Cultural History Commons^™

Baseball And Pearl Harbor, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

This piece on Pearl Harbor and Baseball was the fifteenth of this series of essays on Sport and Society. It dates from December of 1991 the 50th Anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and was written as a radio commentary for WUCF-FM an NPR affiliate in Orlando. It aired on December 6, 1991.This seemed like a good time to retrieve it from an HD floppy disc and air it out one more time.

December 2017, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Calendar 2017

Italy’S Jews From Emancipation To Fascism, Shira Klein

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

How did Italy treat Jews during World War II? Historians have shown beyond doubt that many Italians were complicit in the Holocaust, yet Italy is still known as the Axis state that helped Jews. Shira Klein uncovers how Italian Jews, though victims of Italian persecution, promoted the view that Fascist Italy was categorically good to them. She shows how the Jews' experience in the decades before World War II - during which they became fervent Italian patriots while maintaining their distinctive Jewish culture - led them later to bolster the myth of Italy's wartime innocence in the Fascist racial campaign. …

Quantitative Historical Analysis Uncovers A Single Dimension Of Complexity That Structures Global Variation In Human Social Organization, Peter Turchin, Thomas E. Currie, Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Kevin Feeney, Daniel Mullins, Daniel Hoyer, Christina Collins, Stephanie Grohmann, Patrick Savage, Gavin Mendel-Gleason, Edward Turner, Agathe Dupeyron, Enrico Cioni, Jenny Reddish, Jill Levine, Greine Jordan, Eva Brandl, Alice Williams, Rudolf Cesaretti, Marta Krueger, Alessandro Ceccarelli, Joe Figliulo-Rosswurm, Po-Ju Tuan, Peter Peregrine, Arkadiusz Marciniak, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Nikolay Kradin, Andrey Korotayev, Alessio Palmisano, David Baker, Julye Bidmead, Peter Bol, David Christian, Connie Cook, Alan Covey, Gary Feinman, Árni Daníel Júlíusson, Axel Kristinsson, John Miksic, Ruth Mostern, Camero Petrie, Peter Rudiak-Gould, Barend Ter Haar, Vesna Wallace, Victor Mair, Liye Xie, John Baines, Elizabeth Bridges, Joseph Manning, Bruce Lockhart, Amy Bogaard, Charles Spencer

Religious Studies Faculty Articles and Research

Do human societies from around the world exhibit similarities in the way that they are structured, and show commonalities in the ways that they have evolved? These are long-standing questions that have proven difficult to answer. To test between competing hypotheses, we constructed a massive repository of historical and archaeological information known as “Seshat: Global History Databank.” We systematically coded data on 414 societies from 30 regions around the world spanning the last 10,000 years. We were able to capture information on 51 variables reflecting nine characteristics of human societies, such as social scale, economy, features of governance, and information …

College Basketball Returns, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

As the college football season comes to an unsatisfactory conclusion and four teams from the Power Five Conferences are chosen for the big payout in the national championship lottery, several other deserving teams not in the Power Five will be left to lick their wounds and take lesser excessive payouts for bowl games. If this is not something you care about, then you will be delighted that this past weekend marked the beginning of the college basketball season. This is where the money meets the road and sixty plus teams pick up some small change or big dollars from March …

Late Night At The World Series, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Here we are in early November and the World Series is over already. You probably missed much of the World Series if you live in the Eastern Time Zone and your bedtime is before 11 p.m. This would not be a problem if there were no baseball fans living east of Indiana. Given the location of major league franchises that is not likely.

November 2017, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Calendar 2017

Three Weeks Of Madness, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

It has been nearly three weeks now since I wandered off for a vacation and away from this column. In one of the oddities of the universe, these absences seem to bring about an avalanche of crazy and significant events in the world of sport. Any one of these developments would have launched a “Sport and Society” essay out of my computer, but when on hiatus, I strictly forbid myself from reacting to any of these developments.

Withdrawal: Reassessing America's Final Years In Vietnam, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Withdrawal is a groundbreaking reassessment that tells a far different story of the Vietnam War. Daddis convincingly argues that the entire US effort in South Vietnam was incapable of reversing the downward trends of a complicated Vietnamese conflict that by 1968 had turned into a political-military stalemate. Despite a new articulation of strategy, Abrams's approach could not materially alter a war no longer vital to US national security or global dominance. Once the Nixon White House made the political decision to withdraw from Southeast Asia, Abrams's military strategy was unable to change either the course or outcome of a decades' …

“A Disconnected Dialogue: American Military Strategy, 1964-1968,” Oklahoma Humanities, Vol. 10, No. 2, Fall-Winter 2017., Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Articles and Research

"The admission, supported by a careful reading of the historical record, begs larger questions: How do we remember American strategy in Vietnam? What language do we use to describe a war that proved so tragic, not only for the United States but, perhaps more importantly, for the millions of Vietnamese who lost their lives in a decades-long civil war? In coming to grips with a complex war, Americans, then and now, have relied on a series of tropes to streamline their conversations about a distasteful war."

Oral History Of Migrants, Shira Klein

History Teaching Resources

This is a collection of collections of oral histories by migrants that can be used both for teaching and for research purposes.

October 2017, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Simchat Torah; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Book Group; Rabbi Darah Lerner Visits; Community Notices

The Battle Of The Sexes, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

I am a bit mystified by the amount of attention that is given to the Billie Jean King defeat of Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes.” I remember it well, and it seemed to me to be some sort of fraud being perpetrated on the American public by a fifty-five-year-old con man in tennis shorts. Bobby Riggs was a hustler, and the “Battle of the Sexes” may have been the biggest hustle he ever pulled.

Mybarrio: Emigdio Vasquez And Chicana/O Identity In Orange County, Natalie Lawler, Denise Johnson, Marcus Herse, Jessica Bocinski, Manon Wogahn

Exhibition Catalogs

"Emigdio Vasquez created artwork that challenged Orange County’s more prominent narrative of wealthy beachside neighborhoods. He painted the brown bodies and brown histories that defined our earliest communities and economy... Vasquez produced much of the local art history that Orange County should be known for and should protect. It is with this perspective that Chapman University is proud to present the exhibition, My Barrio: Emigdio Vasquez and Chicana/o Identity in Orange County, in conjunction with the Getty Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative. We hope to initiate discourse not only about Vasquez’s prolific career, but also about the larger political …

September 2017, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Shabbat in the Woods; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Book Group; Community Notices

Pushing The Protestant Culinary Agenda In Depression Era America, Brittany M. Millidge

The Exposition

No abstract provided.

Concussions And Football, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

It is a story that won’t go away. No matter how much many people would like it to, it will not. For several decades now the issue of concussions has been discussed, debated, lied about, and studied. The scientific studies, except those paid for by the National Football League and done by NFL employees, have shown some correlation and/or connection between head trauma, various symptoms of brain dysfunction, and football.

August 2017, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Kiddush Levana; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Book Group; Announcements; Community Notices

Dynamics Of War: Culture, Society, Environment, And Pedagogy, Breanne Jacobsen

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

War is an ever-present feature of human civilization. Nearly all cultures and societies show accounts of human conflict. This portfolio seeks to provide both a multidimensional analysis of war and a means of instructing students to appreciate its significance as a driving force of history using three different components.

The syllabus project provides a long-term view of how the various wars and conflicts came to be and progressed in Western Civilization in the modern era.

The chapter-length paper shows the ravaging effects that war and conflict can have on a physical landscape and the environment in which the conflict takes …

The Open And The Coach, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Golf is a sport in which the major opponent is the self. It is, to borrow from Yogi Berra, ninety percent mental and the other half is physical. The very early career of Jordan Spieth offers considerable evidence of the significance of the mental aspect of the game. At The Open, the premier Grand Slam event, Jordon Spieth did battle on Sunday with himself, and won.

Wimbledon, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

The Wimbledon fortnight is my favorite fortnight of them all. The tennis is generally of high quality, the venue is steeped in beauty, and the singular notion of playing on grass, all combine to the make this grand slam event the holy grail of tennis. Am I overdoing it? Well yes, but then, for me it is all of these things and more.

July 2017, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Maine-ly Jewish Storytelling Festival; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Book Group; Announcments; Inconvient Artifacts; Federation Report; Community Notices

Gustave Vogt's Musical Album Of Autographs: A Scholarly Edition, Kristin Leitterman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Gustave Vogt (1781–1870) was the most famous oboist in Europe during the mid-nineteenth century. Throughout his career he played with the best orchestras in Paris, toured Europe widely, and also taught the next generation of oboists at the Paris Conservatoire from 1802–1853. Although many of the details of his life have been lost to history, he did leave behind a record of the esteem in which he was held. This is preserved physically in the form of an album of short musical compositions honoring Vogt, collected between 1831 and 1859. The album has never been published, and is in the …

June 2017, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Shabbat Together; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Book Group; Announcements; Community Notices

Bill Owens: A Us Craft Beer Pioneer, 1982-2001, Patrick Walls

Theses

Bill Owens is a pioneer in the United States craft brewing industry through his efforts as an advocate, writer, publisher, brewer, and entrepreneur who created a lasting legacy by influencing generations of brewers and beer fans. Owens wrote the first book on homebrewing equipment (How to Build a Small Brewery: Draft Beer in Ten Days in 1982). He opened the third brewpub in the country (Buffalo Bill's Brewery in Hayward, California in 1983) where, in 1985, he introduced the first commercial pumpkin beer among other beer style firsts. Owens published numerous brewery-focused magazines that featured many illustrious beer writers. …

Racism And Sport Yet Again, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Last week, Adam Jones of the Baltimore Orioles reported that he had been racially harassed by Boston Red Sox fans in Fenway Park, who, among other things, threw peanuts and shouted racial slurs at him. Jones was upset and demanded that the Red Sox tighten their stadium security and enforce a ban on racial harassment. The reaction across baseball was to condemn the fans for what was described as unacceptable behavior.

Espn And The Nfl, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

For several decades the revenue streams in sport have been overflowing their banks. Rights fees have skyrocketed, new sources of revenue seem at times to fall from the sky like manna from the electronic heavens, and just when you think the ceiling has been reached something new appears. It seems that it will never end, but of course at some point it must. Perhaps.

May 2017, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Café Shalom; From the Rabbi; Presidents Message; Book Group; Announcements; Bissel of Maine; Community Notices

Introduction To Richard Nixon And Europe : The Reshaping Of The Postwar Atlantic World, Luke A. Nichter

Presidential Studies Faculty Books and Book Chapters

The U.S.-European relationship remains the closest and most important alliance in the world. Since 1945, successive American presidents each put their own touches on transatlantic relations, but the literature has reached only into the presidency of Lyndon Johnson (1963-9). This first study of transatlantic relations during the era of Richard Nixon shows a complex, turbulent period during which the postwar period came to an end, and the modern era came to be on both sides of the Atlantic in terms of political, economic, and military relations.

Forgetting The Lynching Of Jesse Washington: Manifestations Of Memory And The "Waco Horror", Kurt A. Terry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After a horrible historical injustice reemerged into public discourse in 1998, the citizens and civic leaders of Waco, Texas wrestled with the idea of whether to continue to forget the event or to acknowledge, apologize, and reconcile the past. At the center of the debate, a lynching of a seventeen-year old African American named Jesse Washington in 1916. Also known as the “Waco Horror,” the lynching disappeared from public conversation in Waco shortly after its occurrence. For nearly a century, the lynching remained relegated to anti-lynching movements, academic study, and the fringes of society. After the lynching’s reappearance into public …