Even before I set out to look at how the First World War has been commemorated here in Minnesota, I assumed that the vast majority of Twin Citians would be hard-pressed to identify a single WWI memorial in the metro area. Even those who drive, bike, jog, and walk on or along Victory Memorial Drive … More Commemorating WWI in Minnesota: Overshadowed by WWII
I’m very pleased to welcome this guest post from my colleague Christian Collins Winn: the text of his address yesterday morning in Bethel University‘s year-opening chapel service, in which he appealed to Bethel’s roots in Pietism to help us start a year-long conversation about what church historian Martin Marty has called “convicted civility.” Christian is … More Pietism and Civil Discourse (Christian Collins Winn)
In the first part of this series on how the First World War has been commemorated in my home state, I suggested that a “celebratory, self-righteous, unproblematically patriotic mood” inspired the commission and design of Duluth’s Soldiers and Sailors Monument. But you don’t think that Minnesota’s largest city would let its northern neighbor corner the … More Commemorating WWI in Minnesota: Victory Memorial Drive
I’m a PhD-holding history professor myself who will likely never write any book with sales approaching even quadruple figures, but I cringe when fellow guild-members like Louisiana State University professors Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg write things like the following, in Salon this past Sunday: Frankly, we in the history business wish we could take out … More Who Owns History?
8/21/12 – Only time for a brief post today, as I’ve been busy with Bethel’s pre-semester faculty retreat… The Conference on Faith and History released the program for its biennial conference, held this October 4-6 at Gordon College in Boston. That Saturday morning I’ll join Jared Burkholder and Kurt Peterson on a panel about Pietism … More CFH Program
Last Friday I decided to put syllabus revision on hold and spend an afternoon continuing my tour of World War I commemoration in the Twin Cities by visiting Fort Snelling, the nearly 200-year old former military installation at the convergence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers that trained officers, processed recruits and draftees, and housed … More “All have sinned”: The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862
Today I’m happy to welcome our newest guest blogger, G.W. Carlson. Not long ago I blogged about GW and one of his passions: reading. In today’s post, he talks about another of his passions: Christian commitment to peace and justice. Specifically, he encourages readers to consider attending next month’s Clarence Jordan Symposium, at which he’ll … More Clarence Jordan: Celebrating a Conscientious Christian Dissenter (G.W. Carlson)
I’m still half a year away from taking a group of Bethel University students to Europe for a three-week course on the history of World War I, but while I’ve still got some time before our fall semester starts up, I thought I’d revive an earlier series on how the war was commemorated. My earlier … More Commemorating WWI in Minnesota: Duluth’s Soldiers and Sailors Monument
8/5/16: If you came to this post, you might want to see this morning’s update, which folds in the results from 2012 London and corrects a couple of spreadsheet errors. It’s a good thing the Olympics are wrapping up this week. If they continued much longer, I wouldn’t get any pre-semester work done! Not just because I’m watching … More Which Country (and Continent) Dominates Each Olympic Sport?
There aren’t many historians whose deaths would occasion a lengthy obituary linked at the top of that section on the New York Times website. But there haven’t been many historians like John Keegan, widely regarded as the greatest military historian of his time (1934-2012). As it happened, when I saw the news of Keegan’s death … More John Keegan: “I have not been in a battle…”
The Pietist Schoolman 