Category Archives: Historian in the World
The Politics of Trigger Warnings
Up until now, I’ve avoided weighing in on the debate about “trigger warnings” that has been raging across the humanities. The debate, as I understand it, is over whether or not professors and other pedagogues are responsible for warning students and other … Continue reading
Welcoming Us Home
It’s been two weeks since Brian and I got married, and a little over a week and a half since we returned to Virginia from where we got married in New York. We went back north to get married because … Continue reading
A Very Special Virginia Anti-Marriage Equality Argument
David Cohen in Slate has brought word of what he calls “The Worst Argument Ever Made Against Gay Marriage,” made last week before the Fourth Circuit in Richmond. The occasion was the state’s appeal of the Eastern District of Virginia’s decision … Continue reading
Silicon Valley: World Headquarters of Doublespeak
Although Orwell never used the term “doublespeak” (he preferred the more insidious “doublethink”), the term has become indelibly associated in the modern day with the dystopian totalitarian future of his classic novel 1984. In its common usage, “doublespeak” refers to any … Continue reading
Fxbg’s Landscape of Slave-Made Capitalism
This recent post by Julia Ott, a historian of capitalism at the New School, articulates forcefully a point that can’t be repeated enough: in a very real sense, slaves were the capital that made the emergence of capitalism possible. … Continue reading
Posted in Historian in the World
Tagged Auction Block, Fredericksburg, historic district, History, Landscape of Slavery, slavery, Virginia
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Discussing My Cliometric Odyssey
Next Wednesday, April 16th, I will be talking with the Department of History and American Studies about an ongoing cliometrical research experiment I have been undertaking this academic year. With a research team of two outstanding senior history majors, Leah … Continue reading
Posted in Digital Life, Historian in the World, Teaching
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Fixing FXBG’s Traffic
Fredericksburg can be a weird place to live. If you stay downtown, life flows smoothly and easily along, with relatively few delays and inconveniences. But if you leave “the bubble” (as Brian calls it) then things get ugly really fast. … Continue reading
In Defense of the Econoline
After briefly flirting with the status of two-car family, an unfortunate encounter with a new 16-year-old driver in Fairfax this weekend has knocked us back down to being a one-car family again. I thought I would take advantage of this … Continue reading
Inhabiting NC’s Landscape of Jim Crow
My two recent posts on Carter’s Grove and Beverly Wellford’s physician/slave insurance office have gotten me thinking about the experience of inhabiting historic landscapes of slavery as a modern historian and general Yankee. This past weekend, I had another direct … Continue reading
Posted in Historian in the World
Tagged Durham, Fredericksburg, Landscape of Slavery, North Carolina, real estate, slavery
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Inhabiting Fxbg’s Landscape of Slavery
In my last post on Carter’s Grove, I found myself imaging what it would be like to inhabit a landscape so thoroughly imbued with slavery. This train of thought led to my wondering about Fredericksburg’s landscape of slavery. Slavery is … Continue reading
