By: Old is the New New :: History Carnival XL

Old is the New New :: History Carnival XL — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 15:02:03 +0000

[...] Patahistorical Tools and PublishingClearly, Patahistory will require new and special tools. At Noise and Impertinence, Matt Neale presents some tools for undergraduate success in history, but I think postgraduate patahistorians could make use of them too. The Foxit PDF Reader he mentions will pay for itself (well, it’s free) solely in the time you don’t spend waiting for Adobe Acrobat to open. I’m Too Sexy For My Master’s Thesis plugs an Endnote plugin for Firefox users, but if you’re really leet you’ll make the jump to Zotero, open-source bibliographic software from the Center for History and New Media. AcademHack, a blog of techie tools for academics, also plugs Zotero, and points to Notemesh and Notesengo, two wiki-based sites for collaborative student note-sharing. Finally, William Tozier’s Notional Slurry promotes the Distributed Proofreaders concept with a great excerpt from The Knickerbocker calling for better labeling of marriageable young ladies–call it metadata, circa 1844. As all historians of technology know, our tools themselves have histories; at ClioWeb, Jeremy points out a blog on the History of the Button.“The anxieties of previous historians are not those of the Patahistorian,” the Manifesto continues. “Patahistorians are less concerened about truth, tenure, and publishing, than they are about collaboration, synchronic cultures, and making bank.” Bryan Andrachuck must be a Patahistorian; his fourth post finds him wondering if his interest in public history will lead to riches. I hope Prof. Turkel will break the truth to him gently. Speaking of publishing, a number of academic publishers have started blogging. But at Crooked Timber, Scott McLemee says reading blogs from mainstream media outlets is like watching Grandma dance the frug. What’s cooler, and much more patahistorical, is when blogs (like, say, Crooked Timber) start publishing.Says the Manifesto: “Historians disdain popular histories and yearn for popular success. Patahistory is the reverse. It disdains success and yearns for popular histories.” Historianess Rebecca Goetz discussed that gap between popular and academic history, but Sepoy at Chapati Mystery said the cool kids (specifically graduate students studying South Asia) are bridging that divide. Sepoy’s hot-blooded friend Farangi weighed in on ABC’s Path to 9-11 (as did Jon Swift’s Jonathan Swift) and found nobody looking very good. At The Rhine River, Nathanael reports that some German historians condemned TV history programs as worthless historical pornography (Egads, what would the History Channel do without German history to kick around?) Surely some TV history is worthwhile: Chris Turner, who wrote the definitive book on The Simpsons, has, for an encore, decided to save the world. At Geography of Hope, Turner links to video of the British eco-activist comedian-historian (but he hates labels) Rob Newman’s delirious History of Oil. [...]

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By: Old is the New New :: History Carnival XL