Category Archives: Production of History

Save the Giblets

Posted on April 29, 2009 by Timothy Burke

Historic preservation societies and their campaigns to save particular buildings or landmarks make me a little uncomfortable at times. There are four basic rationales for historic preservation. Some advocacy groups work with all four, others have a very exclusive preference … Continue reading →

Posted in Production of History | 6 Comments

Oh the Humanities

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Timothy Burke

Patricia Cohen has an odd article in the Arts section of the New York Times today titled, “In Tough Times, Humanities Must Justify Their Worth”. It seems odd to me because in substantial measure, you could have published a similar … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Popular Culture, Production of History | 7 Comments

The Embarassment of Paratext, the Insufficiency of Culture

Posted on February 8, 2009 by Timothy Burke

It’s a little thing, but let me make it into something slightly bigger. In the Sunday Week in Review section of the New York Times today, there’s a brief item about road signs warning of zombies ahead. The item mentions … Continue reading →

Posted in Information Technology and Information Literacy, Popular Culture, Production of History | 10 Comments

The Problem With ‘Social Construction’

Posted on November 3, 2008 by Timothy Burke

I’ve just been chatting in email with a friend who asked me to boil down my critique of the concept of social construction as it has appeared in history, cultural criticism, anthropology and so on over the last 25 years … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Books, Production of History | 9 Comments

A Man Among Men

Posted on September 27, 2008 by Timothy Burke

Paul Newman is dead at 83. The role I think I loved him in most was as Sully Sullivan in Nobody’s Fool. It was a role that almost anyone else would have screwed up by playing it broadly, making the … Continue reading →

Posted in Production of History | 4 Comments

Not Even Wrong

Posted on September 23, 2008 by Timothy Burke

I missed this story when it first appeared, but apparently Rush Limbaugh has been saying that Barack Obama’s father was actually an Arab from “an Arab part of Africa”. Look, why bother with real places at all, if you’re comfortable … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Production of History | 4 Comments

It’s a-Flat Like Your Head

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Timothy Burke

When I first taught my course The Production of History at Swarthmore, I wanted to show the Bugs Bunny cartoon “Hare We Go”, in which Bugs Bunny helps and then antagonizes Christopher Columbus on his first voyage. I was thinking … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Popular Culture, Production of History, Swarthmore | 11 Comments

Mad Science

Posted on July 14, 2008 by Timothy Burke

I heard a compelling segment on This American Life over the weekend. It was a profile of a self-taught electrician and engineer named Bob Berenz who had become convinced that Einstein was wrong, specifically in his formulation of “E = … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Production of History | 20 Comments

A Test for Poor Richard?

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Timothy Burke

[cross-posted at Cliopatria] For the past year, there’s been discussion of creating a licensing system for tour guides in the historic district of Philadephia. Now the city has taken that step. Starting this fall, authorized tour guides will need to … Continue reading →

Posted in Production of History | 4 Comments