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Assessing the Revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt

The overthrow of the Ben Ali dictatorship in Tunisia by sustained popular demonstrations has led to even more cataclysmic protests in Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, and elsewhere in the Arab World. UCSB has two of the best experts on Egypt and Tunisia in the US to provide perspective on recent events. Both have done extensive research […]

“A Republic Amidst the Stars”: political astronomy and the intellectual origins of the stars and stripes

Eran Shalev, a historian of the early republic at the university of haifa, Rome rebornon western shores: historical imagination and the creation of the american republic (charlottesville: university of virginia press, 2009). His talk will demonstrate how throughout the republic's history, the configuration of the state-as-star and the consequent image of the united states as […]

Magic and Religion in Ancient Corinth

Located at the narrowest part of the Greek peninsula and controlling land and sea traffic in all four directions, Corinth became famous as one of the greatest commercial centers in the ancient world. Her mighty rock fortress of Acrocorinth also made her almost impervious to attack. Corinth was a prime player in all the important […]

The Evolution of Arab- and Muslim-American Activism in the Post-9/11 Decade

The talk is sponsored by the Center for Cold War Studies and International History (CCWS) and cosponsored by the Department of History. The event is free and open to the public. A brief reception will follow Dr. Ibish's presentation. Please join us for this exciting event! Hussein Ibish will discuss Arab- and Muslim-American activism after […]

The Politics of Heritage from Madras to Chennai.

Discussant: Prof. Amit Ahuja, Political Science, UCSB The Politics of Heritage from Madras to Chennai examines the dynamics of public memory in the southern Indian city of Chennai, a former colonial port that now hosts new economic ventures such as software engineering, back office services and export processing. Over the past two decades of neoliberal […]

Painting the People’s Court: Art and Democracy in Postwar Japan

This paper introduces the work of a group of miner-artists at a coal mine in northern Japan, as an exampleof how art and other forms of cultural expression became vehicles for building new forms of democratic subjectivity after the end of WWII. The miner-artists’ vision was but one of a multiplicity of visions that jostled […]

What’s the Matter with Marriage? Some Early Christian Answers

Abstract forthcoming. Elizabeth Clark is John Kilgo Carlisle Professor of Religion and Professor of History at Duke University. This event is sponsored by the Ancient Mediterranean Studies program and the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group. jwil 05.I.2011

Language Vitality in Southern Mexico: Histories of Forced Relocations

From the mid 1950s to the late 1980s, thousand of indigenous people -particularly Mazatecos and Chinantecos - were relocated from their towns in the state of Oaxaca to the state of Veracruz, to make way for two large dams. There is no record of how many families where relocated, and only few anthropological accounts followed […]