This week, friends of the blog, Daniel Carney and Katie Randall (M.A. students, CU Boulder) evaluate the historical plausibility of Amazon’s new series The Man in the High Castle. Also see the follow-up on the meaning and purpose of alternate histories. A haunting rendition of “Edelweiss” chills viewers to the bone as they are introduced to…
This week, friend of Erstwhile and instructor at CU, Martin C. Babicz, examines the historical context of the Second Amendment and how it affects the legitimacy of the occupiers in Oregon. Dr. Babicz received his B.A. from UConn, his M.A. from Brown, and his Ph.D. from CU. In addition to both parts of the U.S.…
Erstwhile editors Beau Driver and Graeme A. Pente offer a recap of their experience attending the 2015 conference of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History in Washington, D.C., October 15-18, 2015. Last weekend, the Society for U.S. Intellectual History (S-USIH) held its seventh annual conference in Washington, D.C. By all accounts, it was the largest…
Peter H. Wood earned his Ph.D. at Harvard and taught early American history at Duke for more than three decades. In 2011, he won the Asher Distinguished Teaching Award of the American Historical Association. Now semi-retired, he lives in Colorado. Last fall Wood taught a graduate seminar on slavery at CU Boulder, and next April…
It’s a nightmare scenario for all of us. One minute you’re chugging along on an article or paper, and suddenly your hard drive starts making funny noises before your screen turns black. No matter what you try, your computer doesn’t restart. Or, you host a dinner party and play some music off your trusty laptop…
CU Boulder’s Rebecca Kennedy offers some helpful advice for executing oral history research projects. If you are like a lot of history students conducting oral history research abroad, you are probably thrilled by the idea of a serendipitous trip to your country of interest, believing that fate will lead you to your sources. And following…
In August, Erstwhile conducted an interview with 2015 History Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth A. Fenn on her book Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People. We are republishing the interview today in honor of her well-deserved news yesterday. Congratulations, Lil! Elizabeth Fenn (Ph.D., Yale University) is an associate professor of history…
This week, Erstwhile presents a guest post from Kara McCormack, a Thinking Matters Fellow at Stanford University. Kara recently completed the process of getting her dissertation under contract with the University Press of Kansas, and shares her experiences about the process with us. Hard Work, Humility, and Luck: From Dissertation to Book Contract in Seven…
Whether for conferences or research, being a historian usually requires some form of travel. Here are a few essential apps for traveling anywhere in the world. Do you have other apps you recommend? Tell us in the comments! GeniusScan Academic travelers often run into the problem of needing to send PDFs of tickets, receipts, insurance,…
Jeff Wermer (History M.A., CU Boulder, and incoming law student, Denver University) explains last week’s Grand Jury proceedings in Ferguson, Missouri, and why the jury’s verdict of No True Bill is particularly unusual. Last week, a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, delivered a verdict of No True Bill regarding the pursuit of charges for Officer Darren…
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