Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

History Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Claremont Colleges

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year

Articles 1 - 30 of 48

Full-Text Articles in History

Danger Below: Socal’S Dams Face Same Risks As Oroville, Char Miller, Frank Connor Lyles '17 Feb 2017

Danger Below: Socal’S Dams Face Same Risks As Oroville, Char Miller, Frank Connor Lyles '17

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

No abstract provided.


A Rainbow Of Iranian Masculinities: Raqqas, A Type Of Iranian Male Image, Anthony Shay Jan 2017

A Rainbow Of Iranian Masculinities: Raqqas, A Type Of Iranian Male Image, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In this essay, I will explore the male dancer in the Iranian world, and how he came to occupy this abject position (dance, according to Zainab Stellar, being regarded by many conservative elements in Iranian society today as "the worst possible behavior of an undisciplined body in public, and symbol of all vice" (2011, 235)). Lotfollah “Lotfi” Mansouri, the renowned opera director and producer, recounted at a dinner that I attended (January 27, 2002 Peyvand Organization, San Jose), how one day as a student at UCLA, he entered Schonberg Music Hall and heard opera for the first time. He was …


Encountering Greek American Soundscapes, Anthony Shay Jan 2017

Encountering Greek American Soundscapes, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

For this chapter I will look at Greek American music making through the eyes of a non-Greek, my younger self, who enjoyed and sought out this musical tradition for over fifty years, primarily as a folk dance enthusiast. For the international recreational dancer of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Greek music has rich melodic lines and many different rhythmic patterns (5/8; 7/8; 9/8, etc.) that attracted many individuals of Anglo American background like me to learn these dances, especially in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s when recreational and performance folk dance constituted a major leisure-time activity for hundreds of thousands …


Negating Negationism, Kenneth Baxter Wolf Jun 2014

Negating Negationism, Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Review essay: Alejandro García Sanjuán, La conquista islámica de la península ibérica y la tergiversación del pasado: Del catastrofismo al negacionismo (Marcial Pons, 2013). The original Spanish version of this essay was published in Revista de Libros (June, 2014: revistadelibros.com/articulos/la-conquista-islamica). It is with the permission of the editors of the Revista de Libros that I offer this English version here.


Reviving The Reluctant Art Of Iranian Dance In Iran And In The American Diaspora, Anthony Shay Jan 2014

Reviving The Reluctant Art Of Iranian Dance In Iran And In The American Diaspora, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In this chapter, I look at the various ways in which different individuals--Iranians, Iranian immigrants in the West, Americans, and other non-Iranians--participated in several revival Iranian dance movements, beginning in the 1930s and continuing into the twenty-first century. The new interest in dance that began in this period coincided with a period of incipient modernity and its need to find ways in which to construct a modern national identity. As increasing numbers of Iranians made their way to the West, first as students and ultimately as immigrants and refugees, they discovered that dance as a representational field dovetailed with their …


San Antonio, Texas: 1989-2011, Char Miller Jan 2011

San Antonio, Texas: 1989-2011, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

No abstract provided.


Chronicon, Isidore Of Seville, C. 616, Kenneth Baxter Wolf Jan 2008

Chronicon, Isidore Of Seville, C. 616, Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

A particularly concise example of the "universal chronicle" genre of Christian historical writing made famous by Eusebius of Caesarea, Isidore's Chronicon provides a summary of history from the Creation to the reign of the Visigothic King Sisebut (612-21). Of particular interest is the way in which Isidore grafts post-biblical history onto royal chronologies drawn from the bible, thus extending the concept of "chosen people" well beyond the demise of the Jewish kingdoms.


Review: Sidney Griffith, The Church In The Shadow Of The Mosque: Christians And Muslims In The World Of Islam (Princeton, 2008), Kenneth Baxter Wolf Jan 2008

Review: Sidney Griffith, The Church In The Shadow Of The Mosque: Christians And Muslims In The World Of Islam (Princeton, 2008), Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Review of the book, "The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam," by Sidney Griffith.


Sentencia-Estatuto De Toledo, 1449, Kenneth Baxter Wolf Jan 2008

Sentencia-Estatuto De Toledo, 1449, Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

This text, from Toledo in 1449, is the earliest known reference to Jewish blood, as opposed to Jewish beliefs and rituals (judaizing), being held against Christian conversos in Spain. The underlying issue seems to have been fears on the part of the "old Christian" ruling class in Toledo that their power was threatened by the rise of the "new Christians," the descendants of Jewish converts to Christianity who, for the most part, had been forcibly baptized during the infamous progroms of 1391.


Life Of St. Zita Of Lucca, Kenneth Baxter Wolf Jan 2008

Life Of St. Zita Of Lucca, Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Zita (c. 1218-78) is a rare example of a servant saint. She spent her entire adult life in the service of the Fatinelli family of Lucca. Like other saints of low birth (cf Isidro of Madrid), she distinguished herself by embracing her humble profession, seeing it as a God-given means of penance. She was finally canonized in 1698, her cause championed by descendants of the Fatinellis who employed her.


Chronica Prophetica, Kenneth Baxter Wolf Jan 2008

Chronica Prophetica, Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

This curious Latin chronicle was written in April 883 by an anonymous Christian historian close to the court of Alfonso III of Asturias (Spain). It contains lists of Christian and Muslim rulers in Spain, a highly pejorative "life of Muhammad"* that depicts him as a quintessential false prophet, and lots of speculation about the End of Time, which the author sees as intimately tied to the demise of the Islamic emirate of Córdoba. The fact that Asturian armies at the time were taking advantage of Umayyad weakness and raiding deep into Muslim territory accounts for the overly optimistic estimates of …


The Life Of San Isidro Of Madrid, Kenneth Baxter Wolf Jan 2008

The Life Of San Isidro Of Madrid, Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

This anonymous Life of Isidro of Madrid (d. pre-1192) represents a rare medieval effort to justify the sanctification of a non-noble layman, in this case, a tenant farmer. Note how the author does this, in part, by depicting Isidro as a man who made a virtue out of the curse inflicted on Adam ("You will earn your bread from the labor of your hands and the sweat of your brow," Genesis 3:19) by embracing the life of an agricultural laborer. Isidro was canonized in 1622, along with Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Ávila, and Philip Neri. Shortly thereafter, Isidro …


Dance And Human Rights In The Middle East, North Africa, And Central Asia, Anthony Shay Jan 2008

Dance And Human Rights In The Middle East, North Africa, And Central Asia, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In this essay, Islam itself is first examined in order to determine how individual Muslims justify to themselves and to others the banning of dancing in various contexts. Following a brief discussion of Islam as it relates to dance, some of the myriad dance genres and contexts found in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia are discussed. Finally, I consider the many ways in which many Muslims perceive dance, and then describe and analyze the local reactions to dancing in its complexity. This approach elucidates multiple meanings that create a pattern of behavior within specific cultural contexts.


The Life Of Raymond "The Palmer", Kenneth Baxter Wolf Jan 2008

The Life Of Raymond "The Palmer", Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Raymond "The Palmer" (Palmario or Palmerio) of Piacenza (d. 1200) is a good example of a medieval pilgrim saint who, after the death of his wife and five children, committed himself to an endless series of pilgrimages to various shrines, including Jerusalem. Raymond ultimately suspended his itinerant life, dedicating himself to the relief of the poor and sick in his native Piacenza. This transformation made him typical of the lay "civic saints" who dominated Italian hagiography from the late twelfth to the late thirteenth centuries.


Convivencia And The “Ornament Of The World”, Kenneth Baxter Wolf Jan 2007

Convivencia And The “Ornament Of The World”, Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The “Southeast Medieval Association” keynote address that Wolf gave at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina in October 2007. Convivencia is a historical term used to describe the “coexistence” of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities in medieval Spain and by extension the interaction, exchange, and acculturation fostered by such proximity. It first emerged as the by-product of a famous debate between Américo Castro and Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz that dominated Spanish historical scholarship during the Franco years. Since then convivencia has taken on a life of its own, fueled in part by increased interest in multi-culturalism on the one hand and rising …


Confesiones De Un Bicho Raro, Kenneth Baxter Wolf Jan 2007

Confesiones De Un Bicho Raro, Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The "lección magistral" that Wolf delivered to the graduate students in History and Geography at the University of Salamanca, May 31-June 1, 2007.


At The Creation: The National Forest Commission Of 1896-97, Gerald W. Williams, Char Miller Jan 2005

At The Creation: The National Forest Commission Of 1896-97, Gerald W. Williams, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Among the central forces in the creation of the legislation necessary to establish federal forestry was the National Forest Commission. Its members included some of the leading conservationists of the 1890s, including Charles Sprague Sargent and Gifford Pinchot; John Muir was an unofficial member. Its final report advocated the establishment of a national forest system and served as the basis for the so-called Organic Act, which cleared the way for active management on federal forests and grasslands. Unlike the other articles, this one contains several excerpted documents interspersed with exposition.


French Lessons: F.P. Baker, American Forestry, And The 1878 Paris Universal Exposition, Char Miller Jan 2005

French Lessons: F.P. Baker, American Forestry, And The 1878 Paris Universal Exposition, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Although he never became a forester, F. P. Baker did much to advance the profession’s cause. Its potential became clear to him while serving as a U.S. Commissioner to the 1878 Paris Exposition, during which he reported on European forestry, its scientific methods and political meaning. Returning home, he was inspired to advance forestry in America.


Proving Ground: Richard Harding Davis In The American West, Char Miller Jan 2005

Proving Ground: Richard Harding Davis In The American West, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The idea of Texas staggered Richard Harding Davis. That, in any event, is how the youthful managing editor of Harper's Weekly portrayed his response to the Lone Star State after boarding a train in New York City and heading south in January 1892 for a three-month tour of Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado. At twenty-eight, already a much-heralded journalist for his investigative reports on Philadelphia's underworld, and his gripping accounts of the devastating Johnstown Flood of 1889, Davis had been editing Harper's tor a year and was eager for a change of pace. A western jaunt, he reasoned, would present a …


Amateur Hour: Nathaniel H. Egleston And Professional Forestry In Post-Civil War America, Char Miller Jan 2005

Amateur Hour: Nathaniel H. Egleston And Professional Forestry In Post-Civil War America, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Nathaniel Egleston, the second head of the U.S. Division of Forestry (1883–1886), is a forgotten figure in the history of early American forestry. The one-time minister became a tireless advocate for trees in the post-Civil War era, writing innumerable and well-received essays and pamphlets. But his enthusiasm did not translate into administrative success, and he was replaced by Bernard Fernow, who in turn was succeeded by Gifford Pinchot; the pair’s scientific training signaled the professionalization of American forestry.


Deep Roots: The Late Nineteenth Century Origins Of American Forestry, Char Miller Jan 2005

Deep Roots: The Late Nineteenth Century Origins Of American Forestry, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The U.S. Forest Service celebrated its centennial in 2005, an event that depended on a set of individuals who in the years immediately prior to the agency’s creation in 1905 labored quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, to defuse opposition to the idea of it within the executive and legislative branches. Surely the most crucial of these figures was Gifford Pinchot, then head of the Bureau of Forestry, and President Theodore Roosevelt: animating their activism was a shared conviction that conservation of the nation’s natural resources would save the United States from economic ruin and a collective faith that a …


Eminent Domain: B.L. Wiggins, Forestry, And The New South At Sewanee, Char Miller Jan 2004

Eminent Domain: B.L. Wiggins, Forestry, And The New South At Sewanee, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The history of the University of the South and of its forest is intertwined. The health of the forest—and of the university—hung in the balance when Benjamin Wiggins took charge of both in 1893.


Dance In Iran, Anthony Shay Jan 2002

Dance In Iran, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Two basic types of dance are performed in this Iranian cultural sphere, and in the Middle East generally. The first is regional folk dancing, most often (but not exclusively) performed in groups. The second is solo improvised dance (sometimes referred to as majilesi 'social' or 'party'). This second form often evokes a strongly negative reaction, reflected, now as in the past, in attempts to ban public performances of solo improvised dance and to marginalize professional performers. People in this area of the world sometimes seem to have what I call a "choreophobic" mentality; yet the same people who might condemn …


An Open Field, Char Miller Jan 2001

An Open Field, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

It should have been during a similarly punishing and mercurial moment in late twentieth-century San Antonio, enveloped in a "furious storm of rain, of hail, or of snow," that I initially encountered Richard White's seminal historiographical essay. Such a convergence of art, life, and weather pattern might have defied reality, but it would have made for a fabulous narrative opening. That said, like the norther's rush, his article, which I read shortly after its publication in the August 1985 issue of the Pacific Historical Review, blew me away.


Back To The Garden: The Redemptive Promise Of Sustainable Forestry, 1893-2000, Char Miller Jan 2000

Back To The Garden: The Redemptive Promise Of Sustainable Forestry, 1893-2000, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

As we struggle at the turn of the century to define and implement “sustainable forestry”— the next stage in the evolution of forest management in North America and the world—it is important to realize that its components have strong roots in the forestry profession. This article examines the relationship of forests and forestry with social equity issues during the last century. In the end, the author leaves us with a question: can sustainable forestry as we understand it today lead to conflict resolution? If not, what lies beyond sustainable forestry?


Dancing Boys, Anthony Shay Jan 2000

Dancing Boys, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The informal, and occasionally formal, institution of the dancing boy--the term used by most Western writers in their descriptions of the Islamic world--has been attested for centuries by European observers throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, as well as the Indian subcontinent and throughout the Islamic areas of Southeast Asia such as Indonesia and the southern Philippines. These individuals have been called by a variety of names: bachchec [batcha], literally "child" in Persian and some Turkish languages, luti (itinerant performer), raqqas (dancer) in many regions, kocek (little) and tavsan (rabbit) in Ottoman Turkey, khawal in …


Beloved, Anthony Shay Jan 2000

Beloved, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The "beloved" forms a central literary concept, highly developed during the medieval Islamic period and still popular in our own times, in the urbanized societies of the Middle East and Central Asia. Encountered throughout the literatures of Persian, Ottoman, and Chaghatay (Uzbek) Turkish, Urdu, and Arabic, among others, this concept manifests itself through highly charged, homoeroticized images and metaphors. The beloved is characterized through such highly eroticized and theatrical tropes of wanton allurement as disheveled locks, torn garments, intoxication symbolized by a wine cup in hand, and appearing at the bedside of the feverish lover. (See, for example, the poems …


Grazing Arizona: Public Land Management In The Southwest, Char Miller Jan 1999

Grazing Arizona: Public Land Management In The Southwest, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In February of 1999, the chief of the U.S. Forest Service, Michael Dombeck, placed a moratorium on road building on most roadless areas. In October, President Clinton put forth an initiative to prohibit road building on 40 million acres of roadless area. Such modifications in Forest Service land management decisions is not new as suggested by Char Miller in this look back at early grazing decisions by Pinchot. To be proactive and reactive at the same time in relation to changing social pressures and political realties may be the legacy of the agency.


Review: Jean-Claude Schmitt, Ghosts In The Middle Ages: The Living And The Dead In Medieval Society (Chicago, 1998), Kenneth Baxter Wolf Jan 1999

Review: Jean-Claude Schmitt, Ghosts In The Middle Ages: The Living And The Dead In Medieval Society (Chicago, 1998), Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Reviews the book `Ghosts in the Middle Ages: The Living and the Dead in Medieval Society,' by Jean-Claude Schmitt Jr. and translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan.


Review: Richard Hodges, Light In The Dark Ages: The Rise And Fall Of San Vincenzo Al Volturno (Ithaca, 1997), Kenneth Baxter Wolf Jan 1998

Review: Richard Hodges, Light In The Dark Ages: The Rise And Fall Of San Vincenzo Al Volturno (Ithaca, 1997), Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Review of the book "Light in the Dark Ages: The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo al Volturno," by Richard Hodges.