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Transcripts For CSPAN3 Zombies Of Western History 20151219 :
Transcripts For CSPAN3 Zombies Of Western History 20151219 :
Transcripts For CSPAN3 Zombies Of Western History 20151219
Reason, even though our brave historians have put them to rest, they reanimate every five or seven years and come back to get put to rest again. Our illustrious panelists are willing to name some of those zombies and why they need to be put to rest, ok . This is an interactive session. After each person has their five minutes, audience members can to defendnd respond or attack that zombie, but you have one minute and then you need to sit down so someone else can speak in a some point, we will move onto the next zombie. Does that all makes sense . Mostly. Ok. This is a grand experiment, and i am your intrepid referee. Universityzona state. All these people are very illustrious so i will not spend a lot of time introducing them. Anne hyde is at
Colorado College
and moving on to the university of oklahoma. Shes not dying. Shes not passing over but moving on. She is author of empires, associate professor of history at uc davis. Chicano protests and patriotism during the vietnam war era which explores the nexus between race and foreign policy. Kevin leonard is a professor of history at western washington university. He is also chairing the department. An executive director of the
Pacific Branch
of his american historical association. The battle for radiant los angeles is his book. John coleman. He is professor and director at notre dame. He is the author of vicious. And we have pictures of nelson limerick, who i am calling buffy today. [laughter] she really does not need much introduction which is written a lot of things. [laughter] lorena, i am keeping time. Anne is first. I dont get how the microphones work. I speak into this mic . Can you hear her in the back . It is north dakota. It is 3 00 in the morning. It is february. There is a little house. My zombie is the helpful sunbonnetted white woman of the planes. Dear ma, one of the later that mary, baby grace and i went on an errant. Now dont worry. I know it is the middle of the night but we laid out for time with you in the barn struggle to keep the animals warm during the great blizzard. After we watched you put on pas boots to milk the cow, we think we need a new acts. A sharp one just in case. We will buy from mr. Olson at the general store. And tell limits to keep the indians away. Since pa has been gone on the launcher to find the next little house, the one in the big woods with a
Little Prairie
or silverlake by the banks of palm pre did not work out. Since then youve been spending a lot of time alone in the bar. We dont have any food or wood left. Hes been acting very strangely. I know that when these people for the future arrive and set up camp in our house with tv cameras that they do under some extra pressure. Now you have to act like living in dakota in the winter was depressed and frustrated and pa is fun so money that people will pay money to pretend to be like us. When he started ironing our underwear and using words like sturdy help meat, i started thinking about that ax. [laughter] have you ever heard of zombies . Dont worry. Even if youre dead, we have a plan. The tv people save it cant be in the show because we are too dirty and thin. Our uncivilized appearance by make people think homesteading of the great plains was not so much fun. Some friendly lakota people came by and offered to adopt us. I know what else was to let them in the house because we are good white girls, but they didnt they pushed us. They gave his deer meat and berries and some new clothes for grace. They left a letter saying that their tribal land law experts would be in touch about our farm. [laughter] the tv people only have power bars and perrier, so we are not going with them. We have two options. Moved to deadwood and become prostitutes. Mary and i could take care of grace that way. Always you go to the awesome talent of the future and wash dishes there. Love laura. [laughter] [applause] that was the first zombie. Any responses . You may respond also on the panel. You have one minute if you do. I love laura and its hard to give her up. [laughter] why did they come back . The question is why these always come back . I grew up with those books. The notion of being independent, able to take care of yourself, and a lady situation is fabulous. And be clean and profitable and all of those things. Any others . This is interactive. You expect the audience to be involved. Any other responses to that . Yes . No, you are moving to somebody else. I just learned in the elevator that 4h is meeting in the hotel. We should send anne over and that will not go well. Do you think it will go well to speak ive only met ladies . How do you think it would go with the 4h people . I think it would be fine because the whole notion about was actually going on in the planes was deeply interesting to them. The 4h club cares about horses and all those kind of things. They have seen and understand how it works. They have seen the less glamorous picture of the west. I think they think that would be fun. This may be a short session. Will get used to it. Lorena . I dont understand, there are two timers going off. Miserly is american exceptionalism. What is that . We are in a roomful of historians so we think we might know, but for a broader audience according to one of its fiercest critics is about democratic principle, material prosperity, we love consumerism. According to one of its staunchest defenders its about all of the above. Its americans sense of principal mission, a unique blending of religious and democratic commitment, its characteristic emphasis on local government, the high cultural esteem in which economic enterprise is held, and americans to think of respect for individual liberties. What makes u. S. Different from any other nation on this planet. I want to say i really thought the zombie was dead and buried. I am not going to sing but that would truly be scary. Remember that song from hotel california. We just cannot kill the beast . These are some of the sharp knives. We have come a long way from when a person who was in the field i originally trained in said about the u. S. Mexico war. American expansion across the practically empty continent, this spoiled no nation unjustly. This was the leading line from 19351965. We have come a long ways. Some of the sharp knives are on this panel. We have a legacy of conquest as the foundational text when you get u. S. History. How to give a shout out to diplomatic history because when i learned it a long time ago, decades ago, the idea was that the fabulous market was from the u. S. Perspective of the far west, not the far east. Territorial expansion is linked to economic influence in penetration elsewhere. And then the last sharp knife is the inclusion of native
American History
in the western
History Association
and so many other places. There was an excellent article that said we have not done enough, especially diplomatic historians. I just read a book by
Walter Hixson
and he links he does a beautiful job of linking territorial expansion starting on the atlantic seaboard, all the way to the u. S. In the philippines. He incorporates alaska and hawaii. The link is violence and he mentions what he calls the g word. Genocide. These are some pretty sharp knives. And to give a shout out to the president of this conference. One of her addresses was on colonialism. We won. We have killed the zombie but it keeps coming back. And it comes back we are kind of in accord. We look at the past critically. It comes back into the political realm. Lets look at where comes back. America is a force of good in the world. One definition, that actually comes a rush limbaugh, america stands for in defense of protect freedom for all. America is a shining light, a beacon. This is a definition of american exceptionalism. If you want confirmation on how powerful this idea is, you probably know this, advanced placement u. S. History standard were revised this year to include the term american exceptionalism. One of the people who was so critical of the 2014 standards, but thats not enough you got to be more, there were changes in the contents of is much more emphasis on the productive role of enterprise on entrepreneurship and innovation in u. S. History in how americans won the cold war. This is for me a back to the future moment, or the zombies are we the walking dead . Are the historians the walking dead . These arguments came about in the 1990s during the culture war. Lynne cheney was at the forefront of that. I will get killed right now, hold on. Lynne cheney and her husband had a book about exceptional, why
American Standard
be strong in the world. Ranked 4000 on amazon. Paul revere, 206. She ran out of time that is anybody want to join in . Why is this some be coming back . This is the answer. Settler colonialism is wrapped in
Laura Ingalls
wilder. How do you kill her . This appealing vision of what settler colonialism really was. Cute little white girls. They are innocent. They have pigtails. But that is how we have packaged settler colonialism as opposed to genocide which it actually is. One of the reasons we can talk about this keyword g word is because territorial expansion is done and it has for about a hundred years. In california yosemite is now a national park. You not to think about those injustices because it is so far away. Any other responses . This may be societies are assisting to. Distinctive australia and canada apologizes and we dont do that. We are distinctive in this we are not a onesizefitsall. Where does the think of this register . When you talk about american exceptionalism by fiat, the assumption is if you do comparisons it becomes aggressive relativism. Did think imperatively is to down the
United States
which is crazy because if you think imperatively, why would the
United States
actually look like it has a handle things better than the british. What is the fear . There is a fear to think at all. Yet to go to the microphone and you have one minute. [laughter] it is over now. I think one of the things that makes this so difficult to kill is that our
National Identity
associate by the western expansion. At the same time the hardships that people survived in order to homestead on the great plains are good stories about man, women versus nature. When we tell a wider public, we cant glorify the story of those little houses on the prairie, with a here is you are saying that my grandmothers suffering does not matter. You are saying these people are not valuable. We have to somehow into the conversations in a different manner to say, those are
Great Stories
. I would love to hear how your grandmother suffered and how this native woman suffered as a result of the opportunities that the land gave your ancestor. We have to engage them on a level that says we are not saying youre a bad person because you dissented for somebody who lives in a plane, when you talk about the larger implications of that. Other responses . I would say i think anne is correct. Is the heroes, the exciting people that is so much a popular appeal. With the mountain men we get so excited about these people and people look to say this person or that person. They were these great heroic in the popular imagination we love biography. I think that people sort of shine a light on these beacons, these exciting individuals. And then all publications western history is the history of heroes and villains, not history of complex societies. Others . Thank you so much. Responses . No. We will go on and. Kevin, it is your turn. I dont like mountain men by the way. [laughter] it is tough to follow both diane and her creativity and marina and her energy. I will be more zombielike. [laughter] i first encountered one of the zombies of western history in the spring of 1984 when i was a student in the history of the transmississippi west. Tom was not the zombie. One day he asked the course identify the west. To my surprise most of the students insisted the western halves of washington and oregon were not part of the region. They agreed that the world areas of washington and oregon were part of the west but the urban areas of seattle and portland had at some point ceased to be western. I thought this is strange because i grew up in the strange and exotic places of casper, wyoming. I always thought that western cities included los angeles,
San Francisco
, portland, seattle, and many others. I do not let the exchange in that class stomach curiosity from leading me to study those parts of the lesser gun was intriguing which were the cities. I knew i wanted to be a western historian and i completed my undergraduate education in california. I always thought i was studying western history as a convicted research on mostly urban california. I posted article in 1990 and nobody told me it was inappropriate for me to publish in that journal. I was taken aback a few years later when i landed on the job market with a dissertation that focus on los angeles during world war ii. One some people wanted me to explain how my topic was western. The questions coming off guard. The way i looked at it i was writing with the largest city in the west and it makes sense that this was western history. I came to realize that some scholars were not convinced that los angeles was western. They seemed much more comfortable with an imagined west, indigenous villages, mining camps and homesteads in north dakota. To use one place particular. It is true that the historians workout was trying to engage were in some way on the periphery of the field of western history. This gets into questions of race in urban environments and the larger question of settlor colonialism and genocide that is already come up. Most western historians fixate on what is called westward movement, national expansion, and a settler colonialism. They focus on the sparsity populated spaces. That has allowed my zombie, the cityless region to rise from the grave. It might be unfair that i suggest that they focus on the frontier without cities. I could not resist. Perhaps what i most troubled by is the fact that much historical scholars street people who live in cities and events in cities is not part of western history. We often miss the presence of the
Indigenous People
in cities because we want to focus on what happened in more rural areas. There is some irony in the fact i know its the urban character that was at a meeting of portland. They usually meet in cities, sometimes on the periphery of colorado springs. That was not really an urban meeting. Most attendees commented favorably on the fine restaurants and museums and theaters available to them. Do we think we are in the west will meet important or
Newport Beach
or st. Paul . Evidence that western historians do not consider the citys western abounds. Im not trying to call anybody, i found relatively few paper titles that named western cities even though it is possible that some titles do not include the name of cities because they dont to appear to parochial. On the other hand there are numerous sessions and titles refer to spaces not coded as urban such as borderland in great plains. In light of the emphasis on agriculture i would argue that the very term the west and the north
American West
invokes open spaces were relatively few people lived. People think of the region in which six of the 10 largest cities are located. A number of scholars try to kill this zombie four years ago. You have one second. [laughter] i want to mention gerald nash. And i am now dead. [laughter] i have been dead for a while but keep rising. [laughter] any responses to that . Go to the microphone please. Moved to the microphones see you can anticipate the end of their minutes. We want to keep this going and lively. More people think about responding. I notice the citys often included agriculture cities. My particular zombie is yeti of the denver is in fact a cow town rather than an industrial city. It cannot be western if it is industrial is what i am finding. Western cities are often serviceoriented cities. Denver is a great example having so many federal employees. Either hi there. Speak louder to everyone. Do you think the concentration of interest in cities versus rural areas in western history have a lot to do with the concentration of capital in those places and the expropriation of the wealth in the hinterland that defies the frontier . San francisco is the
Center Capital
that developed mining west. Do you think there is a focus on that kind of peripheral case of extraction as opposed to the concentration of wealth and capital in the west . I suggesting that western historians are reluctant to write about capitalism . [laughter] maybe that is my question. I absolutely think that is part of what is going on although i am interested in the ways in which when we say that los angeles is a city that is not really western, we also conveniently disappear the
Indigenous People
of los angeles and the people of mexican heritage and latin american heritage. The asianamericans that live there. The largest africanamerican population for most of the 20 century in the west. Im interested in how that happens but i think youre right. We dont want to look very closely at the relationship between the hinterland and the center of capital and power. Whether that is los angeles or
San Francisco
or denver. That is where the banks are. That is where the real wealth is concentrated. Following the that, the notion of saying putting the two categories separate. Rural and urban. If that is not missing the best opportunity of the relationship and i speak with a lot of personal authority. We had a program called the urbanrole divorce. We had a very troubled child. [laughter] that worked really well. It was about the relationships and the trouble in that relationship. As ridiculous as my remark is, that notion what sense is rural western history going to make it is literally divorced from urban . I guess i would just think that i understand the desire to say city, city, city to counter the rural preoccupation. He wrote a review that he said its there are no cities. I thought that cannot be true. They must be cities in legacy and there were not. [laughter] thank you john. I did not want to call out into my panel fellow panelists. Dont you think stressing the relationship i think that is important. I can hold of my own work as a classic example of that. Im focusing very much on black neighborhoods in los angeles in the postwar years. The migration is really important. Everywhere you look, at least in my research, what brings africanamericans los angeles literally are the railroads. Those are very important economic institutions. They connect the cities to the hinterland. And then there is the engineering. Los angeles and
Colorado College<\/a> and moving on to the university of oklahoma. Shes not dying. Shes not passing over but moving on. She is author of empires, associate professor of history at uc davis. Chicano protests and patriotism during the vietnam war era which explores the nexus between race and foreign policy. Kevin leonard is a professor of history at western washington university. He is also chairing the department. An executive director of the
Pacific Branch<\/a> of his american historical association. The battle for radiant los angeles is his book. John coleman. He is professor and director at notre dame. He is the author of vicious. And we have pictures of nelson limerick, who i am calling buffy today. [laughter] she really does not need much introduction which is written a lot of things. [laughter] lorena, i am keeping time. Anne is first. I dont get how the microphones work. I speak into this mic . Can you hear her in the back . It is north dakota. It is 3 00 in the morning. It is february. There is a little house. My zombie is the helpful sunbonnetted white woman of the planes. Dear ma, one of the later that mary, baby grace and i went on an errant. Now dont worry. I know it is the middle of the night but we laid out for time with you in the barn struggle to keep the animals warm during the great blizzard. After we watched you put on pas boots to milk the cow, we think we need a new acts. A sharp one just in case. We will buy from mr. Olson at the general store. And tell limits to keep the indians away. Since pa has been gone on the launcher to find the next little house, the one in the big woods with a
Little Prairie<\/a> or silverlake by the banks of palm pre did not work out. Since then youve been spending a lot of time alone in the bar. We dont have any food or wood left. Hes been acting very strangely. I know that when these people for the future arrive and set up camp in our house with tv cameras that they do under some extra pressure. Now you have to act like living in dakota in the winter was depressed and frustrated and pa is fun so money that people will pay money to pretend to be like us. When he started ironing our underwear and using words like sturdy help meat, i started thinking about that ax. [laughter] have you ever heard of zombies . Dont worry. Even if youre dead, we have a plan. The tv people save it cant be in the show because we are too dirty and thin. Our uncivilized appearance by make people think homesteading of the great plains was not so much fun. Some friendly lakota people came by and offered to adopt us. I know what else was to let them in the house because we are good white girls, but they didnt they pushed us. They gave his deer meat and berries and some new clothes for grace. They left a letter saying that their tribal land law experts would be in touch about our farm. [laughter] the tv people only have power bars and perrier, so we are not going with them. We have two options. Moved to deadwood and become prostitutes. Mary and i could take care of grace that way. Always you go to the awesome talent of the future and wash dishes there. Love laura. [laughter] [applause] that was the first zombie. Any responses . You may respond also on the panel. You have one minute if you do. I love laura and its hard to give her up. [laughter] why did they come back . The question is why these always come back . I grew up with those books. The notion of being independent, able to take care of yourself, and a lady situation is fabulous. And be clean and profitable and all of those things. Any others . This is interactive. You expect the audience to be involved. Any other responses to that . Yes . No, you are moving to somebody else. I just learned in the elevator that 4h is meeting in the hotel. We should send anne over and that will not go well. Do you think it will go well to speak ive only met ladies . How do you think it would go with the 4h people . I think it would be fine because the whole notion about was actually going on in the planes was deeply interesting to them. The 4h club cares about horses and all those kind of things. They have seen and understand how it works. They have seen the less glamorous picture of the west. I think they think that would be fun. This may be a short session. Will get used to it. Lorena . I dont understand, there are two timers going off. Miserly is american exceptionalism. What is that . We are in a roomful of historians so we think we might know, but for a broader audience according to one of its fiercest critics is about democratic principle, material prosperity, we love consumerism. According to one of its staunchest defenders its about all of the above. Its americans sense of principal mission, a unique blending of religious and democratic commitment, its characteristic emphasis on local government, the high cultural esteem in which economic enterprise is held, and americans to think of respect for individual liberties. What makes u. S. Different from any other nation on this planet. I want to say i really thought the zombie was dead and buried. I am not going to sing but that would truly be scary. Remember that song from hotel california. We just cannot kill the beast . These are some of the sharp knives. We have come a long way from when a person who was in the field i originally trained in said about the u. S. Mexico war. American expansion across the practically empty continent, this spoiled no nation unjustly. This was the leading line from 19351965. We have come a long ways. Some of the sharp knives are on this panel. We have a legacy of conquest as the foundational text when you get u. S. History. How to give a shout out to diplomatic history because when i learned it a long time ago, decades ago, the idea was that the fabulous market was from the u. S. Perspective of the far west, not the far east. Territorial expansion is linked to economic influence in penetration elsewhere. And then the last sharp knife is the inclusion of native
American History<\/a> in the western
History Association<\/a> and so many other places. There was an excellent article that said we have not done enough, especially diplomatic historians. I just read a book by
Walter Hixson<\/a> and he links he does a beautiful job of linking territorial expansion starting on the atlantic seaboard, all the way to the u. S. In the philippines. He incorporates alaska and hawaii. The link is violence and he mentions what he calls the g word. Genocide. These are some pretty sharp knives. And to give a shout out to the president of this conference. One of her addresses was on colonialism. We won. We have killed the zombie but it keeps coming back. And it comes back we are kind of in accord. We look at the past critically. It comes back into the political realm. Lets look at where comes back. America is a force of good in the world. One definition, that actually comes a rush limbaugh, america stands for in defense of protect freedom for all. America is a shining light, a beacon. This is a definition of american exceptionalism. If you want confirmation on how powerful this idea is, you probably know this, advanced placement u. S. History standard were revised this year to include the term american exceptionalism. One of the people who was so critical of the 2014 standards, but thats not enough you got to be more, there were changes in the contents of is much more emphasis on the productive role of enterprise on entrepreneurship and innovation in u. S. History in how americans won the cold war. This is for me a back to the future moment, or the zombies are we the walking dead . Are the historians the walking dead . These arguments came about in the 1990s during the culture war. Lynne cheney was at the forefront of that. I will get killed right now, hold on. Lynne cheney and her husband had a book about exceptional, why
American Standard<\/a> be strong in the world. Ranked 4000 on amazon. Paul revere, 206. She ran out of time that is anybody want to join in . Why is this some be coming back . This is the answer. Settler colonialism is wrapped in
Laura Ingalls<\/a> wilder. How do you kill her . This appealing vision of what settler colonialism really was. Cute little white girls. They are innocent. They have pigtails. But that is how we have packaged settler colonialism as opposed to genocide which it actually is. One of the reasons we can talk about this keyword g word is because territorial expansion is done and it has for about a hundred years. In california yosemite is now a national park. You not to think about those injustices because it is so far away. Any other responses . This may be societies are assisting to. Distinctive australia and canada apologizes and we dont do that. We are distinctive in this we are not a onesizefitsall. Where does the think of this register . When you talk about american exceptionalism by fiat, the assumption is if you do comparisons it becomes aggressive relativism. Did think imperatively is to down the
United States<\/a> which is crazy because if you think imperatively, why would the
United States<\/a> actually look like it has a handle things better than the british. What is the fear . There is a fear to think at all. Yet to go to the microphone and you have one minute. [laughter] it is over now. I think one of the things that makes this so difficult to kill is that our
National Identity<\/a> associate by the western expansion. At the same time the hardships that people survived in order to homestead on the great plains are good stories about man, women versus nature. When we tell a wider public, we cant glorify the story of those little houses on the prairie, with a here is you are saying that my grandmothers suffering does not matter. You are saying these people are not valuable. We have to somehow into the conversations in a different manner to say, those are
Great Stories<\/a>. I would love to hear how your grandmother suffered and how this native woman suffered as a result of the opportunities that the land gave your ancestor. We have to engage them on a level that says we are not saying youre a bad person because you dissented for somebody who lives in a plane, when you talk about the larger implications of that. Other responses . I would say i think anne is correct. Is the heroes, the exciting people that is so much a popular appeal. With the mountain men we get so excited about these people and people look to say this person or that person. They were these great heroic in the popular imagination we love biography. I think that people sort of shine a light on these beacons, these exciting individuals. And then all publications western history is the history of heroes and villains, not history of complex societies. Others . Thank you so much. Responses . No. We will go on and. Kevin, it is your turn. I dont like mountain men by the way. [laughter] it is tough to follow both diane and her creativity and marina and her energy. I will be more zombielike. [laughter] i first encountered one of the zombies of western history in the spring of 1984 when i was a student in the history of the transmississippi west. Tom was not the zombie. One day he asked the course identify the west. To my surprise most of the students insisted the western halves of washington and oregon were not part of the region. They agreed that the world areas of washington and oregon were part of the west but the urban areas of seattle and portland had at some point ceased to be western. I thought this is strange because i grew up in the strange and exotic places of casper, wyoming. I always thought that western cities included los angeles,
San Francisco<\/a>, portland, seattle, and many others. I do not let the exchange in that class stomach curiosity from leading me to study those parts of the lesser gun was intriguing which were the cities. I knew i wanted to be a western historian and i completed my undergraduate education in california. I always thought i was studying western history as a convicted research on mostly urban california. I posted article in 1990 and nobody told me it was inappropriate for me to publish in that journal. I was taken aback a few years later when i landed on the job market with a dissertation that focus on los angeles during world war ii. One some people wanted me to explain how my topic was western. The questions coming off guard. The way i looked at it i was writing with the largest city in the west and it makes sense that this was western history. I came to realize that some scholars were not convinced that los angeles was western. They seemed much more comfortable with an imagined west, indigenous villages, mining camps and homesteads in north dakota. To use one place particular. It is true that the historians workout was trying to engage were in some way on the periphery of the field of western history. This gets into questions of race in urban environments and the larger question of settlor colonialism and genocide that is already come up. Most western historians fixate on what is called westward movement, national expansion, and a settler colonialism. They focus on the sparsity populated spaces. That has allowed my zombie, the cityless region to rise from the grave. It might be unfair that i suggest that they focus on the frontier without cities. I could not resist. Perhaps what i most troubled by is the fact that much historical scholars street people who live in cities and events in cities is not part of western history. We often miss the presence of the
Indigenous People<\/a> in cities because we want to focus on what happened in more rural areas. There is some irony in the fact i know its the urban character that was at a meeting of portland. They usually meet in cities, sometimes on the periphery of colorado springs. That was not really an urban meeting. Most attendees commented favorably on the fine restaurants and museums and theaters available to them. Do we think we are in the west will meet important or
Newport Beach<\/a> or st. Paul . Evidence that western historians do not consider the citys western abounds. Im not trying to call anybody, i found relatively few paper titles that named western cities even though it is possible that some titles do not include the name of cities because they dont to appear to parochial. On the other hand there are numerous sessions and titles refer to spaces not coded as urban such as borderland in great plains. In light of the emphasis on agriculture i would argue that the very term the west and the north
American West<\/a> invokes open spaces were relatively few people lived. People think of the region in which six of the 10 largest cities are located. A number of scholars try to kill this zombie four years ago. You have one second. [laughter] i want to mention gerald nash. And i am now dead. [laughter] i have been dead for a while but keep rising. [laughter] any responses to that . Go to the microphone please. Moved to the microphones see you can anticipate the end of their minutes. We want to keep this going and lively. More people think about responding. I notice the citys often included agriculture cities. My particular zombie is yeti of the denver is in fact a cow town rather than an industrial city. It cannot be western if it is industrial is what i am finding. Western cities are often serviceoriented cities. Denver is a great example having so many federal employees. Either hi there. Speak louder to everyone. Do you think the concentration of interest in cities versus rural areas in western history have a lot to do with the concentration of capital in those places and the expropriation of the wealth in the hinterland that defies the frontier . San francisco is the
Center Capital<\/a> that developed mining west. Do you think there is a focus on that kind of peripheral case of extraction as opposed to the concentration of wealth and capital in the west . I suggesting that western historians are reluctant to write about capitalism . [laughter] maybe that is my question. I absolutely think that is part of what is going on although i am interested in the ways in which when we say that los angeles is a city that is not really western, we also conveniently disappear the
Indigenous People<\/a> of los angeles and the people of mexican heritage and latin american heritage. The asianamericans that live there. The largest africanamerican population for most of the 20 century in the west. Im interested in how that happens but i think youre right. We dont want to look very closely at the relationship between the hinterland and the center of capital and power. Whether that is los angeles or
San Francisco<\/a> or denver. That is where the banks are. That is where the real wealth is concentrated. Following the that, the notion of saying putting the two categories separate. Rural and urban. If that is not missing the best opportunity of the relationship and i speak with a lot of personal authority. We had a program called the urbanrole divorce. We had a very troubled child. [laughter] that worked really well. It was about the relationships and the trouble in that relationship. As ridiculous as my remark is, that notion what sense is rural western history going to make it is literally divorced from urban . I guess i would just think that i understand the desire to say city, city, city to counter the rural preoccupation. He wrote a review that he said its there are no cities. I thought that cannot be true. They must be cities in legacy and there were not. [laughter] thank you john. I did not want to call out into my panel fellow panelists. Dont you think stressing the relationship i think that is important. I can hold of my own work as a classic example of that. Im focusing very much on black neighborhoods in los angeles in the postwar years. The migration is really important. Everywhere you look, at least in my research, what brings africanamericans los angeles literally are the railroads. Those are very important economic institutions. They connect the cities to the hinterland. And then there is the engineering. Los angeles and
San Francisco<\/a> taking water from far away. And a private people who otherwise might use that water. I want to say patty, to continue your metaphor about the divorce. Is a very ugly marriage right now because of water issues. The city blames the countryside in the countryside feels they are misunderstood. That makes the whole water thing is particularly acute issue right now. We had suburbia trick everyones water in our play. [laughter] suburbia drank the judges water frequently and in the had trouble staying in the room for the whole program. Maybe i should say we were fortunate to have suburbia there. When it was just rural and urban having a tussle, there are some of us in this relationship causing trouble. And indeed well, suburbia was often the source of the trouble. The story about western exceptionalism and independence flies in the face of the fact that the rural west was an incredibly dependent place. Itause of water issues, depends on cities, and that is not a comfortable story for people to live on. The rural west is supposed to offer this utter independence, so it is just a problematic i guess relationship is the right word. I would say that sometimes you realize that the ambitions are kind of the same ambition, speaking of capitalism. Its about
Economic Growth<\/a> and development, and yet, we have some kind of jeffersonian agrarian costumes that were worn and perform. The capitalism thing everybody has got some version of that. The rural innocence thing might be somebody elses zombie. It is a very interesting claim. On a higher moral ground. Thank you so much for that. Now we have john. John a dozen years ago i entered into a longterm relationship with a man who came back from the dead. I was reluctant to enter into this relationship and i became his biographer. I am in environmental, social, historian. Im a little bit suspicious of telling stories about one individual from birth to death. Also, i was suspicious of writing a fathers day book about a dude writing about a dude to be bought and put on a shelf surrounded by other dudes. But, i decided to team up with the walking dead because you glass did not necessarily fit the mold of a usual zombie. I think there are many different types of zombies that we could talk about, but i will just suggest two. I think one historical zombie are people who are highvolume producers and preservationists of historical content. People who are wealthy enough to found archives so that we can go to these archives and raise them from the dead. The polar opposite of this are people who left nothing and we can just create our stories about them almost from glass fits in the middle of those two. Which i thought was interesting. He also seemed to suggest a different kind of interaction. With the zombie. I would just lay out three different kinds of interactions that historians usually have with the walking dead. I would say the first one is that they befriend them. And come to their rescue and give them voice. Bring them back to life. The second one would be to debunk them. To fight them. With the facts. The third would be to deconstruct them. To make them a discursive production among other discursive productions. Now, i tried a bit of all three of these with glass but what struck me when i was writing about him was his vulnerability. Instead of his strength and ability to withstand whatever punishments we could throw at him. I tried to read a book that recovered what it was like to be a worker in the 1820s and how did this lead to exposure, being devoured on many different levels. And hopefully, by recovering these contacts, to do something to this individual. What the main take away from this longterm partnership, hugh glass managed to find a gap between the popular and academic audience, which leads to my basement, where the hardcover there are boxes of hardcover books. If anybody is interested, they can be purchased at a discount. The other big take away is that he is about to be resurrected and an enormous way at christmas. When
Leonardo Dicaprio<\/a> is going to play him in a movie entitled the revenant. I have not been consulted. They have no interest as far as i can tell in my contextualizing. One of the takeaway quotes is, i aint afraid to die anymore, i done it already. The press surrounding the movie is kind of what you expect. It is very much centered around the star. Which is typical of westerns. It is his suffering. The pain that he endured. During the filming. The pain that the whole production crew endured because they were they had to do this in the winter, so they froze a lot. Lynn had to get rid they begin and he had to eat raw bison liver. And also, there have been a lot of press about how being mauled by a grizzly bear and left for dead is very much i can to not winning an oscar. [laughter] john
Leonardo Dicaprio<\/a>s failure to not win an oscar is going to be played out through this. I guess one of my
Big Questions<\/a> here is we can do our best and we can go after these individuals and these ideas. But, they get resurrected. Ok . I think that we live in a cultural and media environment in which, i dont know how powerful our voices might be even more disempowered, right . There is even more reason to not
Pay Attention<\/a> to what we say. I wrote an oped piece about hugo glass a few years ago and i tried to say i laid out debunking and deconstructing those things and how this was not the construction. In the first comments was, you are a fraud. There are some pretty aggressive pockets out there that resurrect these figures. They are very successful at it. Panelist responses, thoughts . Similar zombies . Im inspired to offer that i think that zombies are our friends. Let me tell you why. I am here in part because when i was a little kid my mom and dad read me little house on the prairie. Im here partly because when i got a little bit older my dad said, you should read this
Frederick Jackson<\/a> turner thing. I was 21 and i did it. I thought it was cool. I went to graduate school thinking that was where i was headed. It was 1990 and it was the civil war times. I was ray quickly introduced to legacy of conquest and trails where there is this great chapter about a more interesting history. It was a little bit disconcerting at first. And then i thought this was really cool. My undergraduate class draws and fills up typically like that because of people coming, like i was when i was 18 years old or 20 years old, looking for zombies not knowing what they are. I can drop stuff on them like a book last year at this time and for a lot of them, coming to college and studying history and the west and other things and more sophisticated ways than they have, you can see the light go on for some of them. So, i think the zombies are kind of a recruiting tool. [laughter] if we think about it that way. I will get some people and other people i will not. I get a little bit everything about, we did not do enough mountain man george custer. Other people think it is really cool. It changes the way i think about history in the west and so on. Maybe we should have dances with zombies or think about zombies in terms of, lets use them. As job security anyway. If we use them productively. I think you are right. I guess the problem is, how do you change the topic . Once you start dancing with one, it is hard to let go. [laughter] what is the beach . Also, part of the tension is, you want to change the topic and you want to find some of these topics to rest in peace. Right . And then theres this other side which is, no, we are historians and we dredge these things up all the time. I think that western history has been defined by the zombies and if we cast them aside, we might lose our landmarks. These landmarks are not only ours, they are broader cultural landmarks. That does not mean that living with them is easy. I would like to jump in, too, and say that for some people, zombies just are other people zombies. When we dance with zombies, who leads the dance is really important. Who do we want to be part of western history . So, if we resurrect the zombies, who is left out . Resurrecting certain zombies means that we silence other peoples histories. Right . We hear that little house on the prairie, but we dont hear about the chineseamerican bachelors in montana who and how they survive. Why are they not zombies . Where they not even animated . Bare stone cold dead. I think that is the question about zombies, yes it gets certain peoples attention. But, other people say that if that is what western history is, if it is the zombies, then what is western history for me and where is my story . That is a balance. I agree. I agree that covered wagons, heroic men and women on the frontier, are really great narratives. They are really
Great Stories<\/a> and that is why they keep popping up over and over again. But, what about all of these amazing other stories that dont even see the light of day . I think one enormous challenge that john pointed to and i also todd raises, is this will issue about speed. In the super slow mo the classroom you can actually do all of that. You can work people in with the zombies and you can tell them stories and you can do you can patiently deconstruct, but the quick world of media, how do you do that . We are not very good at that. We are not trained to do it and we are used to that super slow mo pace. Which is not bad. Not a lot of quick response. [laughter] it does seem to me to offer an escape route. Because they are putting this either or situation. The zombies to meet live in the political round. Im match the very interested in that political round. If you are not willing to embrace american exceptionalism and you are antiamerican and you are a hater and we dont have to listen to it all. There is no room for nuance and complexity and thinking deeply about how things happen and why what are the longterm consequences. I want to point out at the interest of not thinking deeply, and i am at the western
History Association<\/a> and a teacher course on the u. S. And middle east with a colleague. My training is important relations. When the critics of the english standard say that they do not want to look at
American History<\/a>, according to this criticism, all that you get is the chinese bachelor farmers. It is too much. Too much of the negative stuff. We dont want to hear it. I dont want to look at
American History<\/a> from the perspective of its alleged victims or enemies. You guys, and the agent isil, i sure as hell want to look at
American History<\/a> from the perspective. It is not that i agree with isil, it is where did that come from . And what we do about it . Zombies, it is a cool metaphor, and also in todays world, dangerous as hell do not engage with them. Not to do all of these complexities. Another zombielike at the
Texas School Board<\/a>. Cesar chavez. That was their zombie. The inventor of the yoyo. Im not really sure why. Instead of cesar chavez. A
Texas School Board<\/a> at the time, that was a zombie that they wanted to lay to rest. In arizona, the ethnic studies antiethnic studies bill, they said they did not want to talk about the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo. There are facts about the
United States<\/a> and mexico and they wanted to deny it all. I think zombies are different based on your social vocation and where you are and what you believe in. I think for us, as historians, it is how do we we need to learn to communicate in ways that can make sure people understand that the history is much broader than they may think. We need to connect to people who do not feel that they are a part of this history. We also need to reach out to people who have a certain idea of history and figure out how to we work with them, like todd said. To really change the perspective. I use the phrase when i was i used to think i was really winning arguments when i would say to people, the word frontier uses you before you can use it. That seems like a problem here. I want to give one really problem that i have been taking about a lot. 1980 seven, i did a report on a building on our campus that was named after a military officer. I suffered a lot when people cap saying, these were all men of their times. You cannot criticize them because they were men of their times. So, when i think about the card i could happily, which i did not play, and im not even sure how much i thought about not using it kit carson spoke very critically of the massacre. Should i have enlisted kit carson for my cause . And eerie, i should have, because that takes care of the men of their times. What would that do to my friendship if i went around with kit carson on condemning the massacre . In terms of communicating with the public, a veteran is sitting here. Wonderful battles. I love my scars. But, that is the moment where kit carson could have taken me to one goal while also also messing up the rest of my life in other ways. Know. T its just should i have included kit carson . [laughter] bill coleman doesnt know. [laughter] ok. So, my simpson is that if your zombie, you get to define it. I will now characterize it might be the only power that we have over the zombies is to define them. The zombie i have chosen is the idea that in the beginning, there was only nature. The west had much more of nature than other parts of north america. Its a blessing in some ways. Nature was wild, but also balanced and harmonic and its own cruel way, lovable. It was not very, katie. Thinking about it was not strenuous. So, where did such a line of thought come from . I think from the desperate need for a starting point. If youre going to tell a story, the story should have a beginning. And it should not take you the rest of your life to begin the story. As you explain how dynamic and complicated nature was and how important indian people were in the shaping of nature. You just want to start a story about how white folks came to some place and then you were lost regressing to origins of the universe. At the beginning of your story, is a dynamic, the store is going to be probably a mess. As you go along. That seems where came from. It is a frail and fragile zombie. It takes considerable heavy lifting and expenditure of resources, intellectual and emotional resources, to maintain the zombie habitat. It would be endangered. It has a lot of workers to keep the habitat alive. In order to keep that concept going, you really have to keep removing indian people. Essentially, you have to just they will make a resurgent and reclaim attention, but if you want to hold on the zombie as your companion, you are having to constantly get the indians out of the story. That is one example of the heavy lifting required. The good news, and i do think this is good news, this particular zombie, when you take that on, it is onestop zombie control system. It delivers a blow to many other zombies. Because, it is the key going with the zombie is a key training program. Just because something is not true does not mean you cant believe it. [laughter] if you practice with this one, it gets you in shape. It is the foundational dynamic for nostalgia which is a killer of worthwhile inquiry and western history, the moment the golden age is in your sites, then anything in the way of that will is probably not going to be in your reach. It is a wonderful nostalgia recovery thing, ive been hoping that a
Surgeon General<\/a> with issue a warning on nostalgia and how you never operate heavy equipment when under nostalgia. [laughter] the surprises that this on the really wants to die. And constantly pleads to be put out of its misery. But, a keeps getting put on life support despite really clear advance directives. The explicit requests, do not resuscitate, of the evidence of its persistence im not sure if weve ever had to prove that are zombies actually exist, but if we did, i would bring in some land managers because land managers have harder lives because of this. The phrase in the wilderness act where man is a visitor and does not remain. That did not work out as a concept. Climate change. What is the manager of wilderness to do under those terms . It is also important to say that if somebody else and is injured, and trouble in the wilderness, you dont just say, well that visitor did not make it, did he . You send in searchandrescue. What a concept. What a burden on land managers. If i have this right, the surprises that it really is ready to go. It is so looking for the place to lie down and curl up as
Richard White<\/a> said, that is a battle that is trying to find a corner to just curl up and pass away. So, i will end with a sad story about the persistence of this thing. And a
Historical Society<\/a> within the last month, i was on a tour and the tour guide in the state history section told us that because of disease, by the time white settlers got to this particular region, there was really no one there. Thats what he said. Therefore, this particular region of the west, he said, did not have the indian wars that other regions had. If i tell you the region you would join me in thanking, what . So, that was a month ago. The pristine wilderness has lots of problems and the headaches of land managers as early part of it, but what it does to a recognition of the complexity of our history that is huge. Thank you. All right, any responses . From the panel . I want to hear some of your zombies. I think one of my zombies is this idea of i think it is just born, because it is still fresh, is this idea of historians in the basement and then the publics of history as boring. And there is still this really dramatic chasm between the public and historians. There is a lot of nonhistorians eating and played in public park jobs and historical societies and the fact that we are all talking to each other and this was a public event, this was a private for historians, to historians that is my zombie. The disconnection with the public. Do you have any ideas how to slay it . I think persistence and better funding that is not coming from a traditional pillar of history. Can i make everyone extremely uncomfortable by saying that some of this is her own professorial stance. Which we may have performed here. I am trying i want to say this as an agent the difference between the presentation of self, of academic western historians over the time of my engagement with his fashion is amazing. Im trying not to use the word pomposity. That has really diminished. People
Walking Around<\/a> and saying hello to each other. That is really different. Many of them are nice people. Some are not so nice people. [laughter] i appreciate very much the change in presentation of self and i promised i wouldnt take the jacket off. They were not wearing purple shirts and purple ties. [laughter] it has come a long way. My fear, knowing that this is actually going to a public audience, is that we will look like historians who have figured it out and are coming like moses down from the mountain and offering our tablet. It took me a long time to realize that it is really important to spend as much spend more time listening when you are invited to speak to county commissioners. By all means, give your speech, but settle in. And listen. It is so much about what we are going to say and it is really what we might hear, so, that is my income people remark. I just think the possibilities are unending for receptive public audiences, but there is a modification of the self. A graduate degree take so long and is so hard not to wear it. To basically go out and your academic roads if you spent eight years, as i did, getting that road. But, the ridiculous hats. If we are going to go out and we wanted to perform as professorial authorities and we had to wear those stupid mortar boards, those little beret things. If that is the price, then we would be cured. If we had to wear those hats or behave like a person who thought as much as you can about something that is short of certainty and short of complacency, then i think we would be a lot of what you are hoping for. I think we would have that. I think it goes back to the question about are we the walking dead . Are historians the walking dead . I think that the question is what makes is relevant. One of the things that came out in the session of women of color was how a woman at cal state fullerton has been working with oh, no, go ahead. She is right there. I thought you were pointing to someone talking. She is working with her ma students to go to the communities and find out their histories and what they care about. I think that is really important. History is it it is not collective memory, it is about what empowers communities and how communities formed their identities. Some of it is needs to be tweeted that. Some of it is based on false consciousness. Other histories really have not been told. That is really empowering to those communities. I think that there is a way in which maybe our profession needs to be thinking about western history does this already, being really engage the community. A lot of people do not see it. How do we make them were obvious . I was just going to say that i agree with what patty was saying. In terms of being reflective about on two levels, what is at stake. I think what is at stake for say
Laura Ingalls<\/a> wilder or whoever on the prairie, to have that narrative, because she is just as invested. Or what is at stake in our idea of the west and where we are going to place the west, not just urban, rural, or the glutton suburbs. Also, which west and all of that, because this is well known among this crowd, but the west is an idea. What is at stake in those sorts of ideas . At the same time, i would think one of the things i love about being in his oriented is that i am thinking about what is at stake for my sources at that moment. It is very coming from a very different perspective than mine. And, their ideas and what is shaping them. But, i am always thinking too, about what is at it for me. This is where i think maybe im taking a more buddhist approach, but i feel like i trained in u. S. Women and gender and i came out of a feminist political activist background, so, i think we are always what is at stake for us, as there always politics generating what is important to us. I am not as discouraged about the us and them, because i feel like certainty and saying all sorts of things is really powerful, but, i think there is also movement. We are part of that movement. As a public history graduate didnt, i think the discussion of the public versus the historians, i feel theres already a fouryear tradition that has been tried to reconcile that. For me, my zombie is the idea that good history can only be done in the academic ivory tower. So, i think that needs to be addressed with community outreach. And with sharing authority and consulting with the public on how they want to tell their stories. So, i just wanted to kind of respond to this idea of a chasm and they do not think it is quite as big as we as it is perhaps been talked about. I applaud the rise of public history and think that it is a wonderful trend. I think it may be putting is at risk that now we do have people who do public history and engage with the public, which allows the others to write for 14 other scholars. That is not the intention of public history. For instance, i wrote a column asking for university and college based professors of history to tell me about what they were doing outside of the borders. Some public historians were very mad at me for leaving a public leaving out public historians, but the presumption of that column was that public historians are already doing it. What i wanted to do was invite and celebrate more of the ones who are less known for doing that. I think there is an exposed wire of jumpy sensitivity and iness that the creation of the field of public history brought into being. It is not fatal. It would be nice to have the public historians be a little more gracious about saying, you want our jobs . [laughter] that didnt quite work out. [laughter] anybody who can say what it was that i just said in a way that makes persuasive and pleasant, that would be nice. I actually have something that to ask and lament about teaching western womens history and i will start with three related anecdotes. The first, when i teach western womens history, ask questions, tell me what you know about western womens history and they all say
Laura Ingalls<\/a> wilder. That is not to make that of my students, that is where they are and that is where they come. I do the exercise of learn where they are. Another is, i told some students and another class with my other course was, and a student said, western womens history, who takes that . I say, actually a lot of people take that. And then the third, it has to do with a student who was talking about to a coworker about my course and he said, western womens history, that must be a short class, there were no women in the west. [laughter] she took the opportunity to educate her coworker. Which is wonderful for me. It is a wonderful opportunity for students to go out and say what they know and what they have learned. But it also suggests to me that the other two stories tell me that i take eight weeks dealing with white womens western history so that i can get to the rest of the story and that really abbreviates what i can do. I feel like western womens historians have been telling these stories for 3040 years and we are still in the undergraduate classroom starting with
Laura Ingalls<\/a> wilder. I wonder, where do we go from here . How can we get the narrative and started a new place but still meet students where they are . Where can we start that conversation or starting again to use that metaphor . I have an idea. I can project so, it is funny when i hear this, how do we present ourselves, because it seems to me that we are historians and we love the story. We can tell stories. You dont have to start your class with
Laura Ingalls<\/a> wilder. You can get to her and mention her, but you may want to start with someone else. The american dolls [indiscernible] i always think of history as starting at the camp fire telling stories. Why have we lost that ability . I do my 20 footnotes because i need to. We are not making up stories, we are trying to be evidencedriven. The power of the narrative and the stuff that was in the first place, we can do this. This should be our fortune not are distancing. We just need to speak up in a way that other people understand. So, really, every time we write, we ask, who is our audience . The audience should be the entire world. It should not be the people who are in subfields. Related to that, i was puzzling about how to say that what i think public historians have done for historians who work at universities is let us off the hook. We dont actually have to engage with the public in any way whatsoever. We can write books with a gazillion footnotes for 12 people. The divide thank you for enabling us to do this. But, we have lost our ability to actually connect with the wider public. We need to make friends. End the divorce. I dont know who is being held hostage in the divorce. In many situations, if i wanted to present a scholars work to some of our public audiences, i would be much more inclined now to interview the scholar rather than go anywhere near a calamity where the scholar stands up and read the paper that the scholar might read at a professional association, but an interview is where you can say tell the story. You can do that there. Sometimes they need to have that framework forced upon them before they will play to their strength. It is a weird thing when you have to trick the body into play into their strength. Thats a zombie. Thats our personal zombie. Lets kill it. People reading papers at conferences. We give great lectures. Can we just get a 10 minute presentation . [applause] speaking of interviews, or peter was interviewing someone about norwegian american sexuality, sex basically, and it was so entertaining to listen to, and i wish you was being broadcast because i think people would have let that discussion. It was a great topic. It are my favorite question between abduction of history and consumption of history. It really makes the discussion of the
Buffalo Bills<\/a> story where he is out in europe and he is out giving this sort of story of the frontier and the
Prussian Army<\/a> officers are watching them organize how he gets everybody off the train and how he feeds everybody and we are talking about how we produce history and i think of how it is consumed is really beyond our own means. So. I dont agree with that. Because, your reason not to read a paper if you cant watch her audience and change your approach. I would like to give a tribute to the former chief justice of colorado, supreme court, mary mullarkey, the invited me years ago to give it each to the state give a speech to the state judicial group. She said, we will have to allege have lunch a couple of months before hand and i said that would be a treat. This is before the internet. She showed up with a big stack of material and i said thank you very much. It was the memos of excuse me, the newsletter of county judges. I thought, what i going to do am with that . She said, i thought you want to know your audience freeze up to before you spoke to them. Justice mullarkey, what a concept . [laughter] i read that stuff. Cases of
Domestic Violence<\/a> were coming into the
Colorado County<\/a> courts a lot more than they had before. The judges were really not ready for that. When i spoke to that group, i really knew who was there. I made some choices about what to cover with that. So, i agree, if we are blindfolded, spun around and sent into a room and given our prepared text, no, we cannot. We can solve the problem of consumption because they will leave. We wont have to worry about what the consumers are thinking because they will be in the bar and think that was a really odd speech that we went to. Ability, theres a lot we can do. If they are animated and they had if they are in a mood and there have been big cuts, this people not be attentive. There are variables out of our control. But, quite a few cards in our hands if we choose to play them. I agree with the sentiments as far as connecting with an audience. I think were are being a little naive that there is a unified audience for us to talk to. Anymore. I teach western history at notre dame. The geographic locus of most of the students that i teach is the suburbs of chicago. They have no myths. About the
American West<\/a> that they lean on. Theyre coming in from 50 different factors. Vectors. And, i think our audience, as well. I think we might want to consider the notion that if only we presented these ideas and a different package, that there is going to be an audience that is receptive about them. Im not certain about that. Anymore. Im not sure it would be receptive, but theres something to be understood. The information may be rejected, but it has to be conveyed. We do convey it. We do it often. But we can often do better. Thats all. I think we are being naive about audience. We have many, many different audiences and i think we are pretty bad about thinking about what the right strategies are for particular audiences. I want to say a quick word in defense of the conference paper. I have had panels yesterday and what i got was three very different precisely organized, well argued papers. You cant do that if you are just as we all know from all the conferences we go to we say, dont read a paper just get up and talk. It is almost always a disaster. [laughter] people go on to long and they dont do what they are saying and they are poorly organized. There is a virtue of making historical arguments for audiences of historians. That is what the conference paper format is for and that is why it works well. It demands of the audience, of us, a lot of hard work. And attention. To sit and listen to three papers, it is not that easy. People are drifting off. That is will he come you to do. What we come here to do. This is what we do. When we are teaching, that is not what we do. I think it is important to understand that so often, as im talking to my anger colleagues about what they are doing in the survey class, and they come in with his incredibly didactic finger waving because why, they have actually figured stuff out and theyre making the argument as a historian which is to say, i want to claim the authority of my argument. I want to prove to you all of those footnotes army making a making ates and things , declarative kind of statement about what i think is true. But when you do that with a class, of 18yearold, you are telling them, this is all the cool stuff we know about
Chinese National<\/a>
Railroad Workers<\/a> and things like that, theyre not ready for that as we know. Good teaching for us as a seduction, not didactic lecturing. I think as we come to understand that, we become better teachers. If we were to think about those lessons in relation to a look , we wouldaudiences do, as suggested we would have , to listen to other people and we would have to meet them on the ground that they are at. This is a longterm collective kind of project. You dont seduce a student into thinking more complexly in the course of one semester about things like race and ethnicity or gender or sexuality. These are hard and challenging things. It takes them for years ur years. It takes some kind of actual physiological maturing before they get there. We all know that 22yearolds are different from 18yearold. If we thought about those things in relation to public audiences, we might be more willing. Seduction requires engagement with the other and listening to the other person. Even if those things and this people are ruled by zombies that we dont really care about. That is a different mode. The zombie killing mode is the mode of the historian. It is not necessarily the mode of the public scholar. That is the mode of seduction. [laughter] i will answer because im the one again, i see an either or. I dont understand why we can not have well spoken and well argued and well sourced presentations that are also accessible. Some people do a lovely job of reading their papers and i think that is fine. I think they can do a lovely job of probably not reading their papers. I usually write everything i one of those weirdos who am writes on every word for a lecture. The students never know it. It is a written, prepared piece. The point is, there is an art to getting a message across. If we are mostly talking to each other, and is a problem. And so, it is also a problem in the sense that we talk to each other because this they completely different problem, but this is why i think we may be the walking dead. Im just borrowing im telling you things you already know. When it is a matter of funding, what is our commercial application . You cant even be part of a movie. I dont get that. Its like in this world of stem. Im married to a physicist. Ive nothing against science. But this deep investigation into thinking about context and thinking about nuance and complexity and historical context, that stuff is hard to put money on it. How is is going to make money for the university . That is why that is something we have to think about as a group. If i could intervene. I heard a really well written and well read paper yesterday. It was a pleasure. The arts and the craft of writing history moves me to tears. That might be a geeky historian thing to say, but i think that there is a place for it. I think theres a place for the finally finally crafted paper and i agreed that it is part of our training, so if we are training people, part of our association is training people for the profession and they have to get job talks. I think that is part of our role here. That is ok for us, in a professional historical conference to be speaking about other historians, because that is what we are doing. I was at the tucson meet fair, and people putting someby, lotion on and eating popcorn and buying hot dogs and not paying attention to us at all. We talked about ethnic studies. I read a paper. It was a very humbling lesson about how we are very irrelevant. [laughter] it also was a great challenge because of the different audience. Evelyn dropped all of her notes and started saying what you think about this . She just switched modes and i think it is like code switching. I think that we have different audiences and different places i think it is about how do we speak to these different audiences . I would say also, we think of the public as knowing nothing and that is not true either. Ive given a lot of lecturers in small towns around arizona about the incarceration of japaneseamericans and i do not start off with incarceration or concentration camps, i start off with internment because that is what they understand. Then we move along and i explain why we sometimes use the terms concentration camps and prison camps. But, we start where their ads. Where they are at. We move them. I would say there is a real interest in history. It is about communicating but i , think that there are different modes for different talking to the 4h people in the elevators, because what a terrible way to start the day. This woman said to me what , conference are you at . She said she was with 4h. I said, i have been running into these farmers. At thed i said, i am western history conference. She said, what is it that you have come together to learn . I thought, thats a silly question. [laughter] or accomplished. When the 4h people are here, they are here for a week and they are to go back to their 4h chapters with some real this is the approach were going to take to that or we have these three choices and they are actually to explain to her, we are at different universities or colleges or state historical societies and we dont actually have anything to go back to. Where we can say, at the convention, i learned this about our operation and conduct. So, i get the point that we are here. The 4h people are giving talks that are meaningful and relevant to 4h people. We would maybe not enjoy them so much, but are we giving our prepared remarks to each other in ways that make our time that is a big
Carbon Footprint<\/a> for everybody coming in for this and are we really making the most of being deposited together . I just said to her, it is about networking. I used to be a young rebel. She found that funny. Would it be helpful to say i do think otherwise conventions and conferences are in danger if we do not have a real heres why were doing this. I dont know what the 4h equivalent is for i dont know. Theres something about why were in this weird hotel and the elevators are a delight for long conversations. [laughter] you can get a lot covered. Thats not amplifying. You have to speak up. I think im the token public historian. Or, aspiring public historian. Just a confined point, when youre trying to find an audience the question is how do you find a broader audience for your very important work . Often the audience ive read a lot of academic books. I read a lot of the work that people do. I think a lot of times, it is written for the person getting purpose of getting tenure. You have to think about who your audience is going to be. If you want to find a broader audience, theres a book called thinking like your editor. I dont remember the person who wrote it. Its a lovely book. She makes an interesting point. She said she was editing a dissertation being turned into a popular book and she kept changing the wording to make it accessible and he kept being it kept being changed back by the writer. She said, why are you doing this . The guy said because i want tenure. It has to be written in a particular way. There is a fundamental conflict between writing for tenure and writing for popular audiences. You have to think about how youre going to address that. I think it is unfortunate that you cannot write for both of the same time, but that is a problem inside of the profession. I want to say first of all an interloper here. Im not a historian, im an archivist and librarian. I run the library up the street. [applause] i want to say that i feel very privileged to be here because this extremely important to hear these papers and hear what people have to say. I would like to see much more cross polarization between my profession and the socalled profession of being a historian. I go to archive conferences. So many of his sessions deal with these very now, technical issues which are very important on one level. But a lot of times, people like me are wondering where is the content . We are dealing with these collections which are extremely important for historical research. Yet we hear very little about , the contents of the collections. We hear about how to create
Digital Access<\/a> and things like that, which is extremely important, dont get me wrong. My plea at those conferences is that we need to bring in more professional historians for the kinds of toxic we are having talks like we are having right here. Which i think would be very enlightening for people in my profession. And vice versa. I would like to see more people that deal of
Historical Records<\/a> come to conferences like this. I work constantly with historians, very closely. There are two of them right here. An expert on portland history. Recently, i worked with a historian of the ku klux klan to unearth a collection relating to the early history of the group. I could not have done that without a close cooperation. So, in conclusion, there was a time maybe 150 years ago where there was no division between archivists and historians. The store and went out in the historians went out in the world and collected material and that division as you know has grown. It can be very cumbersome and at this point. That is my point. Thank you. [applause] we have five minutes. For my life i cannot see why we would want to hold up a distinction by which you would not call yourself a historian. I know so many people in the world who are doing were thinking about history. Membership is plummeting, certainly not vomiting, but not expanding. I knew a bunch of
Public Officials<\/a> who consult history. They would not be members of the organization of historians because they are the directors of the department of natural resources. It is just like, we could have giant we could have membership access. I would like to call you a historian. [applause] we have four minutes. We will have both of you go. Im not officially a historian. I have two points i want to make weekly. If people are not familiar with the history pub that happen with the
Historical Society<\/a> im sorry, im forgetting theyre wonderful. There were monthly gatherings that were about personal, local history. Local being kind of broad, but trying to involve people who were part of that history. Often they are very difficult to find. That is a way that this has happened in the
Historical Society<\/a>. The other thing is that i actually now do genealogy. When you talk about how you can reach the public, i hear from my colleagues that many history departments are very dismissive of it because they think all people are interested in finding out who was born when and where. But, really most of us are very much interested in the social context of the people that we are researching. I do monthly programs for a local organization and try to draw people in from the community who have academic expertise and could perhaps explain the situation. In a different way than some of us are actually familiar with. I just wanted to mention those as examples. As you are concerned about the bridge between academia and the public. I just had to speak up. I teach western history. Im also teaching a class on american monsters. Monsters in the american imagination. Im kind of struck by our use of zombie as a metaphor today. We all love zombies nowadays, but the zombies comes from haitian slavery and becomes a figure of fear in the 1920s and 1930s. It comes out of racialized voodoo and witchcraft. It becomes
Something Else<\/a> and i and nowadays we think of them , in terms of disease and contagion. So, why are we using zombies so uncritically as a metaphor today . [laughter] that is a really great way to end the session. And a great reminder of why we love history. Really good critical analysis, thank you. [laughter] we take it. Very good point. Not to make light of it. It is good. So, i just wanted to say in the last 30 seconds, any last words . Last words . [laughter] if you are going to talk about genre and zombie films, i think a good reminder is that the
Zombie Apocalypse<\/a> always happens at the beginning of the film, so the drama really is what you do afterward . As a band of survivors, it is how you adapt. We are a band of survivors. Please think the panelists and hank thee t panelists, and thank you all for being good sports. [applause] camhis year, our student documentary contest asked students what issues they want to hear from the presence of candidates. Follow the road to the white house coverage and find all the details of our contest at cspan. Org. American history tv is featuring cspans original series, first ladies influence an image. Andan produced the series cooperation with the
White House Historical<\/a> association. We highlight the stories of 45 first ladies. Next, the las of the series, michelle obama. This is about 90 minutes. Michelle obama you come in this house and there is so much to do, so much coming at you. There is no time to think or reflect. Hi everyone we are here digging up soil because were about to plant a garden. I wont be satisfied nor will my husband until every single veteran and
Military Spouse<\/a> who wants a job has one. At the end of the day my most important title is still mom in","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia801207.us.archive.org\/18\/items\/CSPAN3_20151219_153000_Zombies_of_Western_History\/CSPAN3_20151219_153000_Zombies_of_Western_History.thumbs\/CSPAN3_20151219_153000_Zombies_of_Western_History_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240623T12:35:10+00:00"}