Saturday, July 18, 2009

Round-up of recent history posts

Updated: Al Brophy at Faculty Lounge, Bridget Crawford at Feminist Law Professors, and other bloggers have had important history-related posts recently, covering topics I missed while traveling/too busy with other things. (Warning: I'm having trouble getting to Feminist Law Profs today -- which may be my connection. It is usually easy to access. If you have trouble, using a browser other than Explorer might help. I believe following the direct links to posts will be ok -- since the hang-up is probably due to a video on the blog's front page....) Here's a round-up:

Al recently noted the passing of Kenneth Stampp, leading historian of slavery and author of The Peculiar Institution. More remembrances are here.

Many covered Robert Post's appointment as Dean of Yale Law School, bringing another history-friendly dean to a major law school. Adding to this two new historian law deans, Davison Douglas at William and Mary, Bruce Smith at Illinois, it has been a favorable year for legal history, at least when it comes to bringing legal history and its fans, into law school leadership roles. Al noted another implication of Post's deanship: the question of whether it will have an impact on "Post's much-anticipated tenth volume of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court, Constitutional Rights and the Regulatory State, 1921–30."

With more news of cuts, Al also worries about the state of university presses.

At Feminist Law Professors, Bridget Crawford has had a number of excellent history-related posts, including a link to a new on-line exhibit commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, news on a new Nixon tape release, a post on A Feminist Legal History of U.S. Patriotism, discussing a review of Francesca Morgan, Women and Patriotism in Jim Crow America (UNC Press 2005). Bridgett also links to an art exhibit on woman suffrage in Iowa.

Kim Krawiec at Faculty Lounge discusses News From 1930 and Washington Irving's The Great Mississippi Bubble.

Claire Potter, Tenured Radical, has thoughts on the California budget crisis, its impact on universities, and responses.