9/3/13 – A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I enjoy musical side projects… If you’re interested in my posts on the commemoration of the two world wars, then check out my new side project: a photoblog called Memento belli. I’ll update it periodically with images and minimal text about various modern war and … More My New Photoblog on War Commemoration
On Friday I led our department’s welcome sessions for new majors. For a while now I’ve made sure to dedicate part of that time to preemptively addressing the concern, “What do I do with a History major?” We’ve got better at making what sound to us like effective arguments — ruthlessly pragmatic explanations of the … More Christian Liberal Arts as Cathedral-Building
I’ve complained a couple of times that Christian Piatt’s recent (very popular) exercise in identifying “25 Christian Blogs You Should Be Reading” gave short shrift (both in the readers’ and editor’s versions) to academics — in particular, my fellow historians. To a significant extent, this is the fault of our guild; I’m afraid that Sam … More 10 Blogs by Christian Historians You Should Be Reading
Presenting: the 100th edition of TW3! Here… • I feel like we’re to the point of needing metaphors to communicate the importance of the Christian liberal arts. I started with spiritual retreat; two more to come next week. • I’ll be spending part of November in Charm City, a historian among theologians. • My series … More That Was The Week That Was
Over at The Anxious Bench, Miles Mullin concluded a post on the history of progressive evangelicalism with an announcement that involves yours truly: …fellow Anxious Bench blogger, David Swartz, has penned Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age in Conservatism (2012), the best work on the topic to date. If you find yourself interested … More The Pietist Schoolman Goes to Baltimore
While taking notes earlier this month at the Soldiers Field Veterans Memorial in Rochester, MN, I couldn’t help but overhear the following from another (rather loud) visitor: Kids should come here and read all this stuff because they don’t teach [it] in school. Yes, and no. (Well, more like: yes, and NO!) Yes: there is … More Commemorating WWII: The Memorial as a Work of Public History
I’m about to head up to the second and final day of Bethel‘s annual faculty retreat, a venerable tradition meant to help us reconnect after a summer away, engage in some professional development (e.g., yesterday I sat in on a session about open access publishing and digital humanities), hear from our leaders, and worship together. … More The Christian Liberal Arts as Spiritual Retreat
The timing couldn’t have been any better for us to arrive at the slender ‘P’ section in my music collection. But it would take considerably less of an excuse than an unlikely, two-decades-in-the-making reunion in Toronto to get me to listen to one of my favorite albums again… The Replacements, Pleased To Meet Me Okay, … More Albums A to Z: Pleased To Meet Me
I started this series — introducing American readers to the Second World War as it was fought years before the United States joined the conflict — with Japan’s 1937 offensive against China. Let’s continue with an invasion that’s probably more familiar to most Americans and Europeans: Having already remilitarized the Rhineland (March 1936), absorbed Austria … More The Second World War Before Pearl Harbor: Poland, 1939
Here… • Just when did Americans start calling the Civil War the Civil War? (Hint: not during the War of the Rebellion.) • My series on how WWII has been commemorated considered the semi-revival of traditional memorial structures like statues, then the way that commemorative meaning is determined and communicated. • Two 20th century events … More That Was The Week That Was
The Pietist Schoolman 