cambridge (Yale), Richard Ho man (Toronto), Humanities selection panel on fellow- University Press). He holds a Charles A. Nancy Langston (Wisconsin), and Liz ships in European history.... Fred and Ryskamp Research Fellowship from the Sedrez (California, Long Beach). The Jean Leventhal will be living in London American Council of Learned Societies exchange will be published in the fall from mid-September to mid- 2008 during the 2008-09 academic year; he by the AHR.... McCann also appeared December , optimistically trying will use the fellowship to work on his on National Public Radio’s program to stretch their budget despite the weak- new project, “Jews and Money: Eco- “Here and Now” to discuss the issue of ness of the American dollar. nomic Change and Cultural Anxiety in the international food price crisis and Professor Charles Capper reports: Germany, 1870-1990.” its impact on Ethiopia’s current famine In late June and early July I was in Dub- condition.... McCann spent two lin and London. In Dublin Cristina

September 2008 Page 3

3 Giorcelli and I presented our book of Beirut (AUB): Protest, Protestant- made presentations on their new book Margaret Fuller: Transatlantic Crossings ism, and the Meaning of Freedom,” in and on the connections between An- in a Revolutionary Age (2007) at the Ital- Liberal Thought in the Eastern Mediterra- gola and the present-day United ian Cultural Institute, after which we nean (edited by Christoph Schumann); States.... When they returned from An- stayed as guests at the Lucan House, the and “September 1970 and the Palestin- gola, they were off to York University residence of the Italian Embassy. In ian Issue: A Case Study of Student in York, Ontario, Canada, for a confer- London I attended meetings of the Edi- Politicization at the American Univer- ence, “Carnival, ‘A People’s Art’, and torial Board of Modern Intellectual His- sity of Beirut (AUB),” Civil Wars. ‘Taking Back the Streets,’” held July 31 tory.... In July I delivered a lecture titled In June Professor Louis Ferleger to August 3 and sponsored by York and “How Anti-Slavery Redefined the Idea traveled to Australia to present a paper the University of Toronto. They gave a of American Democracy” in Orlando entitled “Room for Improvement, But joint paper, “Public Performance in An- Patterson’s series, “Key Moments in No Room for Progress: The Material gola and Brazil: The Central African American Freedom,” sponsored by The Basis of the Economic and Social Roots of Carnival.”... Following their Gilder Lehrman Institute of American Transformation of Middle Georgia, return from Canada, they left for an- History, Harvard University.... I was 1880-1910” at a conference on “Con- other research trip (August 8-16), this also made an Honorary Member of the sumption, Markets, and Culture” held time to the University of the West In- Boston Authors’ Club and was in- at the University of Sydney. dies in Mona (suburban Kingston), Ja- ducted as a Fellow of the Society of Graduate student Michael maica. “We made no public presenta- American Historians.... This summer I McGuire has received the Belle Skin- tions and did not go to the beach as the was awarded a Summer Term Curricu- ner Fellowship from Vassar College for good beaches are on the other side of lum Development Award to develop a the summer and fall of 2008; the award the island. We were, in fact, serious all new course on the Transcendentalist has enabled him to continue research the time. We worked at the Sir Arthur movement. on his dissertation topic. Lewis Institute for Social and Eco- Professor Clifford Backman sum- Professors Linda Heywood and nomic Studies and the Special Collec- marizes his summer: I enjoyed a busy John Thornton traveled to Veracruz, tions of the Mona Library.” Professor summer of teaching, working around Mexico, from June 7 to 14 in order to Heywood took the opportunity to con- the house (landscaping, putting up a participate in a conference, “Diáspora, sult many of the available local publica- fence, and some painting), playing with nación y diferencia. Poblaciones de tions, while Professor Thornton did re- our sons, and discovering the TV show origine africano en México y search on 17th-century Jamaica as well “30 Rock”—which is hilarious. I tried to Centroamérica,” where they presented as on the Moravian mission in Jamaica use my academic brain cells a bit too: I their paper “The Central African Con- at the National Archives, Spanish reviewed two books, completed a book tribution to Mexico and Central Amer- Town. chapter on James II of Aragon, worked ica.” They visited the ruins at Zempoala The late Professor Robert Bruce on my critical edition of Humbert of and the community of Mandinga.... Af- continues to draw praise even months Romans, and began serious study of ter returning from Mexico they were off after his death. George E. Brooks, Pro- Russian (so far I’ve made it through a to Angola, where they stayed July 20-27. fessor Emeritus at Indiana University, dual-language anthology of short sto- “Our principal goal was research,” they wrote this summer: “I enthusiastically ries by Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Che- report, “and we did work in both the ar- endorse Jack Battick’s testimonial pub- khov, and Babel; and I’ll try to read chives of Luanda (Arquivo Nacional de lished in the May 2008 History News. Lermontov before Christmas). This Angola and Arquivo da Câmara Concerned about Professor Bruce’s de- fall, in addition to my usual medieval Muncipal de Luanda) and undertook clining health, I sent him a print-out courses, I’ll return to teaching in MET field work in Luanda and Malange.” copy of ‘Samuel Hodges’ [an article on Monday nights. My graduate semi- Professor Heywood was successful in written by Professor Brooks] several nar (aka “You haven’t done enough her attempt to have Angolans respond months before he died and before the Latin!”) will meet on Wednesdays, and to her written questionnaire dealing paper was published in International I’ll be directing about a half-dozen in- with Queen Njinga and hopes to use Journal of African Historical Studies with dependent studies and/or honors the- the information in her book project on my tribute. Professor Bruce was unfail- ses. So there’s enough work to keep me Queen Njinga, “Memory, History and ingly helpful to me and other Boston out of trouble. Nation.” While in Angola Heywood University students. I was fortunate to Professor Betty Anderson reports and Thornton gave two public presen- have him serve on my dissertation com- three publications (two articles and a tations in Portuguese on behalf of the mittee, and after I completed my PhD chapter in an edited volume): “Voices US Embassy, the first a workshop for and moved to Indiana University we of Protest: The Struggle over Freedom high school students at Casa de corresponded on topics of mutual in- at the American University of Beirut Juventude in Viana on July 17 and then, terest and regularly exchanged Christ- (AUB),” Comparative Studies of South on the 19th at the Universidade mas cards. Robert Bruce was a very spe- Asia, Africa and the Middle East; “Liberal Agostinho Neto, “Angola e o Mundo cial person.” ♦ Education at the American University Atlântico.” In both of these events they

Page 4 NEWS

4 ization projects, and lobbying govern- ment agencies to address women veter- ans’ needs. These veterans did not come to their advocacy from feminist activism. They were, however, part of a generation of women and men transformed by sec- ond-wave feminism’s egalitarian gen- der outlook in the 1970s. As a result, women veterans and others by the 1980s began to rethink a tenacious cultural notion of gender disparity: that men alone had the responsibility and the ca- pacity for military service and therefore had a superior claim to the respect and the debt of the nation as veteran- citizens. Jean Dunlavy The conservative movement in the 1980s sought in significant ways to limit women’s military roles and roll back the agenda of feminist activists, but Jean Dunlavy defends conservatives’ embrace of patriotism, William Keylor particularly in the military realm, dissertation on women opened a window for women veterans publishes revised veterans of Vietnam to assert their claims in a way that femi- edition of international nism did not, since significant strands of feminism espoused antimilitarism. history volume Whereas Americans in earlier decades On May 9 Jean Dunlavy successfully understood military participation as an Oxford University Press has published defended her dissertation entitled “A appropriate expression of patriotism a new edition of Professor William Band of Sisters: Vietnam Veterans’ Or- for men but as deviant behavior for Keylor’s A Worldof Nations: The Interna- ganization for Rights and Recognition, women, Vietnam women veterans per- tional Order Since 1945. Below we reprint 1965-1995.” Her first reader was Professor suaded the nation to incorporate a section of the Preface to the volume: Bruce Schulman, and the second was women’s military service into a na- Professor Thomas Whalen of the Col- tional vision of patriotic action. Theoretical Underpinnings lege of General Studies at Boston Uni- Doubts about military women’s ca- versity; other members of the commit- pacity to function in war were easily fed A word is in order about the theoret- tee were Professors Andrew Bacevich, in the years between the Vietnam War ical assumptions underlying this work. Cheryl Boots (of the College of Gen- and the Persian Gulf War, when the The time has long since passed when eral Studies), and Nina Silber. We are government downplayed women’s the historian could claim the ability, as pleased to reprint the abstract of the presence in combat. Vietnam women the German scholar Leopold von thesis: veterans’ accounts of their war service Ranke famously did in the early nine- challenged these doubts by demon- teenth century, to tell the story of the strating that women had already past “as it really happened,” without proven themselves in combat zones. the intrusion of theory. Whether we ad- n the 1980s and 1990s, American Their organizing efforts spurred other mit it or not, all scholars approach their women veterans of the Vietnam women veterans to activism and en- subject with a set of theoretical assump- war sparked a social movement I couraged wider public awareness of tions that shape their work. My own that asserted the claims of women vet- women’s significance to the American work has been shaped by the substan- erans to government benefits, to re- military. In these ways, Vietnam tial body of scholarship on interna- spect within the national veteran com- women veterans helped lay the ground- tional relations theory that has been munity, and to public acknowledgment work for public acceptance of women’s produced by political scientists over of women’s military service. Vietnam expanding roles in the military by the the years. The four most influential of women veterans built their case for rec- 1990s. ♦ these theories have been Realism, Lib- ognition by making their war stories eralism, Marxism, and Social public, asserting their presence in vet- eran organizations and memorial- See KEYLOR, page 8

September 2008 Page 5

5 Professor Bruce Schulman with Annalisa Amicangelo, long-time Graduate Charles Pollack (left) with his mother, brother, and father; student staff member in the department office. this fall Charlie enters the departmental master’s program.

Professors Brooke Blower, Jon Roberts, and Arianne Chernock enjoy Professors Betty Anderson and Eugenio Menegon with Andrew refreshments before the convocation begins. Naramore, who spent all four of his years at BU as a member of the departmental staff.

Andrew Shapira, double-major in History and English and winner of the College Prize for Excellence in History (see next page for the text of his speech). Andrew plans to teach English abroad for a few years and then pursue a career in publishing or Professor Clifford Backman, PhD recipient Brenda Gardenour, and journalism. Professor Thomas Glick. The pharmacist’s coat was a graduation gift commemorating Brenda’s new job as Assistant Professor of History at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy.

Page 6 NEWS

6 “Whom will you believe— matic of Mr. MacDougall; it certainly civilization from the epic of Gilga- obscures the depth of Briggs’s religious mesh, a product of ancient Mesopota- Christ or Dr. Briggs?” convictions. Throughout his life, mia, through Plato, Dante, Shake- Charles Briggs searched for a middle speare, all the way up to modern artists ground between criticism and Chris- like Walt Whitman and Jane Austen. In by Andrew Shapira tianity. For him these two concepts a purely aesthetic sense, these authors were not mutually exclusive—far from are as meaningful in one era as in any This was the question posed by an it. A meaningful and lasting faith, he other. But to truly appreciate them—as elder of the Presbyterian Church dur- felt, could only be achieved by a ratio- Charles Briggs believed about the au- ing one of the most famous heresy trials nal and historically accurate under- thors of the Bible—it is necessary to un- in American history. The alleged here- standing of the authors who mediated derstand something of the historical tic was Charles Augustus Briggs, the between God and humanity. Briggs was circumstances in which they wrote. Per- scholar and theologian widely credited a reader of the Bible informed by both haps more than any of the other disci- with introducing the revolutionary religion and history—a man who be- plines in the liberal arts, literature and study known as biblical criticism to the lieved in both the truth emanating history are inextricably intertwined. United States. from God and the truth to be derived By pursuing a double major in His- Despite his notoriety, Briggs was from the study of the past. tory and English, I’ve come to appreci- only one of many 19th-century scholars We are all heirs to Charles Augustus ate the value of this intellectual rela- who began to shed new light on an an- Briggs. Regardless of whether we agree tionship. While I don’t have time today cient and sacred text. For millennia with his conclusions or share his con- to discuss all the ways in which one dis- Jews and Christians had taken for victions, we may look back on him to- cipline has illuminated the other for granted certain facts about the Bible: day as an exemplary practitioner of his- me, I will conclude with one telling ex- that Moses was the author of the five torical inquiry. His method was charac- ample. This past semester, I wrote a pa- books of the Torah,for instance, or that terized not by a dogmatic faith in the per on Henry James’s The Bostonians for 19 the Gospel of John was set down by an value of history, but by a respect for his- my class on th-century American fic- apostle of Jesus. It therefore came as a tory as one of many ways of knowing. tion. The paper was about James’s use great shock when Briggs and his fellow He placed history in the context of the- of religious discourse, and my argu- critics declared that these were not ology, of science, of literature—of all the ment was that James reveals the empti- facts, after all, but merely unreliable tra- means by which humanity gains insight ness of such discourse by applying it to ditions about the origins of Scripture. about the world. each of the novel’s three main charac- This holiest of books, they argued, was This sort of contextual thinking is ters. fi composed by fallible men, men de- precisely what de nes a liberal arts edu- Not until a few weeks later did I be- fi fined by their historical circumstances, cation, and more speci cally our study gin to think of the novel in historical not by an infallible God or His chosen of history at Boston University. While terms—and in that regard, another class prophets. we graduates are fortunate to have stud- of mine, Professor Jon Roberts’s Reli- Needless to say, the implications of ied under a wonderful faculty in the gion and American Culture, came in this line of thought were enormous. To History Department, we are equally very handy. In Professor Roberts’s col- many who heard and read Briggs’s 1891 fortunate to have attended a college loquium we discussed the changing re- address, “The Authority of Holy Scrip- that stresses engagement with a broad ligious dynamic in America in the late 19 ture,” it seemed he was trying to under- range of disciplines to complement our th century, a time when the theory of mine the Bible itself, and thereby strike individual areas of interest. evolution, the nascent Social Gospel at the heart of the Christian religion. Many of you have dual concentra- movement, and biblical criticism were Thus the question posed by one tions in History and other disciplines; challenging traditional attitudes to- Thomas MacDougall during the debate the rest of you have devoted yourselves wards religion. Perhaps, I thought, fl in the Presbyterian General Assembly more particularly to this department. James’s novel is a re ection of his cul- over Briggs’s heresy in 1893: “Whom Whatever your path, you surely recog- ture’s unease over these challenges. will you believe—Christ or Dr. Briggs?” nize that your education here has not It is a thesis that needs further explo- Perhaps this was a little melodra- been about studying history merely for ration. The point here is that I was able the sake of history. Rather, history is to make the connection between my useful to us insofar as it sheds light on English class and Professor Roberts’s some other aspect of human knowl- colloquium by considering the novel’s edge and experience. historical context. It seems appropriate, Andrew Shapira, winner of the College Prize for History, I can certainly say that history has then, that Professor Roberts’s class is gave this talk at the departmental convocation on May informed my own education at BU in where I first heard the name of Charles 18. The winner of the Warren Ault Prize in History was too many ways to count. As a freshman Augustus Briggs, for in making that Michelle Mann, who was in France and unable to be at and sophomore in the Core Curricu- connection, I felt I was, in some sense, commencement. lum, I traced the evolution of Western following in Briggs’s footsteps. ♦

September 2008 Page 7

7 KEYLOR (cont. from page 5) instead, a condition of anarchy. In light from the one that exists, the one that is of this lawless and inhospitable interna- portrayed by the theorists in the Realist Constructivism. While I have gained tional environment, Realism regards tradition. The failure of the govern- many valuable insights from all four of the instinct for self-preservation (which ments of the world after 1945 to over- these theoretical traditions, I have often spills over into a drive for power come their reluctance to sacrifice na- found in the tenets of the Realist school over others) as a basic trait of human tional sovereignty in the interests of the most accurate portrayal of how na- nature that is rooted in biological the- constructing a durable world order of tions have related to one another ory. peace and security is perhaps the great- throughout modern history. The decades covered in this book of- est tragedy in the history of interna- Realism is based on several critical fer numerous examples of human be- tional relations in modern times. Like assumptions about the nature of inter- havior that confirm the bleak and pessi- his former boss Woodrow Wilson at national relations. The first is the pri- mistic postulates of Realist theory. Dur- the end of World War I, President macy of the nation-state as the most im- ing much of this period the world lived Franklin D. Roosevelt entertained the portant actor on the world stage. The under the shadow of nuclear war: Two fond hope toward the end of World second is the recognition of power as sovereign states, the United States and War II that the international commu- the principal attribute of the nation- the Soviet Union, developed the means nity would learn the terrible lessons of state as it interacts with other states. of annihilating tens of millions of peo- the recent past and forge a new type of Power comes in three major forms: po- ple in a brief nuclear exchange and international relations based on coop- litical, cultural, economic (all three of- openly advertised their willingness to eration and collective security rather ten lumped together as “soft power”), do so. While nuclear weapons have than on competition and rival power and military. The ultimate power of a never been used since the atomic bom- blocs. The reversion of the world’s na- state is its capacity to employ physical bardment of Japan in 1945, many lethal tions to the old system of competitive force—culminating in war—in pursuit of conflicts were waged with conventional arms races, military alliances, and the its national interests. The third axiom weapons that took the lives of millions waging of war in pursuit of narrow na- of Realist theory is the inevitability of of people. With the end of the Cold tional interests is cause for great regret, competition and occasionally conflict War and the removal of the nuclear disappointment, and even despair. But among nations as they seek to enhance sword of Damocles that had hung over it is a reality that must not be denied, es- their security by exercising their power humanity for so many decades, opti- pecially by people (such as myself) who in the hostile and threatening environ- mists envisioned the possibility of a would like to live long enough to see ment of the world beyond their bound- “New World Order” of peace and tran- the triumph of a different way of orga- aries. For most of human history the quility. But in the twenty-first century nizing the world. ♦ state did not possess the unmitigated terrorism, and the response to terror- power that it does today. Warlords, ism, replaced the ideological confron- tribal chiefs, religious leaders, and other tation of the Cold War years. For some, local or regional authorities controlled this new form of conflict spelled the (or attempted to control) the territory death knell of Realist theory, indeed of they occupied. The concept of the na- the Westphalian system itself, since the tion state as the repository of sover- new threat to world order came not eignty is a relatively recent phenome- from an aggressive nation-state but non, dating from the Treaty of from transnational groups without a Westphalia in 1648. Once the nation- national territory of their own. Accord- state replaced other forms of political ing to this analysis, the nation-state is in authority, the concept (and theory) of the process of being superseded by international relations was born. At the movements and organizations that heart of Realist theory is the clear dis- transcend borders. In the Epilogue I in- tinction between the domestic political dicate why I believe that this judgment system and the international political is premature. system. Within a particular country, Having identified myself with the the state enjoys a monopoly on the le- Realist tradition, a critical qualification gitimate use of coercion—such as the is in order. Toaffirm the primacy of the right to tax its citizens or compel them nation-state, the centrality of power (in to obey its laws—and physical force— all of its aspects), and the reality of com- such as the right to arrest, imprison, petition and conflict among the na- and execute people for offenses that it tions of the world does not denote ap- On June 9 Anna Isabella Chernock Mulliken was proscribes. But outside the boundaries proval of this situation. On the con- born, 6 lbs., 8 oz., 19 inches tall. Mother (Professor Chernock) and daughter are both doing fine, and of a state, there is no authority to en- trary, my personal preference would be Anna is looking forward to meeting all in the force laws or preserve order. There is, for an international order far different department.

Page 8 NEWS

8 Three students win Diana Wylie appointed humanities awards to distinguished professorship In May three students from the His- tory Department won awards from the In May, Tessa Gordon passed the lan- Professor Diana Wylie has been ap- Boston University Humanities Foun- guage examination in French. pointed the National Endowment for dation. the Humanities Distinguished Bob Black won a graduate student Teaching Professor prize. He is currently writing a disserta- These students passed foreign lan- for the years 2008- tion titled “The Whig in Swallow Barn: guage requirements through 2011. The profes- The Political Culture of John Pendle- coursework in spring 2008: sorship, estab- ton Kennedy.” Kennedy was a novelist, lished in 1993 with Seth Blumenthal: Spanish a Whig politician serving in the House a challenge grant Jonathan Koefoed: German of Representatives, and member of Mil- that matched Jolanta Komornicka: Italian lard Fillmore’s cabinet. Following com- funds from pletion of his doctorate, Bob hopes to alumni and teach at the college or university level. friends of the Col- The following students passed the Lauren Joslin won an undergradu- lege and Graduate School of Arts and qualifying oral examination for the ate humanities prize. Having just com- Sciences and the Division of General PhD: pleted a semester at Oxford University, Education, recognizes excellence in she intends to turn her fascination with teaching by a prominent teacher- On April 25: Andrew J. Ballou. Ex- history into a job as an archivist; her pri- scholar who is associated with the Core aminers in the major field of Ameri- mary fields of interest are the late medi- Curriculum, and it funds undergradu- can history were Professors Brendan eval and early Reformation periods, ate enrichment programs in the hu- McConville, Jon Roberts, and Bruce with a particular focus on spirituality. manities. Schulman; examiner in the minor Jillian Primiano, the other under- Professor Wylie is the second histo- field of international relations, 1900- graduate award winner, has been inter- rian to be thus honored; previous hold- 1950, was Professor William Keylor. ested in history since her freshman ers of the title have been William Vance year, particularly in the aspects of his- (English), Christopher Ricks (English), On April 30: Seth Blumenthal. Ex- tory that have been disregarded or un- James Johnson (History), David Eckel aminers in the major field of Ameri- noticed. Among her adventures she has (Religion), and Christopher Martin can history were Professors Jon Rob- taught at an orphanage and worked at a (English). erts, Bruce Schulman, and Nina rehab center for children in Vietnam, The Distinguished Teaching Profes- Silber; examiner in the minor field of and last spring she studied in Shanghai, sor was chosen by a process that en- twentieth-century German history was learning Chinese and asking questions tailed nomination, vetting by a dean’s Professor Jonathan Zatlin. about Chinese attitudes toward com- committee, and finally an interview munism and Westernism. with the CAS dean, who made the ap- pointment. These students had their dissertation Wylie outlines some of her plans: prospectus approved: “I’ve already begun contacting guest speakers (like Jonathan Shay, who Kathryn Brownell: “The Rise of the wrote Odysseus in America, though he ‘Sixth Estate’: The Influence of Holly- hasn’t answered yet), buying concert wood Celebrities in American Poli- tickets—to a Cervantes-era concert, to tics.” The first reader will be Professor Don Giovanni (opera), to Beethoven at Bruce Schulman, and the second will the Boston Symphony Orchestra—as be Professor Julian Zelizer of Prince- well as tickets to, say, Anna Deveare ton University. Smith’s play on the body which will be performed in September at the Ameri- Robyn Metcalfe: “The Removal of can Repertory Theatre. I’m also invit- the Smithfield Live Cattle Market in ing the Alloy Orchestra to perform dur- Nineteenth-Century London, 1820 to ing a showing of the silent film ‘Phan- 1870.” The first reader will be Profes- Winner of a graduate Humanities Foundation tom of the Opera’ in the Tsai audito- sor Louis Ferleger, and the second will award, Bob Black. The other recipients, Lauren rium in November.” She sums up with be Professor Harriet Ritvo of the Mas- Joslin and Jillian Primiano, were studying abroad at the time of the award ceremony in May. typical enthusiasm: “I love doing this!” sachusetts Institute of Technology.

September 2008 Page 9

9 War.” United States today. Gauging their im- plications requires that we acknowl- * * * * * * * * edge their source: They reflect the accu- mulated detritus of freedom, the by- How exactly did the end of the Long products of our frantic pursuit of life, Peace so quickly yield the Long War? liberty, and happiness. Seeing themselves as a peaceful people, Freedom is the altar at which Ameri- Americans remain wedded to the con- cans worship, whatever their nominal viction that the conflicts in which they religious persuasion. “No one sings find themselves embroiled are not of odes to liberty as the final end of life their own making. The global war on with greater fervor than Americans,” terror is no exception. Certain of our the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once own benign intentions, we reflexively observed. Yet even as they celebrate assign responsibility for war to others, freedom, Americans exempt the object typically malignant Hitler-like figures of their veneration from critical exami- inexplicably bent on denying us the nation. In our public discourse, free- peace that is our fondest wish. This dom is not so much a word or even a book challenges that supposition. It ar- value as an incantation, its very men- gues that the actions of Saddam tion enough to stifle doubt and termi- Hussein and Osama bin Laden, how- nate all debate. ever malevolent, cannot explain why The Limits of Power will suggest that the United States today finds itself en- this heedless worship of freedom has Andrew Bacevich meshed in seemingly never-ending been a mixed blessing. ♦ conflict. Although critics of U.S. for- authors book on eign policy, and especially of the Iraq American exceptionalism War, have already advanced a variety of alternative explanations—variously fin- gering President Bush, members of his Graduate students win Metropolitan Books has recently pub- inner circle, jingoistic neo- lished Professor Andrew Bacevich’s The conservatives, greedy oil executives, or travel awards Limits of Power: The End of American even the Israel lobby—it also finds those Exceptionalism. Below we reprint a sec- explanations inadequate. Certainly, the In May four graduate students won de- tion of the Introduction: “WarWithout president and his advisers, along with partmental grants to support travel for Exits”: neocons always looking for opportuni- dissertation research, with funding pri- ties to flex American military muscle, marily from the Engelbourg Travel Fel- or the United States, the passing bear considerable culpability for our lowship. Their names and dissertation of the Cold War yielded neither a current predicament. Yet to charge topics are listed below: F“peace dividend” nor anything them with primary responsibility is to remotely resembling peace. Instead, credit them with undeserved historical ■ Anne Blaschke: “Manhood, Femi- what was hailed as a historic victory significance. It’s the equivalent of nism, and Sports: Gendered Racial gave way almost immediately to re- blaming Herbert Hoover for the Great Protest at the 1968 Mexico City newed unrest and conflict. By the time ff Depression or of attributing Olympic Games” the East-West stando that some histo- McCarthyism entirely to the antics of rians had termed the “Long Peace” ■ Kathryn Brownell: “The Rise of the 1991 Senator Joseph McCarthy. ‘Sixth Estate’: The Influence of Hol- ended in , the United States had al- The impulses that have landed us in ready embarked upon a decade of un- lywood Celebrities in American Pol- a war of no exits and no deadlines come itics” precedented interventionism. In the from within. Foreign policy has, for de- ■ years that followed, Americans became cades, provided an outward manifesta- Katherine Jewell: “The Southern inured to reports of U.S. forces going States Industrial Council and the fi tion of American domestic ambitions, into action— ghting in Panama and the urges, and fears. In our own time, it has Transformation of the Southern 1932-1970 Persian Gulf, occupying Bosnia and increasingly become an expression of Economy, ” - Haiti, lambasting Kosovo, Afghani domestic dysfunction—an attempt to ■ William McCoy plans a dissertation stan, and Sudan from the air. Yet all of manage or defer coming to terms with dealing with the work of an Ameri- these turned out to be mere preliminar- 2001 contradictions besetting the American can mission operating in the British ies. In came the main event, an way of life. Those contradictions have colony in Swaziland that treated lep- open-ended global war on terror, soon found their ultimate expression in the rosy patients. known in some quarters as the “Long perpetual state of war afflicting the

Page 10 NEWS

10 European warfare. The wars of this age the merely illusory, in spite of a new were, like nearly all wars fought since and ultimately universal emphasis on early modern times, decided mainly by hard drill of professional troops. Cam- attrition leading to economic, political, paigns and battles seldom decided fiscal, and, in some cases, even moral long-term, worldwide conflicts. As a re- exhaustion. With few exceptions, mili- sult, wars among the major powers were tary operations were carried out by ar- most often inconclusive, as well as al- mies at a pedestrian pace, with clashes most always protracted. As one war occurring at highly predictable loca- named and numbered by later histori- tions along well-trodden and heavily ans ended in a transient treaty marking fortified frontiers. Initially, armies were little more than an exhausted pause, an- unguided by grand strategy or attempts other would begin. Often, only minor at strategic or operational turning shuffling altered the membership of movements. They focused instead on large opposing alliances, as warfare re- gaining or defending control of key sumed after a mutually agreed break river crossings guarded by great lines of used by each side mainly to recover and fortresses and garrisoned towns. Mili- rearm. These wars were decided, insofar tary roads, magazines, and other supply as they ever were decided, mainly by systems improved markedly in some political and military attrition attended countries but remained rudimentary to by fiscal and moral exhaustion—or they nonexistent beyond most frontiers, were interrupted by an accident of Cathal Nolan authors where the majority of fighting actually royal birth or death leading to a re- occurred. That meant, as it had in prior newed outbreak of diplomacy. The op- new volume of eras and despite strenuous efforts at posite was also true: sustaining peace encyclopedia modernizing reform by absolutist depended to a high degree on continu- monarchs during this period, that mili- ing royal health or the survival of some tary supply, along with war finance, was sickly prince or king, most famously— During the summer Greenwood Press not that far advanced beyond the debil- but not uniquely—Carlos II of Spain (r. published the latest volume in Profes- itating 16th-century practice of enforc- 1665-1700). Complex issues of succes- sor Cathal Nolan’s Encyclopedia of ing “contributions” from occupied ter- sion of Bourbon or Habsburg were the Global Warfare and Civilization.Weare ritories. The success or failure of a cam- daily stuff of high European politics at pleased to reprint a section of the Intro- paign also still depended to a high de- all times, and the bane of the lives of duction to this work: gree on vagaries of weather, while far masses of peasants swept away by ebb- more casualties resulted from disease ing and waning tides of peace and the he conflicts covered in this en- than from combat. That was especially maelstrom of war. ♦ cyclopedia, Wars of the Age of the case for unfortunate garrisons in Louis XIV, 1650-1715, were more T tropical overseas stations, but it was complex in forms of military and social also true within disease-ridden siege organization than the European Wars camps and crowded and embattled of Religion that preceded them, the towns in Europe. conditions of which are discussed and None of these severe limitations on detailed in my earlier two-volume New students enter graduate capability stopped ambitious rulers work, The Age of Wars of Religion, 1000- from seeking strategic direction of mili- program 1650 (Greenwood, 2006). The wars of tary conflicts on a continental and, the era of France’s Louis XIV, the “Sun eventually, a global scale. The expand- This fall eight students are entering the King,” were also different in key ways ing scale of operations was a feature graduate program: one in the master’s, the rest from conflicts that followed, which will that emerged progressively over this pe- in the doctoral (four post-bachelor’s, three post- be dealt with in subsequent volumes in riod to become something genuinely master’s). Four students are in the American the Greenwood Encyclopedias of Mod- new, compared to earlier Wars of Reli- field, two in European, and two in African. Five ern World War series. Battles and sieges gion. Worldwide trade and naval wars hold fellowships that pay all tuition and a sti- during the exceptionally long reign of pend. Although eight is one of the smallest strained to maximum degrees the Louis XIV (1643-1715) were marked number of entering students on record (the av- scanty resources and organizational ca- mostly by indecision, notwithstanding erage is approximately 13), without doubt 2008 pabilities of still-limited states and the reputation subsequently accruing sees the highest percentage of students with overtaxed societies. Grand strategy, to John Churchill, Duke of Marl- full aid packages. once it appeared, also faltered under borough, for reintroducing the desire In next month’s newsletter the new students the strain of battlefield command-and- for decisive battle to early 18th-century will introduce themselves. control limitations that bordered on

September 2008 Page 11

11 consumption of industrialized states made imperial holdings and powerful allies a vital component of national se- curity. American economist Charles A. Conant noted that an empire guaran- teed a nation access to scarce raw mate- rials, tariff-free markets for products, and investment opportunities for banks and businesses. As empires in- History of the CIA creased in scope, and as coal- and oil- burning technology bound imperial possessions increasingly together, it be- came vital to possess refueling stations for one’s merchant fleet, and a strong, fast navy to preserve one’s trade and ter- Symposium Sponsored by the ritories, as observed by Captain Alfred International History Institute T. Mahan of the U.S. Navy. A powerful navy and its requisite refueling stations could in turn reduce the authority exer- Two panels will discuss major cised by other nations, and thereby en- themes in the history of the Michael McGuire edits large one’s own stature. However, Agency. Participants and panel- Marxist radicals like V. I. Lenin insisted ists include historians, journal- course reader that imperial competition among the ists, and former CIA and other na- Great Powers had led to the outbreak of tional security personnel, includ- McGraw-Hill Publishers has released European-wide war, and would ulti- ing: the fifth edition of the course reader mately doom capitalism. (used in hi/ir 349) edited by graduate New social concepts provided addi- Joel Rosenthal, President, Car- student Michael McGuire: As It tional motivations for empire among negie Council on Ethics and In- Actually Was: A History of International many of the Great Powers of Europe. ternational Affairs Relations through Documents, 1823-1945. The pseudo-scientific teachings of “So- We reprint a section of Chapter 1: “Alli- cial Darwinism” compelled many states Elbridge A. Colby, former staff ances and Empires: The Foundation of to increase their colonial holdings, as member in the Office of the Direc- the Twentieth Century”: important leaders within each state, tor of National Intelligence and such as British diamond magnate Cecil now adjunct staff member at the he acquisition of imperial terri- Rhodes and Emperor Wilhelm II of RAND Corporation tories and the cultivation of Germany, believed a larger colonial Tpowerful coalitions did not empire would somehow ensure politi- Arthur Hulnik and Joseph Wippl commence with the twentieth century. cal prestige among nations of equal from the BU International Rela- Since governments learned of distant stature, and augment such status tions Department lands filled with great riches and run by among those they regarded as inferior. weaker rulers, their leaders began to lay Additionally, European elites devel- Co-sponsored by the Carnegie claim to far-flung empires. Equally an- oped the somewhat amorphous con- Council on Ethics and International tiquated was the forging of alliances, ei- cept of the “white man’s burden”—a pa- Affairs ther to gain greater power, or to defend ternal duty imposed on European na- against invading hordes. tions to shepherd their African and The difference between the interna- Asian subjects toward “civilized” be- Friday, September 26, 1-5 p.m. tional affairs of the late nineteenth and havior. Finally, Europe’s Catholics and twentieth centuries, and those of their Protestants cultivated a self-imposed Room 412, School of Management, predecessors, lay in nations’ methods obligation to convert these new domin- 595 Commonwealth Avenue and motivations as they developed alli- ions to the Christian faith, a maxim re- ances and built empires. By the middle peatedly stated by renowned British of the nineteenth century, the Indus- missionary Dr. David Livingstone. For trial Revolution had begun in nearly ev- these reasons, Belgium, Britain, France, Free and open to the public ery European country, as well as a few Germany, Italy, Portugal, Russia, and important non-European nations such later Japan and the United States all Reception will follow as the United States and Japan. The laid claim to swaths of the Eastern rapid production, transportation, and Hemisphere. ♦

Page 12 NEWS

12 id Heywood Linda

International Symposium: The Legacy of the First Republic of Armenia (1918-1921)

Saturday, September 27, 2008

The First Armenian Republic emerged out of the destruction of the Ottoman and Russian em- pires in the Great War but was quickly annexed to the Soviet empire. Noted and leading histo- rians of Armenia will present talks on different aspects of the Republic and its legacy and will Linda Heywood named take questions from the public. director of African The symposium is sponsored by the Charles K. and Elisabeth M. Kenosian Chair in American Studies Modern Armenian History and Literature, Boston University

Co-sponsored by This summer Professor of History International History Institute, Boston University Linda Heywood was appointed to a Department of History, Boston University three-year term as the new director of Department of International Relations, Boston University the African American Studies Program. National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, Belmont, MA She follows Professor Ronald Richard- son, who had been director since 2000. Program Chair: Professor William R. Keylor. Director, International History Institute Professor Heywood speaks of her plans for the future of the program: During my tenure as Director, we Session I, 10:00 a.m.—12:00 noon will continue our focus on the global Simon Payaslian (Boston University) dimensions of the African American ff Opening Remarks experience. To this e ect the program will continue its collaboration with the Erik Goldstein (Boston University) various departments and programs in “Great Britain and the Re-emergence of Armenian Statehood” the College of Arts and Sciences. I in- tend to work with the Director of the Ara Sanjian (University of Michigan–Dearborn) American and New England Studies “Continuing the All-Russian Revolution of February 1917: The Challenge of Land Program to pursue the plans that my Reform” predecessor, Dr. Ronald Richardson, Victoria Rowe (University of Greenwich, United Kingdom) started for the development of a joint “Women as Political Actors in the First Republic of Armenia and in the Creation of In- PhD Program in American Studies and ternational Networks of Refugee Relief, 1918-1925” African American Studies. I will also meet with colleagues from the School Session II, 1:00—3:30 p.m. of Education to discuss ideas about de- veloping new courses that will cater to Benjamin F. Alexander (Towson University, Maryland) the needs of their students. “The Thousand-day Republic and the Assassination of Archbishop Tourian” The African American Studies Pro- gram will continue to sponsor several Razmik Panossian (Montreal, Canada) “The Impact of the First Republic on Armenian Identity in the 20th Century” public programs and conferences. In addition to its regular public lectures fi Robert Krikorian (George Washington University) (every rst and third Tuesday of the “The Legacy of the First Independent Republic of Armenia and the Collapse of Soviet month), plans are underway to put on a Power” one-day seminar during spring 2009 on African Americans in Boston and to Location: School of Management Auditorium, Room 105, 595 Commonwealth Avenue, sponsor a two-day international confer- Boston University ence on African Americans and Ameri- 2010 Free and open to the public can Foreign Policy in the spring of .

September 2008 Page 13

13 tionately calling him “our Martin Lu- Chávez articulated the God-given dig- Stephen Pitti ther King.” Finally, Pitti pointed out nity of all people, the example of delivers Gaspar that to this day Chávez’s grave is con- Christ’s suffering, and a powerful sidered by many to be a sacred site for “spirit” that united all workers in their Bacon Lecture presenting prayers and petitions in the struggle for recognition. In language vein of Chávez’s legacy. lifted from Vatican II, Chávez stressed Far from being surprised by all of the “preferential option for the poor,” this, Pitti argued that this is precisely and while on a spiritual retreat he by Jonathan Koefoed what should be expected once one drafted the UFW constitution. Pitti in- properly understands the religious his- sisted that, steeped in this religious tory of Chávez and his movement. Pitti grammar, the early UFW meetings—full n May 5 Stephen Pitti deliv- pointed out that many mistakenly as- of singing and joining hands—often re- ered the Department of His- sume the radicalism of the UFW to be sembled religious services in ways not tory’s annual Gaspar Bacon coterminous with that of the fairly sec- seen in previous Latino civil rights O ular cultural revolution of the late 1960s movements. Lecture. Pitti is Professor of History and 1970 American Studies at Yale University and early s. Though the UFW In addition to the Catholic founda- and the Director of the Ethnicity, Race, gained countercultural allies during tions of the UFW, Chávez guided the and Migration Program. Professor Pitti, this period, Pitti argued that the UFW’s movement in an intentionally ecumen- 1950 an expert on Latino history and com- crucible moment came in the late s ical way. In later years he worked more 1960 parative civil rights, is the author of The and early s. As such, Pitti insisted extensively with Jewish groups and Devil in Silicon Valley: Race, Mexican that the liberation theology emerging Quakers, and even hung a Star of David 1968 Americans, and Northern California. His from Latin America and its apparent af- in his headquarters. In , he orga- current research seeks to articulate a firmation at the Second Vatican Coun- nized a fast for peace in which he suc- more comprehensive and context- cil of the Roman Catholic Church cessfully brought in many more reli- ualized understanding of the famous must be seen as a primary catalyst in gious people by emphasizing the need labor rights activist César Chávez, and Chávez’s radicalism. for penance in the country. He also av- fi in the Bacon Lecture Pitti particularly Indeed it was a parish priest who rst idly imbibed the teachings of Mahatma underscored the religious nature of inspired Chávez to think in the animat- Gandhi, and by the end of his life Chávez’s work in the founding of the ing categories of personhood and social Chávez actively practiced yoga. United Farm Workers of America justice. In an environment where em- Pitti concluded his lecture by argu- (UFW). ployers often viewed and treated work- ing that the religious nature of Chávez Pitti began at the end so to speak, re- ers as farm implements, faith provided flecting on the “politics of death” at the categories for resistance. Thus, See BACON LECTURE, page 15 Chávez’s funeral and beyond. The ser- vice itself articulated the religious grammar that Pitti argued had charac- terized the UFW movement from the beginning. During the homily, Chávez’s death was compared directly to that of Christ; though tragic, it would sow the seeds of a stronger church. Recognizing the significance of Chávez, religious leaders came from all over the country, including many who were at odds with the leader’s politics. In the aftermath of his death, Chávez’s followers began applying titles such as “martyr” and “prophet” to him, affec-

Jonathan Koefoed is entering his second year in the post-master’s PhD program.He received his BA from Ar- izona State and his MA from St. Louis University.His ad- visor in the graduate program is Professor Charles Department chair Charles Dellheim, Bacon Lecturer Stephen Pitti, and Paul Schmitz (who has been a Capper. friend of Professor Pitti’s since high school and who is teaching for the department this academic year)

Page 14 NEWS

14 and anticipates losing her Rs again within the next six months. Her aca- Greig Scholarship demic interests include comparative so- cial and cultural history, theories of recipients gender and embodiment, and contem- porary popular culture. She looks for- announced ward to the publication of her first book on changes in daily life across the In July ten history concentrators 19th century in Japan and is eager to learned they had received a tui- move on her new research project fo- tion scholarship for 2008-09 Suzanne O’Brien cusing on decolonization and mascu- from the Herbert and Mary line identity in postwar Japan. She is Greig fund; each award was for plotting a samurai film festival for the either full or half tuition. spring semester and hopes to draw a wide range of students into Japanese The Greig award was created to Introduction to New Faculty studies. encourage study and research in Her extracurricular pursuits include the area of American history and A native returns salsa dancing, fencing, and cooking, to encourage high academic and she is impatiently awaiting the achievement in the subject of the opening of the ski season. ♦ civic responsibilities of citizens of uzanne O’Brien grew up just 30 the United States. The donor of miles from BU in Hanover, the funding is Marcia Carey SMass., and only learned to pro- Becker. nounce the letter “R” when she heeded BACON LECTURE (cont. from page 14) the call to “Go West, young (wo)man!” These are the winners of this year’s Greig Scholarship: to attend university in California. After and the UFW is highlighted by the var- receiving her BA in Japanese history ied responses it provoked. Growers cer- Marta Kyra Bakas from Stanford University, she headed tainly recognized the leader as a quasi- Jeffrey David Chatterton still farther west to what would become religious figure and unsuccessfully Megan Christine Filoon her second home—Tokyo. There she fought back, trying to paint him as un- Amanda B. Johnson studied Japanese language and culture spiritual. At times Chávez came under Janet Elizabeth Kay for several years, endured endless hours fire from previously allied Catholics Reesa Miles of karaoke, and perfected her sushi- who felt his ecumenism went too far Ruth Anne Morris rolling technique. New York’s parks, theologically. He also experienced criti- Kyle Patrick Pronko salsa clubs, and museums provided cism from many in the secular labor Shari Lisa Rabin much-needed distractions over the next movement who were uncomfortable Lauren Williams few years of graduate school in Japanese with his religiosity. However, in the history at Columbia University, where end he won the support of many key re- she earned her PhD in East Asian Lan- ligious figures such as Coretta Scott guages and Cultures with a specializa- King, Dorothy Day, the Pope, and even tion in modern Japanese history. She is the fiery and conservative Pentecostal the author of book chapters and a trans- leader Oral Roberts (who was an initial Majors Expo to be held on lation relating to the movement for re- opponent). Pitti closed his lecture by dress by victims of the imperial Japa- conceding that while Chávez became September 11 nese military during World War II, and less orthodox throughout his spiritual 18 19 has published articles on th- and th- life, he became, if anything, more reli- At the Majors Expo, held in the George century Japanese cultural history. gious. People came to him for special Sherman Union, various departments will host fi After a ve-year stint teaching Asian healing prayer, and Chávez in his own tables at which faculty and students already history at a Jesuit university in LA, she writings experimented with the idea of majors can discuss the concentration with fi has nally returned to her native land a highly mystical mind religion that those still undeclared and at which printed in- Pitti suggested might even signify a formation can be handed out. Last year some 465 students attended. Professor Cathal Nolan kind of messianic complex. However will be in charge of this year’s event, to be held one interprets this latter evidence, Pitti The newsletter invites all new faculty members to intro- between 1 and 5 p.m. on September 11. duce themselves to our readers, and so we are pleased insisted that Chávez and the UFW Any history concentrators interested in par- to present the contribution of the latest appointee, Assis- movement must be seen in part as a reli- ticipating should e-mail Professor Nolan tant Professor Suzanne O’Brien. Her office is Room 203 gious phenomenon. ♦ in the main history building; her e-mail address is ([email protected]). [email protected].

September 2008 Page 15

15 Department of History Boston University 226 Bay State Road Boston, MA 02215

The USS Lionfish is an early World War II submarine that made a number of war patrols in the Pacific. The shot is looking up the escape hatch, in the mess just in front of the engine room and aft torpedo tubes.

The last Sunday of the spring 2008 semester saw Professor Cathal Nolan’s students from his HI 537 class (History of World War II) on a field trip to Bat- tleship Cove in Fall River, Mass. All enjoyed casual commentary and historical explanations by Professor Nolan. Students toured the battleship USS Massachu- setts, Destroyer Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., the Balao-class submarine USS Lionfish, and the East German corvette Hiddensee. Students marveled over a miniature World War II–era Japanese motorboat whose exact purpose is still unknown, tried out the sleeping quarters in the Lionfish, and envisioned themselves as gunners on the Big Mamie. One graduating senior stated, “This was my dream as a little boy—to be on a battleship.” “This was one of the best field trips I’ve ever taken at BU,” stated Jana Sico (’08). After a semester learning about the most important battles of the Second World War, students greatly appreciated The USS Massachusetts is a World War II battleship that saw ac- linking their studies to these massive naval artifacts. tion in the Mediterranean (against the French) and in the Pacific The photos on this page were taken by Genevieve Nolan. (against the Japanese). The shot looks from the prow at the su- perstructure and at the 15" guns of the main turret.

16