Second Presentation

In Richard White’s The Organic Machine, White crafts a unique perspective of the history of the Columbia River that combines the human history and environmental history of the river. In doing so, White argues that humans are intrinsically linked to the environment they live in and that in order to understand either human or environmental history, a broader, more objective view that examines both the natural and unnatural needs to be taken. White explains that man and nature share a common bond in the energy they produce. In examining the Columbia River, White finds that the work of human energy has harnessed nature’s energy for social purposes and as a result has shaped the society surrounding the river.

White’s thesis relies on the theory that natural and human history is linked. White writes in the introduction that “My argument in this book is that we cannot understand human history without natural history and we cannot understand natural history without human history.” According to white, humans are influenced by their environment and nature is influenced by the humans that inhabit it.

Perhaps the major strength of viewing history through the lens of White’s linked human and natural history is that it provides a new and broader perspective of history that has the potential to be more objective. White writes that:

…this is a river subdivided into separate spaces whose users speak to each other in a babel of discourses: law, religion, nature talk, economics, science and more…To come to terms with the Columbia, we need to come to terms with it as a whole, as an organic machine, not only as a reflection of our own social divisions but as the site which these divisions play out.[i]

White attempts to find a new perspective that is not confined to traditional ways of historical thought. If viewed from a neutral point of view, instead of an economist or fisherman’s perspective, it has the potential to be more objective and truthful.

He finds that humans and the river share a common bond through energy and work. First, White writes about the interaction between Indians that lived around the river and early settlers when he writes, “Passage along the river was…not just physical; it was social and political. Social and political rituals were as necessary as labor to move against the current. Indians expected gifts and ritual at the portages.” According to White, settlers expanded energy through labor to counter the river’s energy in its currents for safe passage on the river. As a result, social and political tension between Indians and settlers developed when settlers were forced to use Indian portages.

Ironically, while White is trying to find a more objective view of history, he takes on a critical tone towards the end of the book and admits to bias in his own research when he says, “I have purposely made the list on-sided to mirror and counter the self-congragulatory propaganda…” By choosing to omit further research about BPA projects, White becomes biased and risks turning his writing into the propaganda that he criticize. Furthermore, White uses Ralph Waldo Emerson as a source to explain the relationship between nature and man when he writes, “Emerson could simultaneously rejoice in the ability of the machine to subjugate and control nature and in the spiritual truth nature provided.” The danger of using Emerson as a main source is that he was a poet; he did not have the credibility of a scientist nor did he write about the Columbia.

Conclusively, White’s thesis is apt. He shows the connection between man in nature through examining how man attempts to harness energy from the river – through fishing salmon or building dams – and how the unnatural becomes the natural. By blurring the lines between natural and unnatural, White is able to show the Columbia River as a symbol for fractured society.

Second Presentation

I decided to do my second presentation on the same topic as my final paper, which is The Conquest of Cool. While writing my paper, I noticed (like Zoe below me) the parallels between the counterculture movement of the sixties that Frank writes about, and the rise of today's "hipsters." The counterculture of Frank's study flouted tradition by ignoring the traditional values of power, stability, and conformity, preferring to strike out on their own and adopt a more free-spirited approach, in the process creating a new identity for themselves distinctly outside of that of mainstream culture. Today's Hipster Handbook notes that hipsters, by definition, "walk among the masses in daily life, but [are] not a part of them, and shun or reduce to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream." Hipsters, like Frank's countercultural movement, associate firmly with liberal political view, and also tend to be young, relatively affluent consumers with plenty of disposable income.

The advertising industry of the sixties first recognized the marketing potential of the targeting the "cool," and of using product association to reflect a certain opinion or stance. Perhaps the most successful example of this in modern advertising are the famous Apple commercials, in which a young, trendy actor represents the hip, sleek Mac, while an old, conservative man plays a stodgy PC. Macs, the commercials claim, are cutting-edge and visionary; PCs are outdated and resoundingly dry and mainstream. Though plenty of people have their own reasons for choosing their brand of computer, generally, whether it's the effect of the commercials, or the inspiration of them, or some combination of the two, Macs are associated with artsy hipsters, while PCs are the stuff of computer geeks and Linux fans. Apple has successfully co-opted the new "hipster" trend for its own image.

Presentation (Catholics in Maoist and Post Mao China)

My online presentation is about my paper. I will be discussing about the communist policy on religion. I will mostly be focusing on Christianity particularly Catholicism. My claim that that through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, Communist policy was forced to change and this is done through Document 19.

The missionaries during the 17th and 18th centuries tried to convert the lowly people but failed because Catholic doctrine defied the right of the emperor. The idea that they had to abide to a Pope being higher than their own emperor worried those who ruled and therefore religion did not universally spread. Before the communists took over, the missionaries that still resided in the country side developed Christendoms that still exist today. In these towns the church was intertwined with all aspects of daily life.

The Great Leap forward was a time when famine was widespread. Famine was caused by the pushed for everyone to be in the industrial revolution but along the country side on their own properties. This push left farms to become overgrown and the people to starve. There are even stories like one family who had seen a few rotten potatoes floating down a steam and rushed in the middle of winter out to grab them so they could actually eat something that day. The Great Leap was followed swiftly by the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution was a time where all people, especially children, were encouraged to tell any and all violations that their parents, teachers, friends, and coworkers committed. They then could face a variety of penalties. Following these two events came a rise in religious following because of the uncertainty of what could come next.

The rise of religion was too great just to eliminate it. Therefore the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) created Document 19 that states that the religion will faze out when true communism is reached and it cannot be forced out. Therefore the CCP established government agencies to control the church like the CCPA (Chinese Catholic Patriot Association). This was a way for citizens to still be in the country and follow the religion. This association takes charge in electing new bishops and cardinals which goes against Catholic Doctrine and therefore is not recognized at the time (80s) by the Vatican. This has created the accepted church and the underground church. The underground church is Vatican followers that are going against Catholic doctrine but still not seeked out like they had been in Maoist China.

Rachel Singleton's 2nd Presentation: The Great Cat Massacre

For my second presentation I would like to talk about The Great Cat Massacre And Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton and to focus in my discussion on the first chapter of the book where Darnton studies the folktales of French peasants.

The Great Cat Massacre is a series of essays in which Darnton attempts to get a picture of pre-revolutionary French popular culture by doing anthropological research of the past-reading the words of the people, listening to the stories they loved and decoding their humor. I was immediately impressed by Darnton?s thoroughness and insight as a historical researcher in reading the first chapter, Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning of Mother Goose. He successfully tackles a challenging and relatively unexplored topic: the meaning behind and purpose of the folktale to eighteenth century French peasants.

Unlike many other historians and scholars who have analyzed folktales, Darnton attempts to find the original tale, the version(s) of the tale that was known to the peasant. He does not try to psychoanalyze the tale to add symbolism that simply is not there and would have had no place in what the tale meant to the eighteenth century peasant. He tries, instead, to approach the tales from the perspective of a French peasant, or at least as close as he can get to it, not allowing any modern Western mores skew his understanding. Most of the original versions of what are now popular fairy tales were extremely gruesome and full of taboos. It is easy for a modern reader to judge these details based on present day conventions but Darnton emphasizes the importance of discovering how the peasant viewed this violence and what purpose the telling of these tales served for them.

Throughout the chapter he systematically examines the seventeenth and eighteenth century versions of popular French folktales and makes well informed conclusions about why peasants were so interested in these stories and the meaning behind them based on what is known about the daily life of the French peasant class. He concludes all in all that the peasant folktale reflects their shared world view and lessons on how to get through a life of hardship, death and social injustice. The tales on a whole, according to Darnton say "?that life is hard, that you had better not have any illusions about selflessness in your fellow men, that clear-headedness and quick wit are necessary to protect what little you can extract from your surroundings, and that moral nicety will get you nowhere." (pg. 61)


Below I have included a website with various versions of "Cinderella" from France, Germany, Italy, etc. as an example of how many different versions of one of these tales there are. http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0510a.html#jacobs

2nd Presentation

In In Defense of History, Richard J. Evans attempts to the defend the modern tradition of history against its post modern criticisms. Evans begins his defense of history by describing the history of history itself. Evans introduces Leopold Von Renke as the father of the modern history. Von Renke argued that the past should be portrayed "how it essentially was." Von Renke also believed that historians had rely on primary sources in order to avoid bias. Historians were also responsible for proving the legitimacy of their sources. Evans also explains the tendency of historians in the 19th century to approach history as a science. Evans seems to believe that history is both "weak science" in that it must be objective, but cannot provide general laws, and an art, in that it utilizes some of the techniques of literature.

Evans argues against postmodernist interpretations of history, which argue that language makes it impossible to objectively present the facts. Postmodernists believe that it is impossible to write a history without insert some sort of bias into it. Postmodernists support the idea that each group should be responsible for writing its own history in order to avoid majority bias. Ultimately Evans believes that the "hyperrelativism" of the postmodernists is not in itself enough to really provide an accurate view of history. Although it may be impossible to provide a completely accurate truth, that is no reason not to attempt reach as close to the truth, through sound research, as possible. Although objectivism has its flaws, Evans believes some sort of concept of the truth is necessary in order to understand history.

Evans is unable to completely disprove the postmodernist take on history. Instead, he argues that there must be a dialogue between the modernists and the postmodernists in order to find the best way to analyze history.

2nd Presentation

For my second presentation I wanted to focus on Conquest of Cool by Thomas Frank. I thought it would be interesting to examine whether the issues Frank talks about in his study are at all applicable to the fashion or advertising industry today. In his study Frank claims that the business world and the counter-culture world did not follow a basic cooptation theory but rather that the business world actually embraced the values and images of the counter-culture--that in fact advertising and menswear enjoyed a kind of "hip" revolution of their own. Since we explored these theories at a rather in depth level in class, i thought it might be interesting to look at the advertising and fashion industry today and see if a similar relationship exists. While i don't think its any secret that advertisers look for trends that are "hip" and "cool" in order to move products, Frank was attempting to show that advertisers could in fact predict these trends--and didn't merely adopt counter-culture values but in fact helped to shape them. While looking around for information on today's fashion industry i found an article in Forbes about the rise of "hipster" culture and its influence on the industry. The article points out that Marc Jacobs (the designer) draws on his experience as a hipster to draw in older and younger crowds; he is essentially what Frank is talking about in his study--members of the business class anticipating and encouraging the creation of a counter-culture movement.

Ultimately the article points to the fact that "hipsters" are the new counter-culture movement--and coincidentally they are also the children of the "baby boomers" who Frank examines in his book.

The article is HERE

2nd Presentation-Sweetness and Power

For my second presentation, I will be discussing Sweetness and Power by Sidney Mintz. I'll mainly be talking about Mintz's discussion on the production of sugar in the Caribbean islands. I believe were one of the strongest parts of the book. I also enjoyed this part because it gave the reader a better idea of what was going on in terms of sugar production and trade during that time.

In the second chapter of Sweetness and Power, Mintz begins by breaking down the production of sugar on the plantation colonies of the Caribbean. Although he begins with a broader overview of earlier French and Spanish colonies, Mintz eventually turns his focus to the British “sugar islands”. He takes the reader through the entire process of sugar production and in my opinion, succeeds in giving his audience a clear idea of how production in particular, changed over time. Mintz effectively uses statistical data showing the link between production rates and consumption. In doing so, Mintz demonstrates the increasing economic demand between colonies and their mother country.
There is a point where Mintz crystallizes how, as sugar became economically significant, “its consumption by the powerful came to matter less; at the same time, the production of sugar acquired that importance precisely because the masses of English people were now steadily consuming more of it, and desiring more of it than they could afford it” (Mintz 1985, 45). Mintz leads into “Consumption” by pointing out how increased sugar production directly influenced the change of consumers from aristocracy to the general public as well as the manner in which sugar was consumed in England.