Griffintown: Keegan House Saved. Really?
April 29, 2014 § Leave a comment
Montreal is a strange place. The city basically works in completely counter-intuitive ways. Last week, the Comité consultatif d’urbanisme (CCU) of the arrondissement sud-ouest of the Ville de Montréal denied permission to developer, Maitre-Carré, to tear down the oldest building in Griffintown, a grotty old house that stands at 175, rue de la Montagne. The Keegan House, as it is now known, was built sometime between 1825 and 1835, on Murray Street, a block over from its present state. It was moved to what was then McCord Street in 1865, around the same time that the handsome row of townhouses was constructed up the block.
When Maitre Carré’s plans were first made public, I was apprehensive, but also thought that perhaps the developer deserved our benefit of the doubt, insofar as it had, at least, made some nod to heritage in Griff when Hugo Girard-Beauchamp, the company’s president, bought the Horse Palace and has at least nodded to the idea of maintaining the Palace as a working stable going forward (whether this will happen in practice is a whole different kettle of fish). Indeed, as my friend, G. Scott MacLeod, a film-maker interested in Griff, said, Maitre-Carré is the only developer that has at least acknowledged the history and heritage of the neighbourhood. Indeed, other condo developers, most notably Devimco and Préval have been more interested in stuffing ugly, neo-brutalist blocks of condos down on the Griffintown landscape, completely destroying the streetscape (such as it existed) and dwarfing the original buildings.
Having said all that, at this point anyway (because one never knows in Montreal), this is an optimistic sign. Anne-Marie Sigouin, the city councillor for Saint-Paul/Émard, and the chair of the CCU, said (according to The Gazette) “We have sent the architects back to the drawing board. We want to send a clear message on heritage protection.” This is rather surprising, since the CCU and the Ville de Montréal as a whole have not demonstrated much in the way of leadership up to now in Griff.
The Suburbanisation of Punk and Hip Hop
April 23, 2014 § Leave a comment
Questlove, the drummer and musical director of the hip hop band, The Roots (and frankly, if you don’t know just who in the hell The Roots are by now, I’m not sure there’s any hope for you), is writing a six-part series of essays on hip hop, its past, present, and future at Vulture. Not surprisingly, Questlove makes an eloquent argument in part one about the ubiquity of hip hop culture and the dangers that poses to Black America in the sense that if the powers that be wish to quash it, the ubiquity of it is all-encompassing and a quashing would be similarly so. But he also points out the dangers of the all-encompassing nature of hip hop culture.
I like Questlove’s point about the ubiquity of hip hop culture, which means that it’s no longer visible, it’s just everywhere. He also notes that it’s really the only music form that is seen to have this massive cultural phenomenon attached to it: food, fashion, etc. He says that this applies to pretty much anything black people in America do (he also wonders what the hell “hip hop architecture” is, as do I). But I think this goes beyond black America, such is the power of hip hop and the culture that follows it.
There is a relatively long tradition of white rappers, from 3rd Bass and the Beastie Boys up to Eminem and others, and the vast majority of white rappers have deeply respected the culture. More than that, as a white kid growing up in the suburbs in the late 80s, I was totally into hip hop, as were all my friends. This could get stupid, as when guys I knew pretended that life in Port Moody was akin to Compton, but, still. My point is that hip hop music, fashion, and culture has permeated the wider culture of North America entirely (something I don’t think Questlove would disagree with, but it’s irrelevant to his argument).
The only other form of music that has an ethos and culture that follows it, really, is punk. Punk and hip hop are spiritual brother movements, both arise from dispossessed working class cultures. Both originally emerged in anger (think of the spitting anger of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five in “The Message” or the Sex Pistols in “Anarchy in the UK”) and were heavily political and/or documented life on the downside. But, both also went viral, both exploded out of their original confines and went suburban and affluent.
Punk and hip hop are the two musical forms that informed me as a young man, they continue to do so as I hit middle age. But punk and hip hop are both deeply compromised by sinking into the affluent culture of middle class suburbia. The anger is blunted, the social message is reduced, and it becomes about “bitches and bling,” whether in hip hop (pretty much any song by Jay-Z) or punk (pretty much any song by The Offspring, Avril Lavigne, Blink-182, or any pop-punk band you hear on the radio). And then these counter-culture voices become the culture, and, as Questlove notes, they become invisible in their ubiquity. But more than that, the ethos they bring is divorced from their origins.
Questlove talks about the social contract we all subscribe to. He references three quotes that guide his series (and, I would guess, his life in general). The first comes from 16th century English religious reformer, John Bradford, who upon seeing another prisoner led to the gallows, commented, “There but for the graces of God goes John Bradford.” The second comes from Albert Einstein, “who disparagingly referred to quantum entanglement as ‘spooky action at a distance.'” Finally, Ice Cube, the main lyricist of N.W.A. (yes, there was once a time, kids, when Cube wasn’t a cartoon character), who, in the 1988 track “Gangsta Gangsta,” delivered this gem, “Life ain’t nothing but bitches and money.” Questlove also notes that Cube is talking about a world in which the social contract is frayed, “where everyone aspires to improve themselves and only themselves, thoughts of others be damned. What kind of world does that create?”
And herein lies the rub for me, at least insofar as the wider culture of hip hop and punk and their suburbanisation. If you take the politics and intelligence out of punk and hip hop, you’re left with the anger, and a dangerous form of nihilism. We’re left with Eminem fantasising about killing his wife and his mother. Charming stuff, really.
This is not to say there is no place for bangers in hip hop culture, nor is to say there’s no place for the Buzzcocks (the progenitors of pop-punk in the late 1970s), it just means that this is a many-edged sword.
The Distinct Culture of Anglo Quebecers
April 7, 2014 § Leave a comment
I have been on this listserv of policy wonks and academics in Canada since sometime in the late 90s. Most of the time, I’m not entirely sure why I remain on it, a small handful of the approximately 100 people on it post, and some use it to beat their hobby horses to many, many deaths. But, occasionally, it serves its purpose and intelligent discussion breaks out about various world events, Canadian politics, and the like. Over the past couple of weeks, one of those broke out over the Québec election, which is underway right now.
This has been the most divisive provincial election I’ve seen in Québec in my lifetime, though, admittedly, the bar was set very low with the ruling Parti québécois’ ridiculous, offensive, and racist charte des valeurs, a sad attempt at laïcité. That in and of itself, is fine, and is perfectly consistent with the Euro-francophone world, but the way it was introduced in Québec, and the manner in which it targeted minorities, most notably Arabs and other Muslims, was appalling. And since then, it’s been a raise to the bottom between the PQ, the Parti libéral du Québec, the Coalition pour l’avenir du Québec, and the 4th party, Québec solidaire. For the uninitiated, the PQ is a former leftist, sovereigntist party; the PLQ is a rightist, federalist party, the CAQ is a right-wing, sovereigntist party, and QS is a largely irrelevant leftist sovereigntist party. For the record, I voted QS in 2012 and would’ve again this year if I was still living in Québec.
So, to return to this discussion on the listserv. It was between an Anglo political scientist in Montréal, a Québec sovereigntist, a lawyer in Vancouver, and myself. Three Quebecers and an Anglo Canadian. The discussion largely centred around the PQ and its fitness for government, though, interestingly, the major issue of the election campaign, the charte was largely ignored by three of the four in this discussion (I was the fourth). The political scientist advocated the continuation of the status quo, a PQ minority, the separatist wished for a PQ majority (and a subsequent third referendum on sovereignty), I suggested the PQ was not fit for government based on the charte, and the lawyer ridiculed the entire idea of sovereignty. Other issues raised included protection of the French language and culture of Québec, as well as the fading generation of sovereigntists.
Pauline Marois, the current leader of the PQ and (at least until later tonight) the premier of Québec, is 65 years old. This puts her at the younger end of the baby boomers, who were the ones who really carried the idea of sovereignty in Québec. Interestingly, support for sovereignty is much lower amongst my generation (Gen X) and the millennials. The political scientist noted this, the need for younger blood in the PQ.
I argued that to simply dismiss the PLQ as incapable of defending the French language and culture in Québec is simple-minded, and I mocked the PQ for the charte and also pointed out QS’ near irrelevance. This led the political scientist to assume I voted PLQ. My guess, though, is that my name had more to do with that than anything. I found this rather disappointing, given nearly everything I’ve ever said about Canada/Québec on this listserv has made it clear I am not a knee-jerk Anglo Montrealer (like one I got into an argument with on Twitter this weekend who seemed to be suggesting Anglo Quebecers are a deeply oppressed minority).
But the real silliness emerged with the lawyer, who appears to be of the opinion that Anglo Montrealers and Anglo Quebecers do not have anything distinct about their language and culture, as compared with the Rest of Canada. He opined that in leaving Montréal for Boston, I did not give up much, as opposed to a francophone who would give up nearly everything. I find this argument both fatuous and depressing.
Anglo Montreal, at the least, has a distinct culture, specific to location. Anglo Montreal is often regarded as a large village, as it seems that all Anglos are no more than 3 or 4 degrees of separation from each other. But, more concretely, as McGill linguist Charles Boberg has discovered, Anglo Montrealers speak a dialect of English that is heavily influenced by French and is rather distinct from the Canadian English dialect. This makes sense. English is the mother tongue of about 650,000 people in Québec as a whole. This out of a total population of over 8 million. Within Montréal, out of a total population of nearly 4 million, about 420,000 people are native English-speakers. In other words, Anglos are a small island in a sea of francophone culture (to borrow the metaphor about Québec adrift in the North American sea of Anglos). As such, Anglo Montreal and Anglo Quebec have their own distinct culture and history, shaped as it was by the simple demographic fact of minority. This is very different than the plight of Anglophones in the rest of most of North America (except for Mexico and the American Southwest).
In other words, despite what a lawyer in Vancouver believes, Anglo Montrealers have their own distinct culture, language and identity, one that is separate and distinct from Anglo Canadians in the rest of the country. There are both positives and negatives to this, of course.
But, my Vancouver lawyer isn’t unique. He represents and all-too-common view of Anglo Canadians. Quebecers are perceived to either be beyond the pale of the Rest of Canada (if we’re francophones, I once got told in southwest Ontario that I speak “good English”), or we’re just like everyone else (if we’re Anglos).
So look at that, Québec is a distinct culture all around (Allophones, or immigrants and their descendants also have their own distinct culture in Québec). It might even be a nation unto itself.
Success at Failure
March 26, 2014 § 3 Comments
Last week I was in sunny California at the National Council on Public History‘s annual conference in Monterey on the central coast. I was in a roundtable called “Failure: What is it Good For?” The idea behind the panel arose out of discussions between myself and Margo Shea in the autumn, surrounding various community-based projects we’ve been involved over the years, as well as our wider experiences in public history. At that point, Margo ran with it, and we proposed a roundtable to the NCPH, along with Jill Ogline Titus of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, Melissa Bingmann of West Virginia University, and Dave Favolaro of the New York Tenement Museum. All five of us have a wide and divergent experience in community-based history projects in Canada and the US.
We were slightly nervous before our session, unsure if we’d have a full or empty house. The word “failure” is one that our culture and society does not like very much. We seem to go out of our way to avoid using the word, given it’s negative connotations. I have been slightly bemused with Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s announcement yesterday that they were splitting up, they were “consciously uncoupling.” A column I read somewhere on that term (which I conveniently cannot find today) poked fun at their pretentious terminology (aren’t all breakups conscious uncouplings?) as it is really a way of getting around saying their marriage failed. I don’t find it surprising. Failure is a bad thing, continual failure makes us losers, etc.
https://twitter.com/Matthew_Barlow/status/446676391136751616
We were very pleasantly surprised to watch the room fill up; by the time Margo began the introduction to our session, I counted 3 empty seats in a room that sat somewhere between 45 and 50 people. What followed was amazing. We had our audience play some Failure Bingo ™ to get our crowd involved in the session early. And then we began to discuss the commonalities of our case studies, as well as some discussion about our particular cases.
One of the really neat things about the NCPH conference was that it was live-tweeted by several of the participants (myself included). The conference as a whole was interesting for this feature, as at every session there were a handful of people glued to their phones, laptops, and tablets as they live tweeted. I had several interactive sessions with session participants on Twitter, carrying on discussions about their talks throughout the panel.
What followed during the roundtable was kind of amazing, as a number of participants were live-tweeting events as they unfolded. After I was done with my bit, I sat back and resumed live-tweeting our session, engaging in dialogue with some of the audience members. This led to a multi-dimensional discussion between us and the audience. We had a live talk, amongst us in the room, we also used an app called Poll Everywhere to have people text their comments in, which then appeared on the screen behind us, and then there was the live-tweeting, which included interaction between me and some of the tweeters.
https://twitter.com/Matthew_Barlow/status/446779880185663488
The discussion in this multi-platform setting was fascinating, and, of course, kind of hard to keep up with. But that made it all the more interesting. As a group we spent a lot of talking about how failure works in other settings. In particular, medicine, science, and design. In those fields, failure is a necessary part of the process. It’s not too trite to say that in those cases, failure is part of success. In order to be successful, one has to first fail.
https://twitter.com/Matthew_Barlow/status/446794528393928705
https://twitter.com/Matthew_Barlow/status/446780787732381696
https://twitter.com/Matthew_Barlow/status/446792393816166400
But, of course, the difference between fields such as science, medicine, and design is that we, as public historians engaged in community-based projects is that we are dealing with other human beings. So, while I think we must be more open to failure in the same way that medical researchers and scientists and techies are, we must also keep in mind the human costs of failure. It can be embarrassing, humiliating and all other kinds of things. Marla Miller, from UMass-Amherst, also noted the way around this:
https://twitter.com/Matthew_Barlow/status/446796105963950081
But, either way, it is impossible to escape failure. But,
As this multi-dimensional discussion carried on, it was hard not to feel amazed, looking out at such a passionately engaged audience. I felt like we had at least succeeded at getting failure into the discussion.
https://twitter.com/Matthew_Barlow/status/446794954082242561
The following day, more than a few people told me ours was their favourite session of the conference. A few, tongue firmly in cheek, called me “The Failure Guy.”
https://twitter.com/Matthew_Barlow/status/447036533799784448
Margaret Atwood: CanCon Queen
March 13, 2014 § Leave a comment
Last weekend, I read Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood, the second of her dystopian trilogy (Oryx & Crake is the first part and MaddAddam is part three). I mentioned Oryx & Crake briefly in my post in January about my 2013 reading. There I noted I’ve never been an Atwood fan. But this trilogy is making me re-think my position. I spent a lot of time with both Oryx & Crake and The Year of the Flood simply overwhelmed with the world Atwood has created for this trilogy. I can see influences from outside sources, and with her previous fascinations with dystopia, most notably in The Handmaid’s Tale, but mostly I’m just impressed that Atwood could invent this alternate universe.
At any rate. Throughout The Year of the Flood, I appreciated reading a Canadian author, maybe out of a sense of missing home, or maybe just enjoying Atwood’s sly humour. The religious cult that is at the centre of this book, God’s Gardeners, have sanctified various ecologists, biologists, zoologists, and others who worked to protect the animals and the environment. God’s Gardeners are a pacifist, vegan sect who believe in the sanctity of all life, incorporating various aspects of Christianity, Buddhism, and the scientific revolution into their belief systems. When Adam One, the leader of God’s Gardeners gives a speech for the Feast of Saint Dian Fossey, Atwood slyly slips in Canadian content:
Today is Saint Dian’s Day, consecrated to interspecies empathy. On this day, we invoke Saint Jerome of Lions, Saint Robert Brown of Mice, and Saint Christopher Smart of Cats; also Saint Farley Mowat of Wolves, and the Ikhwan al-Safa and their Letter of the Animals. But especially Saint Dian Fossey, who gave her life while defending the Gorillas from ruthless exploitation. She laboured for a Peaceable Kingdom, in which all Life would be respected.
“Saint” Farley Mowat is one of Canada’s best-loved authors, at least he used to be. He’s still kicking around at age 92, but he reached the pinnacle of his fame in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. He is most known for his work on the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic and the wolves of the Canadian tundra. For me, though, he is the author of the children’s lit Canadian classic, The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be. I loved that book when I was a child.
The “peaceable kingdom,” is a biblical reference, yes. But it is also a reference to Canada, the land of “peace, order, and good government,” according to the Constitution (though the latter has been lacking since January 2006).
Atheism as Dogmatism
March 9, 2014 § 7 Comments
Frankly, I don’t care about people’s religious beliefs or lack thereof. We should be free to choose to believe or not believe, and we should be free to practice our beliefs however see fit, so long as we do not cause harm to others. I have never been particularly religious, when I was younger, I flirted with Catholicism (the religion I was born into) and various brands of Protestantism, been attracted to Sufi Islam, and explored Buddhism. Then I realised Buddhism isn’t really a religion so much as a guide to what the Buddha calls the good life. I have also tried out atheism, deism, and everything in between. I seem to have settled into some nether world where I’m irreligious, in the sense that I’m indifferent.
But. I also teach history, and I’ve taught far more sections of Western and World History in my career than I care to count. And, as I go over the various calamities that have befallen humans over the past 3,000-4,000 years in various corners of the world, I have come to realise the initial point of religion. It is to help people make sense of the Terror of History. Bad things happen all the time, and, as the Buddha noted, all existence is suffering. Every religion and systems of belief I have come across from the Babylonians to China, Japan, Africa, Europe, and the Americas has attempted to offer comfort against this suffering and terror.
At the core, I think all religions are beautiful in their attempts to make sense of the chaos, to give people hope. And, of course, I recognise that every religion has also been perverted to bring pain and suffering and misery to others.
But that’s to be expected. I read once that the difference between liberals and conservatives (in today’s usage of those two terms) is a basic belief in human nature. Conservatives generally believe in the good of humanity, liberals are not so optimistic. Hence, conservatives tend to believe in less regulation and restrictions on individual liberty, under the assumption that we’ll sort it out. Liberals, on the other hand, believe we need regulations to ensure basic decency, otherwise we’ll destroy ourselves. In this sense, it turns out I am a liberal. I believe human beings are capable of beauty, but also of atrocity. It’s hard to conclude otherwise as a historian, I’m afraid.
A few years back, I was subbing for a colleague who was teaching a course on the History of Science & Technology. The students were clearly divided. On the left of the room were the atheists, on the right were the religious. I kid you not, they were split down the middle like this, like we were standing in the National Assembly in Paris in 1791. Their arguments were exactly what you’d expect from young minds finding their way: aggressive, scoffing, and yet, careful not to go too far in arguing with their friends to the point of insulting them. I posited to the atheists that they were just as dogmatic as their religious classmates, that atheism, in that sense, was no different than religion. The religious students got this argument right away, whereas the atheists were offended and argued that there is no dogma to atheism, therefore it cannot be religion. End of discussion. I tried again, the right side of the room argued the point with the left side of the room. But the atheists would not see it. The fact that they were dogmatic in their disbelief in God was lost on them.
Yesterday, on Twitter, I somehow got into a discussion about religion, atheism, and all the fun stuff that goes along with that. Twitter, of course, is not really the ideal forum for complex ideas, nonetheless, I and my two interlocutors were managing to be intelligent, rational adults, exchanging our views. But then another person who I suppose follows one of the people I was conversing with joined in. The joys of Twitter, in all their worst ways. Her basic line of argument is that all religion is evil and causes bad things to happen. Full stop. Then she started insulting.
I find this approach just as boring as those who wish to evangelicise their religious beliefs. And I see this belief as just as dogmatic, and even fundamentalist, as any religious evangelical. This woman stated point blank that religious people are wrong and that she is right. Clearly, in her view, anyone who disagreed with her is a fool. I find it ironic that some atheists have become as ossified in their beliefs as those they attack for “silly superstitions” (to quote from a tweet I saw last week on the issue). And as much as some religious folk are contemptuous of those who don’t believe, this brand of atheism is as contemptuous as those who do believe, or those who express some interest in avoiding categorical statements about religion. And I can’t help but feel that’s rather depressing.
On Uganda’s Homophobic Laws
February 26, 2014 § Leave a comment
Earlier this week, Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, signed a law that toughens the country’s already rampantly homophobic laws, making some sexual acts subject to life in prison. Being gay was already illegal in Uganda prior to this law being passed. This law had been under discussion since 2009, and originally called for the death penalty for some sexual acts, and was originally tabled when the European Union objected. It was revived last year. President Musveni had flip flopped on whether or not he would sign the law, at one point arguing that gay people were “sick,” but didn’t require imprisonment, but help and treatment. And just to make it absolutely where Musveni stands on the issue, he clarified his thoughts in this CNN article. Musveni says:
They’re disgusting. What sort of people are they? I never knew what they were doing. I’ve been told recently that what they do is terrible. Disgusting. But I was ready to ignore that if there was proof that that’s how he is born, abnormal. But now the proof is not there…”I was regarding it as an inborn problem. Genetic distortion — that was my argument. But now our scientists have knocked this one out.
Charming. Just charming.
Also in the past week, documentary filmmaker Roger Ross Williams’s new film, God Loves Uganda has been making the rounds. It is based largely on the undercover work of a Boston-based Anglican (Episcopalian in the US) priest, Kapya Kaoma. In the film, we learn that missionaries from the Kansas City-based International House of Prayer have been proselytising in Uganda, preaching that God hates LGBT people. Charming.
All of this is deeply unsettling. Yesterday, I tweeted this
https://twitter.com/Matthew_Barlow/status/438310875305635840
I immediately got into a discussion on several fronts about the role of these American missionaries in all of this, on several fronts. I maintain that the IHOP missionaries are disgusting and an afront to humanity, but Uganda is to blame for this. But I’m writing this to expand what one can say in 140 characters on Twitter. One, being gay was already illegal in Uganda when the IHOP missionaries began spreading hate. Two, the IHOP missionaries capitalised on the already extant homophobia in Uganda in their preaching. And three, Uganda is responsible for its laws. The missionaries are a handful of people in a nation of 36 million people.
To argue that the missionaries are entirely to blame is wrong-headed to me for several reasons. First and foremost, it reflects an imperialist mindset to say that American missionaries went to Uganda and taught Ugandans that being gay is a sin and therefore Uganda passed a law that toughened anti-gay measures already in place. To blame the missionaries removes Ugandan culpability here. It also says that Ugandans are not capable of forming their own thoughts. Being gay was already a crime in Uganda before the IHOP missionaries gained a following. And Uganda is hardly alone in the world in an anti-gay stance. I point to, say, for example, Russia (interestingly, Russia’s anti-gay laws are also based on conservative Christian thought). The new law just expanded on earlier ones.
Ultimately, Uganda is responsible for this new law. Musveni is responsible for signing it. No missionary held a gun to his head, or bribed him. It’s his doing. And it’s entirely consistent with his thoughts on being gay to start with. And its consistent with Ugandan thought before the advent of the missionaries.
A Response to Nicholas Kristof
February 17, 2014 § 7 Comments
I read with some bemusement Nicholas Kristof’s critique of academia in yesterday’s New York Times. Kristof complains that professors have cloistered themselves up in some ivory tower and disdain the real world. He says that the academy exists on a publish or perish mentality and that it encourages conformity. Perhaps due to limited space in a newspaper column, Kristof comes off sounding petulant and occasionally stuck on stereotypes of the academy that are at least twenty years out of date.
He also uses a broad-stroke brush to critique a very large, diverse institution. But I did find his argument that academics are out of touch with reality interesting, in that it reflects an argument I saw on Facebook last week about the massive bloat on university campuses of non-academic staff, which has apparently reached a 2:1 ratio on public and 2.5:1 ratio on private campuses in the United States. In this argument, which largely pitted professors against non-academic staff, the latter repeated this shibboleth that academics are unable to engage with the real world.
However, he does provide a jumping off point.
The academy does operate in a publish or perish paradigm, and academics who spend their time engaging with the public, rather than publishing in peer-reviewed journals, do get punished. And it does encourage conformity, in terms of theory, models, and interpretation. He is correct to note that “This culture of exclusivity is then transmitted to the next generation through the publish-or-perish tenure process. Rebels are too often crushed or driven away.”
Back in 1998, Canada’s crusty old historian, Jack Granatstein (in)famously published Who Killed Canadian History? wherein he lambasted the left for having created microstudies, feminism, and various other things that left us with histories of something Granatstein called “housekeeper’s knee”, which he dismissed pithily with a petulant “Who cares?” Granatstein, perhaps intentionally, engaged in rhetoric and anti-intellectualism in this little gem, essentially dismissing all who disagreed with him as irrelevant, as if he was the sole judge, jury, and executioner of what was a viable topic of study in Canadian history.
In the 1960s, “history from below” developed, primarily in England, around the work of brilliant minds such as Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher Hill, and the husband-and-wife team of E.P. and Dorothy Thompson. They wanted to know how the common person dealt with history and change. Taking their cue, historians in the US and Canada began to conduct similar studies of the working-classes and rural communities, but with far less interesting results than the English New Left, largely because the English historians wrote well, and did not get bogged down in statistics and turgid prose. Nonetheless, these studies in Canada and the US were essential to the development of the field.
But the real problem is that the likes of Kristof and Granatstein hearken back to a glory day in the academy that never existed. Kristof complains that academics write horribly, and seem to go out of their way to not engage. Many do. Because, quite simply, the academy has always worked that way. The great works of Canadian history that Granatstein refers to are horridly boring, I used to read them when I had insomnia to put myself to sleep. Kritof cites stats that claim that academics in the social sciences were more engaged in public debate in the 1930s and 40s than today. That may be true, but the readership of academic journals in the 1930s and 40s was just as limited as it is today. Hundreds of academic monographs get published to almost complete indifference, that is true today and was just as true in this supposed heyday. The academy has always been removed from the world, as it must indeed be to some degree to escape the noise of the world.
Nonetheless, there is some truth in Kristof’s complaint. But, he also undoes his argument by noting that historians, public policy wonks, and economists, amongst others, are very much engaged in public discussions. About economics, he says:
In contrast, economics is a rare academic field with a significant Republican presence, and that helps tether economic debates to real-world debates. That may be one reason, along with empiricism and rigor, why economists (including my colleague in columny, Paul Krugman) shape debates on issues from health care to education.
This comes after a critique of academia for having failed to predict the Arab Spring. I found this juxtaposition curious. The 2008 economic meltdown was missed by the massive majority of economists. And the ones who were sounding the alarm were just as ignored as those academics who foresaw something like the Arab Spring.
And so this brings me to my greatest critique of Nichols Kristof’s argument. Academics can yell and scream and tilt at windmills all we want. But without help, we are largely left standing by ourselves. The only way for our ideas to spread into the mainstream of society is with the help of the likes of Kristof: journalists. When I still lived in Montréal, I found myself fielding calls from the media with some frequency on a variety of topics from Griffintown to Irish history to the Montréal Canadiens. Journalists found me, at first, through Concordia University, where I did my PhD, and then because they had contacts and colleagues who knew me. Never once was I found through this blog (readership tended to spike after I made an appearance in the media) or through my publications. Kristof also takes academics to task for not using Twitter and other social media for communicating with the world. Guess how many times a journalist has asked me a question on Twitter? And this is despite the fact that several journalists follow me. In other words, without journalists seeking me out, I had no platform upon which to speak.
Kristof ends his column with what sounds like a desperate appeal:
I write this in sorrow, for I considered an academic career and deeply admire the wisdom found on university campuses. So, professors, don’t cloister yourselves like medieval monks — we need you!
But in so doing, he is being disingenuous and shifting the blame entirely to academics and removing the role of journalists in this discussion about the relative accessibility or non-accessibility of academics. Kristof is right to call on the academy to make greater engagement with the mainstream, but he is incorrect in assuming that without the help of journalists it will just happen spontaneously.
Hip Hop as Public History?
February 11, 2014 § Leave a comment
Last week, the National Council on Public History (NCPH) asked on Facebook if the Facebook movies, celebrations of FB’s 10th anniversary, was public history. Um, no. They are no more public history than those wordle things were a few years back, images and video clips chosen by an algorithm programme designed to grab what in people’s timelines was most liked, most viewed, etc. In other words, it was rather random.
But, this got me thinking about curation, narrative, and how it is we decide what is and what is not public history. And this went on as I listened to Young Fathers, an Edinburgh, Scotland hop hop band comprised of three men of Nigerian, Liberian, and Scots heritage. Their music is a complex mixture of trip-hop, hip hop, with hints of indie rock. But the music is also full of African and American beats and melodies.
Hip hop, as everyone knows, is a music form that developed in the Bronx in New York City in the late 70s, it is an African American music form that has been globalised. It has also been adapted wherever it has gone; at its core, hip hop is poetry, set to a beat. Echoes of hip hop can be heard soundtracking everything from suburban teenagers’ lives to the Arab Spring to the struggle for equality on the part of Canadian aboriginals.
I’m a big fan of UK hip hop, I like the Caribbean and African influences on the music. Artists such as Roots Manuva, Speech Debelle, and cLOUDDEAD have long incorporated these influences into their music.
So, as I was listening to Young Fathers whilst pondering public history, I was rather struck by the idea of hip hop, at least in this particular case, as public history. Young Fathers have appropriated an American music form (one member lived in the US as a child), and then remixed it with a UK-based urban sound, and added African beats and melodies, to go with the occasional American gospel vocal. In short, these artists have curated their roots into their music, and presented it back to their audience. It’s the same thing Roots Manuva has been doing for the past decade-and-a-half with his Jamaican roots.
What, of course, makes Young Fathers and Roots Manuva different than the Facebook algorithms is that the music of these artists is carefully constructed and curated, they are drawing on their roots and background to present a narrative of their experiences in urban subcultures (whether by dint of music, skin colour, or ethnic heritage). So, in that sense, I would submit that this is a form of public history.
When Selling Out Isn’t Selling Out
January 21, 2014 § 2 Comments
I was sitting on my couch watching football on Sunday and a Nike ad came on. The music was familiar. Then it hit me. It was one of my favourite bands, the Montrealers Suuns. It was their track “2020,” the second song on last year’s excellent album, Images du futur. I was a little stunned. Suuns are, for the most part, pretty obscure, even for a Montréal band, many of whom gained attention just due to the simple fact that they were from the same city as Arcade Fire.
I was a little stunned also because Suuns had sold their music to Nike, a multinational corporation, for advertising. Then I realised the massive generational difference at work here. When I was in my 20s, I would be sickened and appalled at any of my favourite alt.rock banks “selling out” to the adverstising industry. Nirvana wouldn’t have done this. Smashing Pumpkins wouldn’t have done this. But the Dandy Warhols did. In 2001, their track “Bohemian Like You” was used in a Vodafone ad. But, that was easy to discount, the Dandys never attempted to claim any alt.rock or indie rock purity. Life carried on.
But the Black Lips did the same thing with T-Mobile. I wasn’t sure what to think about this one, either.
Earlier this weekend, I was having a conversation with a friend on Facebook about the band Neutral Milk Hotel, and she was commenting how she wished music could still be as honest as this band was. We were also talking about the band makes us nostalgic for the 90s.
But still, it’s one thing for M.I.A. to sell her song to Nissan for a car ad, it’s another thing for Suuns to do it. But, of course, the times they are a-changing. For Suuns to sell their song to Nike only works to increase their exposure, to increase record sales. In her brilliant The Gentrification of the Mind, Sarah Schulman talks about this process. She cut her teeth as an artist on the fringe in New York City in the 80s. But today, she notes, artists are all tied into the matrix. For them, it’s not selling out, it’s just the way it is. Skrillex sells his music. So if The Black Lips and Suuns do so, does it make a difference?
I’m sure if I asked my nieces and nephews what they’d think if one of their favourite bands had sold their music for an ad, they’d shrug their shoulders and think I was out of touch. And so, I guess so. Bully for Suuns for selling “2020.”
Matthew Barlow 