What We're Reading This Week
Rustam Khan, University of Hong Kong
Adam Shatz, “Palestinianism,” London Review of Books
A terrific biographical article on Edward Said’s life in the London Review of Books reignites our necessity to think about post/decolonial questions today, accompanied by corrective comments from author Timothy Brennan.
Justin H. Vassallo, “Portrait of the United States as a developing country,” Boston Review
A Boston Review article about Jonathan Levy’s “Ages of american capitalism: A history of the United States.” Levy asks us to stop thinking about American history from an exceptionalist entrepreneurial perspective and rather to look at the country as a developing nation.
Cindy Ewing, University of Missouri
Jeremy Adelman, “The patriot paradox,” Aeon
The current resurgence in nationalism and embrace of the “nation” have gripped conservatives and progressives alike, suggesting that the exclusionary dimensions of historical narrative have displaced interest in ideas of connection and belonging as part of a global order.
E. Tammy Kim, “The empire within: Yi Sang’s global poetry,” The Nation
The poetry of Yi Sang, a Korean modernist writing in both Korean and Japanese, shows the colonial subject at the crossroads of multiple worlds and empires.
Hadji Bakara, “Death ship earth: On Mira L. Siegelberg’s ‘Statelessness,’” Los Angeles Review of Books
In the transition from empire to nation-state, Siegelberg’s new book shows how the stateless were transformed and traveled an arc of rise and fall in the global legal imagination.
Kristie Flannery, Australian Catholic University
Kristie Flannery and Kate Fullgar, “Ferdinand Magellan’s death 500 years ago is being remembered as an act of indigenous resistance,” The Conversation
Kristie Flannery and Kate Fullgar’s article in The Conversation examines the Philippines’ commemorations of the 500th anniversary of Ferdinand Magellan’s arrival (and death) in the islands. The two Pacific historians consider what neighboring countries, including Australia, could learn from Manila’s indigenous-centered public histories of empire and resistance in the region.
Uffizi Galleries, “Recovering blackness in the Uffizi galleries”
Florence’s Uffizi Galleries have made a powerful digital exhibition exploring representations of Black Africans in their collections. The nineteen paintings in this curated exhibit date from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, and each is accompanied by detailed explanatory information in English and Italian. This exhibition could be a rich teaching resource for classes exploring Africans in early modern Europe.
Covid and histories of racism:
Two history podcasts have caught our attention. The Shoes Off podcast has a new episode on the covid19 pandemic and the history of racism in Australia. On the other side of the Pacific, Adrian de Leon and Dolly Li have teamed up to present the new streamable PBS series “A people’s history of Asian America.”