The Merits of Mad Men?

While the snow may have canceled our class discussion today I still find myself thinking about incorporating play into the teaching of history. Last week we focused on video games, a subject which I have little connection to but the discussion got me thinking once more about this mystical middle ground where the user is provided enough enjoyment to want to participate while the creators still get to include enough content to make an activity educational. It is becoming increasingly apparent to me that this is a very fine line indeed and it is easy to stray to either side of it, risking either player boredom or historic irrelevance. The idea that it is very easy for the historical context of a game to simply become the wallpaper to more immediate issues of epic quests and bloody battles is a frightening reality that I believe many of us have not wanted to admit to ourselves. Or at least, that I did not want to admit to myself. Moving historic play beyond my Aztecs vs. Spaniards chess set seems a much more challenging goal than I had initially thought.

Though it isn't strictly related to play but rather broader concepts of leisure and entertainment, I think the incorporation of TV shows and film in education bring up many similar issues. What got me thinking about this was a recent article that discussed the creation of a new course at Northwestern University entitled Consumerism and Social Change in Mad Men America, 1960 - 1965. As a part of the course syllabus, students are required to watch the first season of HBO's hit TV series Mad Men. For those who are unfamiliar with the show, it centres around the professional and private life of Donald Draper, a New York City ad man working on Wall Street in the early 60s. The show quite cleverly uses this story to depict how regular people experienced the cultural shift of the early 60s, addressing topics such as gender inequality, consumerism, civil rights and national politics with often gritty realism. I am obviously a fan of the show and therefore not the most neutral person to decide the show's educational merit but I was intrigued at its inclusion on an academic syllabus.

Here is a promo for those of you unfamiliar with the show:


First off, I think it is brilliant marketing. It seems very possible that Northwestern could already have had a course on social change in the 60s but I imagine that the inclusion of the name of the hit TV show in the title would have perked considerable interest. According to the article, there are sixteen students in the class but I wonder if this has more to do with Northwestern being a smaller school rather than an indicator of a lack of interest. Of course I cannot be sure of this. Schools that wonder why certain classes have low enrollment numbers should possibly consider refreshing course titles. Yes, Canada from Confederation to the First World War will continue to bring in Canadian historians but such a drab title gives little indication of the engaging topics such a course might explore.Anyways, I rant.

Moving on, I certainly would argue that including a thoughtful and well-researched TV show provides students with a certain entertainment factor but it also would allow them to think critically about the media they consume. The show is only a part of the syllabus and through other readings and class discussions students would have a far better concept of how the show fits into the larger historic context of that period. What historic events does the show emphasize? What does it brush over? One criticism course creator and assistant professor Michael Allen has of the show is that it doesn't fully address the complexities of race. As of season three, the only recurring non-white characters on the show are the nanny, Carla and the elevator operator at the ad agency. Such an exclusion is perhaps reflective of the period from the perspectives of the show's main characters and could serve as a point for discussion of racial divides and perceptions of the other during that period.

While I definitely see the value of incorporating and dissecting intelligent programs such as Mad Men in an academic setting, I have hesitations about their value outside of such a setting. Without being trained and encouraged to think critically about TV series such as Mad Men, the show's historic content could easily be lost as mere wallpaper to the sex and character dynamics that are a huge part of the show's appeal. That being said, I believe students who take courses like Allen's are far better prepared to critique the popular media and its version of history. This is a practical skill that I believe many professors, focused narrowly on the academic realm, dismiss, but for the majority of undergrads who will not go on to academia, the ability to think critically about historic content in entertainment is truly valuable.

Perhaps I am trying too hard to justify my interest in this TV show, but I can't help but feeling that there is some value to incorporating popular entertainment into an academic setting. Who knows? Perhaps classes in the future will play our contemporary video games such as civilizations in order to dissect our understandings of the past. We engage in leisure and play for the fundamental reason that it is enjoyable. As I have made clear in past posts, I believe that tapping into elements of popular culture's resonance has the potential to engage members of the public in the study of history in a meaningful way but that this must be done conscientiously and remain grounded in education.

"Sally has died from dysentry"

My parents were against video games. Fortunately neither my brother nor I were all too interested in them either but reading the articles for this week's class on the subject of game-centred play and my classmates blog posts, I am impressed with how much of an impact these games have had.

I don't know how the one cd-rom game that my brother and I did play got past my parent's guard, but it certainly more closely resembled an acid trip than a history lesson. Created by New York artist Rodney Greenblat in 1992, players in the game have to fight the evil Mediogre, CEO of BLANDO corporation, a company hell bent on turning children everywhere into brainwashed zombies (okay so maybe I can see where my leftist parents were going with this...). The "good guys included Titan Rose, "a super-strong weight-lifting hulk who loves to read and write beautiful poetry", a slam-dancing bungee-jumping incontinent sheep named Stinkabod Lamé, a four-armed, scottish-accented techno whiz named Yendor Talbneerg, and their leader, the exiled princess Anne Dilly Whim who has horns growing out of your head. Just to prove that I couldn't make up this kind of weirdness here is a clip of one especially absurd part of the game. Don't say you weren't warned:
...Yup, that was my childhood folks. I don't think you could get any further away from historical content if you tried.

Anyways, over at my more normal friends' houses they were playing a game with significantly more historic content. And I bet you can guess which one. Oh yes folks, I am referring to perhaps the first historic video game ever (Professor MacDougall?), The Oregon Trail. I hadn't realized it but apparently the game was first developed in the early 70s! While early versions were rather crude, the game reached its peak just as we were first jabbing our sticky little fingers at keyboards in the late 80s and early 90s. The game was aimed at teaching schoolkids about the often harsh conditions the pioneers faced by letting them assume the role of a wagon leader, leading a group of settlers from Missouri to Oregon in the mid-19th century by means of Conestoga wagons. I only played the game a few times and enjoyed it though my party always seemed to die of dysentery. I suppose the game did teach me a little about the hardships the pioneers faced, but being a kid, my friends and I enjoyed intentionally sabotaging our party and seeing how quickly and gruesomely they would die (don't pretend like you never did this). This guy sums up the various ways of playing The Oregon Trail, and I think keeping these tendencies in mind is important when developing any interactive game:




Newer games are of course more sophisticated and by immersing a player fully in an environment they become invested in the outcome. I see a lot of potential for video games enhancing historic skills and knowledge in this regard but from our readings this weeks it seems as though there are many obstacles to creating a game that is both educational and fun. Though the path to this goal is not clear, our generation and onwards have been brought up in an environment where video games are an important part of entertainment and it is vital for historians to figure out a way to capitalize on these audiences.

Have you played any video games that you felt really taught you something about history? Do you think it's possible to get past the shoot-em up culture that currently characterizes the genre?

How I got interested in history...

Trying to pin down the source of my first historical inspiration is difficult. I am very aware of the biases of my current mind-set and the failings of my own terrible memory, and I curse a lack of sources that could confirm or deny conceptions of my own personal mythology.

Though it is embarrassing to admit after taking so many courses that were based on post-colonial theory, as a child I was totally fascinated by the exotic. Influenced in large part by my very well-travelled father, I loved the art, music and utter strangeness of foreign cultures. At my very cool, fairly hippie, ultra WASPy elementary school in the Gatineau we used to have "Around the World Day" every year. Classes would spend a couple month getting prepared for it, studying one country's traditional food, culture, arts, sports, history, etc. Then on the actual day of the event each class would decorate their classroom to look like the country they studied, the students would dress up in traditional costume, serve national dishes and provide very brief overviews of their country's history. Students would take shifts alternating between presenting their class' studied culture and visiting the other rooms. Everyone got really into this. Houses were constructed out of desks, chairs and paper; I remember one older class reconstructing a Japanese teahouse where we had to kneel and respect certain cultural traditions. My class did India one year and that probably made the strongest impression on me. Wearing a sari and helping to reconstruct the Taj Mahal out of paper towel tubes and cardboard made a big impression on me and looking back it probably played no small part in inspiring my fascination with the country I eventually had the privilege of visiting. Looking back with my university training, I can see all sorts of problems with this event in terms of exoticization, but it still sticks with me as one of the earliest times I was ever asked to really study and think about the way a very different culture functions and flourishes.

Another big influence would be my Granpa Walt. He, my grandma and a bunch of my uncles lived in Edmonton, Alberta where my family and I used to go visit them most summers. Grandpa Walt had been a pharmacist before he retired and so he volunteered mot summers at Fort Edmonton historic park in their early 20th century pharmacy. My cousin and always used to like helping him concoct various "remedies" with the heavy stone mortar and pestle. Much like my fear of life sized cartoon characters at Disneyland, I was always somewhat freaked out by the overly friendly costumed folks at the heritage park, but my Grandpa's presence really helped. I remember trying to think of what it must have been like for him to live in whatever long-ago landscape I had imagined. Though the period I imagined him living in was probably some three or four decades before he was actually working, I was fascinated trying to comprehend how different this past was.

In late elementary school and early high school I had some terribly mediocre social studies teachers. They weren't awful, but they clearly had minimal passion for the subject (why always gym teachers? I had some fairly good ones, but what is with that connection?) and the subject came across as a curriculum requirement rather than an engaging and alive topic. It's funny though because in all our idealistic talk about getting primary source documents integrated into high school history I know my gifted learning high school class thoroughly rejected such moves. My class developed an immediate dislike for Mr. M and his unconventional emphasis on diary entries and non-"Big Men" individuals. Mr. M had won an award for innovative teaching methods but my classmates and I found him completely unrelatable in the classroom. He clearly had a lot of theory under his belt but his weak classroom management skills was the blood in the water that we frenzied upon. We were definitely hot-headed brats but I think it is important to remember that many high school students are and that is a reality to deal with. I am glad that we have two teachers in our own class to keep the perspective of the realities of teaching. Mr. M's class "should have" been the class that set my historical passions on fire, but it certainly did not.

As I discussed in class, it was my (optional) grade 12 international history since WWI class that really got me excited. In that class I felt like I was finally learning the background to all those casual references that my family and the media made to topics such as the Israeli/Palestinian conflicts, the Great Depression and the Cold War. It was like I was being let in on this adult secret, that I was old enough to learn about the past, and I ate it up. For me it was practical in that it helped me to understand the references I was constantly inundated with.

University was where I had my completely mind blown by a few extraordinary professors. A course on modern China introduced me to the concept of completely different worldviews and conceptions of the past. It was also the first class where I was explicitly encouraged to go beyond traditional text sources for information. The idea I could examine propaganda and art and clothing and food to tell a history was incredible. My first Indigenous history course expanded on these themes while introducing a history that couldn't be dismissed as a foreign subject. Learning how little I knew about an incredibly important part of my own country's history was shocking and the way in which it forced me to challenge my own assumptions and ingrained dichotomies made my brain physically ache.

This post getting long but it is an interesting topic and one that I don't often think about. Looking back, I guess my interest in history came in a few stages moving from exotic appeal to practical knowledge to a way of thinking. At least according to my unreliable sources that is.

Thanks for stimulating the conversation Libschoollady! (*Apologies for my initial misidentification of this blog writer*)

Dali's Surreal Stache

Since my attempts to grow my own mustache have, sadly, all but failed I thought I would follow my classmates' lead and write a profile of a famous hairy-lipped figure from history.

When I think of unique mustaches, one of the first people who comes to mind is Salvador Dali; apparently I am not the only one as a recent poll of 14,000 men ranked Dali's stache as number one. His unique upturned stache was an important part of his eccentric public persona and is nearly as recognizable as his surrealist paintings.

Born Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech on May 11th 1904, Dali was raised by his middle-class family in the Catalonia region of Spain. According to my intensive Wikipedia research, he was not, in fact, born with that great mustache but apparently grew it sometime during his adolescence. Dali was artistic from a young age, studying drawing at a local academy and discovering modern painting during family trips abroad.

Dali moved to Madrid in 1922 in order to study art at the Academia de San Fernando. It was here that he began experimenting with cubism and surrealism. These early paintings earned him a good deal of praise from his classmates and teachers, so much so that he grew quite arrogant and was eventually expelled from the Academia for stating that no one at the schools was qualified enough to examine him and his work.

Dali's personal style was notorious. He dressed as a dandy, wearing long hair, stockings, and knee breeches typical of the late 19th century aesthete fashion. Seventeenth-century Spanish painter Diego Velázquez influenced his iconic mustache.

1929 was a big year for Dali. Not only did he collaborate with surrealist director Luis Buñuel on a short film but he also met his future wife, Gala. And really, what lady wouldn't be attracted to that spectacular stache? Dali married the Russian immigrant who was ten years his senior in a civil ceremony in 1934. That year also marked his first exposure to America where his show Persistence of Memory became a huge hit. The title painting of this show is perhaps Dali's most famous work. Populated by soft, near melting watches and clocks, the most popular interpretation is that the work rejects the notion that time is rigid or deterministic.

Dali continued to paint, write and work in film. In 1940 he and Gala moved to the United States to escape the Second World War where he enjoyed increasing levels of commercial success. In 1949 he returned to Catalonia where he lived for the majority of the rest of his life. His choice to return to a Spain ruled by Franco brought much criticism from his mainly leftist surrealist contemporaries. Dali's politics had long been ambiguous but his acceptance of the Spanish military General's right-wing authoritarianism caused many artists to reject his later works. Nonetheless he continued to  experiment with bulletism (which involved shooting ink at a canvas) and holography. His use of optical illusions would influence young artists such as Andy Warhol. Dali also became more involved in the advertising world and in 1969 designed the Chupa-Chups logo.

Here he is on the popular American television show "What's My Line?":





By 1980, Dali's health was deteriorating quickly. Allegedly, the nearly senile Gala had been providing him with her own cocktail of medication which eventually wreaked havoc on his nervous system rendering his hands artistically useless. After Gala's death in 1984, Dali lost much of his will to live. He died of heart failure on January 23rd 1989, listening to his favourite recordings of Tristan and Isolde.

Dali's use of surrealist symbolism was enormously influential and the popularity of his works, especially his prints, persists today. Just look at the undergrad poster sale. His famous mustache set the creative bar high, but I hope with the rising popularity of Movember his eccentrically upturned stache will make a resurgence.

Finally, if you have never done so before be sure to check out the World Beard and Mustache Championships website. The picture below is just a sample of all the wonderfully styled facial protein growth showcased in these rather bizarre contests.

Survival of the Most Interactive

Between our class discussions, reading parts of Nina Simon's The Participatory Museum and exploring options for my internship I have been thinking a lot about museums lately.


Getting interactive seems to be less an option than a necessity for modern museums trying to compete for shrinking attention spans. Today's museum-goers are increasingly active online, not just as consumers but also producers. Take the changing nature of daily news consumption. When I read an article I can contribute a comment and join in on the conversation; if I find something particularly interesting or relevant I can repost that article on my blog or facebook or even Tweet it. In these venues new conversations are subsequently started, knowledge and experience shared. You all know this; you all do it. So much of the information we consume (that you are consuming right now) is online that it would be naive to think that the technology would not affect our relationship with offline knowledge.


Now I love a good exhibit but I have never been, and most likely never will be a person who is content with sticking with logical predetermined routes guiding me through a series of texts. It is embarrassing to admit but despite my commitment to history, unless I am really engaged with a subject I generally will not give it the time that a curator was hoping for. I think a lot of people living web 2.0 might sympathize. Museum "users" still genuinely want to learn but shifting modes of information consumption means that they (I) often have the attention span of a 6 year old. I like to keep this 1st grader metaphor in mind when thinking about how a museum can engage a modern public:


1) "The climax of the War of 1812 was intrinsically linked to.... Hey, what's that over there?!" Attention spans and more specifically our capacity to read long blocks of text are diminishing. Have you continued reading this far into my long-winded blog post? Gold star for you. No exhibit exists in a vacuum and if there is not enough to hold a visitor's attention, they won't stay long.


2) "Ooooh, it's a shiny thing!" That being said visually stimulating or unconventional displays can become hubs of activity. In Chapter 4 of The Participatory Museum Simon discusses the power of provocative objects. The Science Museum of Minnesota's exhibit Race: Are We So Different? featured a vitrine that contained stacks of cash representing various races' earnings. This provocative and visually startling display became a centrepiece for the larger conversation the institution had hoped to stimulate.



3) "But I want to play with it!" Even better is when a guest gets to become a participant. Bruce Mao's incredible Massive Change exhibit featured numerous wonderful interactive elements but one of the most effective was also one of the simplest. On one wall there was mounted two tall thin Plexiglas cases next to a body of text that discussed various advantages and drawbacks of genetically modified foods. A prompting question asked individuals to decide whether or not they were in support of GMOs and museum goers were then asked to drop a bright coloured piece of paper into either the "yes" or the "no" Plexiglas box. The simple visual power of this running tally not only provoked discussion but it allowed the participant to interact with and transform the exhibit. Some wrote messages or drew on their votes, some boldly proclaimed their stance as they dropped their paper and some chose to simply watch other individuals participate. Though there was a variety of ways that the public engaged I really liked this particular method not simply because it was participatory but because it is an excellent example of simple creativity. A creativity that doesn't require massive endowments or the latest technology but nonetheless engages a web 2.0 public.


We in the public history business should take a creative lesson from non-historic exhibits. While it is obviously vital to respect the material culture within collections (nobody should be clambering around on Queen Victoria's Empress of India throne) institutions should strive to integrate interactivity into their spaces. I like to think of it as the first date test. Would your guests feel comfortable bringing a date to the exhibit? Would it be an interactive experience where they could have fun and discuss interesting elements of the display, fall in love, make babies, etc? Or would it be one of those awkward silent dates that ends in a handshake? I jest but you get the idea; ideally, an exhibit can stimulate interaction between strangers. While it is fair for an institution to expect a reasonable level of attention from its public audience the best museum experiences are not dictations but relationships.

In closing I would like to do a bit of an about-face to quickly highlight one tool that is neither cheap nor simple but awesome nonetheless. I came across YrWall a little while ago but reading Nina Simon's book got me thinking of how this tool could enhance a museum exhibit. YrWall is essentially a digital graffiti wall and I feel like this tool could have some sweet applications for the history museum world. Users interact real time with a projected image using a "spraycan". Just like real graffiti writing the user has the ability to change colours and caps and can also use stencils to create their composition (the video below gives you a better idea of how it works). Afterward, the user can save and email their work or perhaps an institution could arrange to display these pieces elsewhere in the exhibit. The digital tool box could be loaded with appropriate contextual images and members of the public could use these stencils (which removes some of the pressure to have artistic skill) and their own drawings to create visual responses to stimulating questions. It would be important to ensure that the entire exhibit contained interactive features so that this one cool element does not overpower the show. That being said, there could be many applications for YrWall and if anyone has too much money kicking around and wants to help their favourite institution become an innovative exhibit leader I am looking for an internship...

Check out this YrWall demo reel to see the tool in action. What do you think of it? Can you think of any applications for a history museum? Do you think it would be all flash no content in an institutional context? Let me know what you think!

Remembrance

This year I am really struck by how our national memory is aging. CBC reported this morning that the last Canadian WWI survivor died a few months ago; those remaining from the Second World War are noticeably getting on in years. With this passing of living memory it has become the younger generation's obligation to remember the significance of our relatives' sacrifices even if we know relatively little about their direct experiences. I don't know about about you folks but neither of my Grandpas were very forthcoming with their experiences of the war though it affected them profoundly. It's difficult to remember when our grandparents generation held so strongly to a culture of silence.

So this November 11th I remember my own perceptions of these men who I never really knew. I remember my Grandpa Harry who fought in the Pacific campaign, squeezed tight in a one-man sub, planting explosives in far away waters. I think of those who died because of his actions and am grateful that my life that was possible because he survived that hell. I think of my Grandpa Walt and his time in Italy and the connection he always felt to that place. Near the end of his years, after many rounds of chemo he had lost enough weight to fit back into his service uniform. Someone took a picture and it's often how I remember him, physically weak but strong in spirit, and lucky to have lived all those years after the war.

Remembrance Day does, however, bring up conflicting emotions in me. I do not agree with Canada's current military missions or the glorification of war, but I find solace in remembering my own ancestors who I love and respect and to whom I am very grateful.

I also like to take this time to think of those who have not always been so prominently remembered. Soldiers of Aboriginal descent had a strong presence in the Second World War. Initially, First Nations peoples were not exempt from conscription (with the exception of the Inuit), however several groups protested this mandatory service, some nations arguing it was against their treaty agreements. It wasn't until 1944 that the war cabinet granted this exemption to several groups but even then, many continued to volunteer for service.

Unfortunately, those that returned from fighting alongside their Euro-Candian counterparts found that they were still not equal in the eyes of the government. In many places, portions of already limited reserves had been given to Canadian farmers in order to increase wartime crop production, never to be returned. Indigenous veterans were also denied many of the benefits such as housing, employment offers and vocational training that white soldiers received. Such disparity after unfathomable hardship helped catalyze an Aboriginal activist movement that went on to fight for Indigenous rights. In 2002 the Canadian government finally recognized the sacrifices of First Nations veterans and the government's unjust treatment of these veterans them by offering cash settlements. I noticed today how the Canadian government was careful to maintain an Aboriginal presence, however minimal, within the national Remembrance Day ceremonies on Parliament Hill, providing an address in the Cree language in addition to English and French. I wonder how many Canadians listening knew about the unfair treatment of Aboriginal veterans. For me it is important to pay homage to those who have not always been at the forefront of the national memory in order to contemplate the consequences of not adequately remembering and honouring.

Anyways these are just a couple of my thoughts on this Remembrance Day. What or who do you remember today? How do you remember? Are ceremonies important to you or is it more of a personal experience? November 11th is a unique day in Canada and one of the only national events devoted entirely to the acts of remembering and honouring; I would love to know how you experience the it.

Culture, Community and the Commons

For my presentation this week I got to play around with Flickr's new(ish) initiative, the Commons. Be sure to check out Kira and Pam's blogs as well for other aspects of Flickr!

The Commons is an offshoot of Flickr that enables public institutions such as museums and archives to share their photo collections online. This web tool's two main goals are "to increase access to publicly-held photography collections", and "to provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge". Created in 2008 as a partnership with the Library of Congress, the Commons has now grown to include over 40 institutions from around the world. Indeed, the overwhelming requests by institutions to register with the Commons has forced Flickr to close registration for 2010 while they catch up to the demand. Evidently this tool has found a market!


Once accepted, in order for an institution to share a collection they must agree to a Rights Statement which ensures that their photos qualify under "no known copyright". Pretty much this phrasing covers their institutional butts in case some restrictions are eventually discovered. Also, while institutions are sharing these photographs with the online public, they are not expressly providing a warranty for public use. The practical applications of that seem a bit of a mystery to me but again I assume this, again, is to cover their liabilities in case someone uses the images inappropriately.

It is fairly easy to navigate the Commons. For users just intending to browse, along with a description of the project, the front page provides links to a randomly generated selection of institutional collections. Below this is a sample of the photos available to explore within the Commons; I suspect this selection is not so random as funny animal pictures, arctic explorers, ghosts and jazz musicians feature prominently, a choice which is meant to draw the public in, I believe. The Flickr blog also often features Commons collections.

In the Commons, institutions have a "photo stream" that contains all their photograph, but these can also be viewed in "sets" which function somewhat like photo-albums or exhibits. There is a "collection" feature as well which allows someone to bring together themed pictures they like from across Flickr, but most institutions choose to present their photos in a set instead as they are interested in promoting their own images. Users can view these sets independently or by means of a very smooth slideshow interface. Additionally it is important to note that you don't need a Flickr account to view these images, only if you want to comment and make notes. Generally the picture is given a title and the host archive or museum provides some basic information such as the date of creation, location and photographer. Institutions vary with how much contextual information they provide, but I find my experience of their images much richer when they do so. Most institutions also take advantage of their new-found audience by providing links back to their website.

Ultimately the interactivity of the Commons comes from the comments of Flickr users. Responses can be made as notes directly on the photos or underneath the image in the comment forum. Some users provide very valuable information as Rob Ketcherside did when he made notes identifying each of the buildings in Brooklyn Museum Archives' photo of the World's Colombian Exposition (1893) as pictured on the right. Notes can often be a little less constructive (see below) but whether moronic or insightful, notes and comments document how the public interacts with these primary sources.

Another very cool aspect of Flickr Commons is your ability to share interesting slideshows directly within your blog, such as this set on the theme of Remembrance Day from the Musée McCord. This feature makes it easy to share interesting collections of primary sources with your contacts online.

As the first partner involved, it is perhaps not surprising that the Library of Congress made particularly interesting use of the interactivity of the Commons. In late 2009, the Library put out an album challenging Flickr users to help figure out the locations of a series of unidentified travel views. Given that these photos used photochrom technology, the Library knew that they had to have been taken between 1890 and 1910, but the locations of these tourist shots were more difficult to ascertain. Below is one example of one of the mysterious photocrom prints:

The Flickr community responded swiftly. The Library of Congress posted this challenge on December 24th 2009 and within a few days, members had identified every one of the 22 pictures. They did so by posting personal insights, pictures and research in the comments section below the photo. Within this comment section you can see the various ways individuals interact with the Commons (and Flickr more generally). Some individuals took a very cursory look at the photo, identifying it as Mexico or Italy because of the apparent colouring of the flag. Others put in a surprising amount of thought and research into their analysis:

Flickr users engaged with one another, building upon the collected knowledge until a consensus was reached regarding the photo's location. It was taken at Pont Napoléon in Nice, France. Though there was some tension regarding users who chose not to read previous comments and therefore provided redundant insights (about 3/4s of the way down the page, after Kevin's careful analysis, someone writes "umm, just look at the flag."), on the whole this was a inspiring bit of collaborative research that points to one potential use of the Commons. Click here to view the whole conversation.

Harnessing the power of the Flickr community to develop a collective knowledge on a subject got me thinking about the Commons potential for Library and Archives Canada's Project Naming. Project Naming has two main goals which are to a) identify Inuit individuals portrayed in LAC's photography collection, and, in the process b) connect Inuit youth with Elders in order to help bridge cultural gaps. These goals are achieved through either community meetings where the images are projected on a screen and Elders speak out when they recognize someone or through youths' visits to Elders' homes. While it would be vital for any changes to ensure this inter-generational connection, Flickr provides a useful interface that can reach a wide audience and this may be of use to the project. Especially when efforts to identify individuals have failed, Flickr provides a broader pool of people who might have relevant information. Given that it is open and accessible, Flickr facilitates interaction unlike LAC's current protocol that prompts a user to fill out a confidential - and somewhat daunting - form. This accessibility also means that photos can be easily shared via facebook and personal blogs, further increasing awareness. The use of Flickr's Commons to gather not only basic information but contextual and cultural knowledge could allow the subaltern to reinscribe their presence within colonial institutions but it would be necessary to develop a strong moderating system for ensuring genuine contributions and respectful useage. It seems to me like this Flickr detective work could benefit both a variety of communities and institutions if done right



On the topic of power imbalances, it is also important to note that given the expensive nature of digitization (as well as the current backlog of requests), the Commons is currently dominated by developed countries. Some of collections contain photos packed with the colonial gaze and are missing historical context. While some of this context can be provided by users, as mentioned earlier, I would like to see more information provided by the institution, not necessarily about the individual photograph (thought his would be great!) but hopefully about the set. I imagine as the Commons becomes more popular, more budget and work hours will be alloted to maintaining a Flickr collection.

On the whole I find the Commons to be an innovative new way of publicly sharing photography collections. Institutions in the Commons not only tap into a pre-existing online audience, but they also benefit from Flickr's stylishly designed and user-friendly interface. While it is important to be realistic about the power of the Commons to contribute to historic knowledge, this Flickr initiative is an intriguing web 2.0 approach that increases awareness of and interaction with institutional collections.

Open it up!

This week's digital history class centred around the concepts of open access and open source. Open sourcing refers to programs that allows the user to view, and alter source code. By opening up the guts of a program and letting millions of users tinker around, make changes, make improvements, make frankensteins, etc open source software allows users to alter a program until it works for them. No one individual can be credited with developing an awesome program, instead it is a product of thousands of different needs, perspectives and processes. I find it incredible that open source programs not only exist, but are, along with professional developers paid by Gates and Jobs, responsible for the evolution of the internet.

There are so many free alternatives now. Open Office can be used in lieu of Word and, unless you're doing some professional-level design, Gimp works great for image manipulation. I think what's needed is a change of mentality. Finding the right program can be more challenging than using the default Mac or PC version but the results can be better tailored to your needs. Better programs overtake redundant or ineffective ones so that while you have to keep yourself informed you also get the best tool for the job. It seems like patience and an exploratory nature are key virtues when diving into the world of open source programs which are not often, especially in their alpha and beta stages, refined products. There are bugs, there are oversights, there's a learning curve, but ultimately you're getting something for free created by your fellow interneters rather than a mega-corporation (insert ominous music here).

Before I go, I have one thought on open access that I'd like to put out there. Roy Rosenzweig discussed many options for increased access to scholarly works in his essay "Should Historical Scholarship Be Free?" including charging the authors, self-archiving and partial access. I found his argument for electronic only journals quite compelling; as a graduate student who has never read an actual physical journal, I feel no particular affinity towards print journals. I was surprised, however, that he didn't focus more on advertising as a way to off-set costs both for new and established journals. Journals such as J-stor could perhaps have two tiers, one with an abundance of directed, Google-style advertisements and delayed access to material and a premium paid subscription with no ads and immediate access. While I don't like the idea of ads in academia, I also don't agree with universities paying $60,000  for one bundle of journals. I would also imagine that advertisers would be eager to tap into an affluent, educated market. I wonder if the advertising revenues would be enough to satiate publishers...

Though I believe in open source and open access whole-heartedly I do feel a little hypocritical or at least like a web-mooch as I have never contributed to anything open sourced, yet I reap the benefits from such programs all the time. I am so comfortable in my role as a consumer of the web that I forget I can also be a producer. Professor MacDougall has asked us to edit a Wikipedia page by next week in order to be better informed for our discussion. Have to admit that I'm glad we've been given the push as editing Wikipedia has been something I been wanting to get into for a while. Stay tuned to find out how that experiment goes!

Reflections on Reflective Blogging

Well somehow it is the middle of term and this week Rob asked us to take some time to examine our use of blogs and Twitter over the past month and a half. Its hard to believe that so much time has past since we were first told that using these social media tools would be a major course component. I was pretty hesitant at first but here I am now, blogging and tweeting and with no major catastrophes as of yet.

I found the most difficult thing for me was to find a blogging voice. I think blogging is best when its casual yet insightful; one of its great assets is that a blog is not an academic journals or a dense books but instead provides relatively short and accessible pieces of information that the reader can sift through and consume at will. From personal experience I know the blogs I like best, and am therefore far more likely to regularly read, are those that are interesting and written with a sense of humour. In my posts I can see my attempts at keeping things light and humorous, but looking back it wasn't as easy as one might think. After, ahem, a 6 year undergraduate degree formal academic writing has become not only natural but I would say almost a crutch. Though they may have more of a ranting, unstructured quality than traditional history writings, blog posts such as mine from two weeks ago on the historian as artist vs. scientist, retain that sort of dry, impersonal language that is all too easy to fall back on. While it is easier to rely on traditional methods, a blog post needs to be more than coherently written and intelligently argued. It needs to be interesting and it needs to be engaging.

In my short blogging career I have assumed that my purpose is to provide personal thoughts and insights that my readers might appreciate. Lucky for me I get a captive audience (you folks!) who have a vested interest (marks!) in reading and responding to my posts. Also, I think my Mum and Dad read this sometimes (Hi Mum and Dad!). But I always try to keep in mind an imaginary broader, less invested internet audience that might peruse The Public Schmistorian, however unlikely this may be, in order to keep things interesting. Trying to be both relevant and interesting has turned out to be a significant challenge, but I think a few of my posts (specifically my posts on the Bionicles archives and HistoricLOLs) have come close.

I think that because I am new to blogging and all too aware of the standards set by great blogs, I find it difficult to use my site in a truly reflective manner. Again, years of schooling has me thinking of writing as a refined, well-researched product, rather than a public process, but I believe in the philosophy of collaborative learning so I'm just going to have to figure out a way to get over it. Examining the timing of my posts I can see the effects of this blogging attitude. I am persistent in publishing one post a week, usually in the 24 hours before class. Effectively, it would seem, I have turned the blogging process into a weekly assignment, complete with self-imposed deadline, as this is a format I am more familiar with. While I think this method is adequate, it doesn't really take full advantage of the blogging medium. I would like to work towards using The Public Schmistorian as more of an immediate place for developing thoughts and reflections.


With the exception of my most recent post on the value of Bionicles archives, I have generally stuck to to subject material related to our Digital History class. Rereading my posts it is clear that I am an author stuck between two realms. While I am concerned with critically assessing, for example, the impact of data scraping on the artistic qualities of historical research I also continuously bring my writing back to the realities of public consumption. Academic criticism is very important but what I have found especially interesting, which both our Digital History class and the Public History program more generally have stressed, is the idea of audience. How do we make history relevant and accessible to a general public? More specifically, how do we increase levels of public historic consciousness without relying on individuals' motivation to seek history out? This theme of communicating history to the masses is especially prevalent in my Bionicles and HistoricLOLs posts.

As for Twitter, well, I can't say I'm in love with it. First off, given the havoc that facebook has caused in terms my productivity, I'm not sure I really want another social networking site in my roster. I found that once I started following more than a dozen or so people the tweets flowed in regularly and the tab labeled  "(10) Twitter / Home" or "(42) Twitter / Home" or "(346) Twitter / Home" was extremely distracting. I have to close the tab which means I often forget about it for days or even a week. As my addiction to facebook attests, I could most definitely find a way past this annoyance were I so motivated, but Twitter hasn't convinced me yet. Though I know it can be used for the power of good, doing public history and other such admirable things, I find the whole process can tend towards the narcissistic. I talk about myself, my thoughts, my opinions enough in person that I'm not sure I want to extend this to the Twittersphere. Also, I make really bad pun-ny jokes; not everyone needs to be subjected to them. Twitter can work quite nicely, however, when promoting a specific project, like Caitlin is doing with UWO's medical artifacts collection, so I haven't completely ruled it out yet.

As I just posted on Twitter, reflecting on my very stunted blogging and Tweeting I felt like I could empathize with Justin Bieber trying to write his autobiography at the tender, dreamy age of 16 - there just isn't that much there to work with. But I feel like this blog, like the Biebs' biography, is only the beginning of a long and talented career and I'm going to stick with it.

Lego's Bionicles: Archival Embassadors?

 

Though this week's Digital History readings focused on new visualizations of historic data, doing research this weekend for my Archives paper I came across a fascinating reading that was too good not to share.

In her introduction to Archivaria 61: Special Section on Archives, Space and Power Joan Swartz makes reference to a rather unconventional archive. Lego's Bionicle brand began in 2001 as a series of action figures however, due to their incredible success, products now include novels, dvds, and video games. Crucial to the narrative of this science fiction are the Great Archives of Metra Nui, a fictional collection of documents and objects relating to the fantastic realm. Any Star Wars fan-boy/girl worth their weight in cheap, plastic light sabers will tell you that this emphasis on archives is far from new. In Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Jedi Temple Archivist Madame Jocasta Nu helps the dashing young Obi Wan find the location of the planet Kamino. Not only do Bionicles borrow heavily from the themes of the original trilogy, but they also use the archivist as a important character in their universe.

In a web galaxy far, far away bionic heroes fight evil super-villains by harnessing the power of the natural elements: so far so predictable, right? The catch is that two of the key heroes, Tehutti and Whenua just so happen to be archivists. According to one Bionicles book, Tehutti:
"[K]nows all the stories about disasters that befell Matoran who rushed into things without thinking. He believes caution, planning, and a knowledge of the past are the most important tools for a hero. Unless, of course, the exhibits in the Archives are threatened – then he takes risks of every kind to protect what he views as the most important place in all of Metru Nui."
Does he believe in the preservation of the past? Definitely. Will he kick some serious bionic butt to ensure his enemies' respecte de fonds? You'd better believe it.

In a rather accurate reflection of the current academic climate there is even a tension between the Onu-Matoran archivists and the academic Toa of Ko-Metru working away in their "knowledge towers". These academics sometimes stay in the towers their whole lives and are described as being loners who are intensely focused on developing their theories. Sound familiar?

Though overly serious analysts might point out that the Archives of Metra Nui more closely resemble a museum given that their holdings include artifacts, tools and creatures, their emphasis remains on preserving and researching the past.

Okay so Lego made a ridiculous profit from of selling a few million nicely packages pieces of plastic at $14.99 a pop and decided to use some of that money to fund an elaborate back story that just so happened to prominently feature archives - so what? The "so-what" is that 45% of American boys between the ages of 6-12 own a Bionicle with a far higher percentage knowing about them. My little brother got a Bionicle every birthday and Christmas for years, he was so fanatical about them. As one of the most popular brands of his generation Bionicles have had an incredible impact on young minds. By presenting their heroes as defenders of historical documents and knowledge of the past more generally, Lego has exposed a large portion of North American youth to the often mysterious world of the archive. This obviously does not mean that every eight-year-old is going to want to be an archivist when they grow up, but by learning about how important the preservation of the past is and being exposed to heroes that champion history as power I believe Bionicles have contributed in their way to expanding historic consciousness.

There also seems to be a real potential for Bionicles to connect these younger generations with the preservation of the past in the real world. Everyone seems concerned with boys struggling in the classroom, so why not tap into something they love? I could see a field-trip to the archives or a museum going much more successfully if the children were framed as heroic protectors and researchers rather than unwilling subjects of an irrelevant institution. As with my earlier discussion on historic internet memes, this subject inevitably brings up important issues of audience and finding balance between entertainment and information. Academics may groan and point out every problematic aspect of having commercial toys become ambassadors of the archive, and they may be right, however, the ridiculous success of Bionicles seems to demonstrate how history can connect with a supposedly alienated generation.
I would love to hear anyone's opinions on whether you think Bionicles are in fact contributing to the historic consciousness.

And lastly, for the sake of visualizing data, here is a wordle generated from Swartz's piece on Bionicles:

The historian as artist or the historian as scientist?

The readings this week were all about how technological advancements are affecting the kinds of questions historians are asking and how these technologies have the potential to transform historic knowledge. Many of the pieces including articles by Roy Rozenweig and Stuart Fox brought up the potential for a complete historic record. Obviously there is no way make an archive that contains every piece of human knowledge and experience, but with the proliferation of information online and improvements in digital archives, the records left by inhabitants of the 21st century will far exceed all those before us. With so much information soon to be available, the question is how will future historians make history?

It is foreseeable that the proliferation of new technological methods such as scraping in combination with the exponentially growing amounts of historic material available online will result in more and more studies whose scientifically quantifiable nature more closely resemble sociological studies. In a future where the abundance of historic material makes broad social histories more achievable than ever before I have to wonder whether there will be yet another split amongst the history community. Librarians and archivists broke from academic history in order to distinguish information management and organization as a distinct and important field of study. Will historians who continue to produce subjective interpretations based on their close consultations of a limited scope of primary sources break away in a similar matter in order to protect their methodologies? Must the historian as artist and the historian as scientist be mutually exclusive?

I have personally have always thought of history as an art. I find the concept of social sciences to be a rather disingenuous attempt at dismissing the subjective and unpredictable nature of human interactions. Though history is most often classified as a humanity, it seems hard to shake this idea that scientifically quantifiable knowledge is more valid than subjective interpretations. This is not to say I do not recognize the value of these broader sociological histories. Ideally, they will build a unprecedented knowledge base that that the historian as artist can then use as a platform for their more nuanced inquiry. However, ideals are not always practical.

The problem I anticipate is that of audience. As earlier mentioned, Western society generally privileges quantifiable knowledge however this pretense of authenticity can be deceptive. In much the same way that statistics can be manipulated to suit various agendas,  seemingly scientific historic "truths" can lull consumers into a false sense of certainty. History as art is more difficult as it relies heavily on the interpretation of primary sources and involves an in-depth level of analysis and critical thinking. Bite-size snacks of information are far easier to consume. There may still be an audience for detailed histories of famous persons; enthusiasts will likely still pursue as much information as they can find on renowned figures such as Barack Obama, but what of the "Big History" nobodies who currently inform our social histories? Limited funding means that prioritization can be a harsh reality.

Perhaps I am just clinging onto dated methodologies (though these methods will remain relevant to the pre-digital era) but I feel it is important to recognize the value of the art of history before we start integrating more scientific methods. An integration of these methods would make historic knowledge more accurate and relevant than ever, but we must remain aware both of the tendency of Western society to privilege scientific knowledge and the value and limitations of traditional historic methods.

Webtiquity

It's hard to believe how far the internet has come since the mid-90s. Take a look at one commemoration of the web of yore: Jim's TOTAL animated GIF museum Hurts the eyes but warms the heart, doesn't it?

90s web pages are indeed antiques, relics that I think most of us look back at with a certain degree of smugness and nostalgia, but they were the forefathers of this blog-filled tweeting entity that we are so addicted to today. As historians we know to respect the past, but with such a shifting and often temporary medium it can be overwhelming to think of this constant loss of invaluable primary sources. Initiatives such as the Library of Congress' Twitter archive relieves a little of this anxiety. Unfortunately many of those mid-90s gems are gone forever, a loss that future historians of the rise of popular media will mourn dearly.

For this week's class we're designing our very own, very basic (ie. 1995 style), webpage. We're digging down to the web's roots, getting our hands dirty by writing some old school html pages. Though we had the option to use a more modern program I found the idea of writing from scratch more appealing. Having this dated skill is far from necessary given contemporary advancements; I have no delusions that I'm ever going to get hired for my dream job because I can design a page that looks like a 13 year old in 1996 made it. Instead I am drawn to it as, to use Rob MacDougall phrasing,  an "act of historical recreation". Much like learning handwriting in elementary school (do they even still do this? Has handwriting been replaced by iPhone typing?) the skill may not be all that practical but there is a satisfying art to both forms of writing. Both connect us to an imagined simpler time. Both can be incredibly frustrating (uppercase Gs? Who thought them up?).

Writing html is connecting me to a less intimidating internet, but it is also introducing me to how effective a learning environment the web can be. Writing code I have come across numerous issues and frustrations, but once I learned to use the web as an asset instead of dismissing it as some perverse test of my sanity, my "luck" changed. I have learned that the web is full of forums that help with everything from my most basic of roadblocks to tackling complex issues of advanced web design. In my experience so far, it seems like there are far more people out there wanting to help than I had expected.

By going old school writing this html page I feel like my relationship to the web is changing. I once felt like the web was some exclusive club where I could only go for walks around the outer grounds, but now I realize that it's my own self-limitations that keep me out of its inner sanctums. Right now my goals on the internet are still pretty basic, but its good to know that there is a lot of support out there should I wish to take on some bigger projects. Writing this 90s style page may have been an act of "historical recreation" but it has also connected me to a friendlier web, one which I feel more confident exploring.

*** Update: Here is the link to my 90s style Lion King webpage ***

And with that I leave you with that ambassador of the 90s web, the dancing baby:

Historical LOLs

Hello there internet folks!

After a brief sojourn in Toronto, I am back to the world of digital history. Reading my fellow classmates entries I am quite impressed with the range of insights and interests being discussed through these web forums. For me, studying history has always evoked a broad range of personal reactions and I find it very refreshing to have this less formal place for thoughtful conversation.

As a new and, some would argue, somewhat democratic medium, the web is a unique space for cultural exchange. A giant bedroom where, as Matt Ridley once uniquely put it, ideas can have sex (check out his TEDtalk here). From all this sexy sharing of ideas, images, etc. certain cultural units resonant stronger than others and rapidly spread. Things go "viral". That ultimate behemoth of knowledge on the web, Wikipedia, defines an internet meme as "a concept that spreads swiftly via the internet", a digital file or hyperlink which ultimately functions as "an inside joke, that a large number of Internet users are in on".  Of course as many of us know all too well these global collaborations can be pretty juvenile to say the least, however their mass appeal speaks to a common (albeit rather temporary) cultural consciousness that is both incredible in scope and nearly unpredictable in nature.

So how does this relate to history?

In last week's Digital History class we looked at a variety of websites that were examples of online history. One of the websites was Drunk History. This page contained embedded videos of various people getting drunk and recounting a favourite story from the past with famous actors and actresses acting out the hiccuping narration. As we discussed in class, these skits are far from historically accurate, but they can still be useful pieces of digital history. Yes, the concept of an inebriated storyteller is novel, but beyond that, these earnest, impassioned rantings are surprisingly appealing because their narrators seem to care so genuinely about the subject. An original concept and big stars helped launch this meme, but the audience still learned something about history. Perhaps they could get a could get a couple grad student interns to create a "pop-up video" type feature that corrects blatantly wrong information or fills in missing gaps; getting to see how accurate these drunks are might even add to the humour. The basic stories at least are there and what their accounts lack in accuracy they make up for in sheer passion for the subject. Because Drunk History became an internet meme that passion reached many viewers. If there had been no hiccuping, or forgetting of pants or muddled names and slurred, curse-filled speech, if all the facts had been presented in an impartial,  dry, and, may I even say, academic, style the site would have joined the legion of other well-meaning but less web-culture literate pages that litter the internet. Though most definitely imperfect from a historian's point of view, Drunk History at least puts the subject on the cultural radar at large. The question of whether this presence is more beneficial than harmful is a difficult question to answer.

To explore the appeal and dangers of historical memes, I wanted to take a brief look at two other sites. The first is Historic LOL a site hosted by the infamous cheezburger.com, a site pivotal in launching the LOLcats phenomenon. Being connected to such a powerful meme-maker, Historic LOL has the potential to disseminate history to the masses. In reality the results are mixed.

The images are, for the most part, older photographs and paintings of major historic events or of historic significance, however most of the captions rely on pop culture or references to other memes for humour as with this example:

see more Historic LOL

Clearly these are inside jokes for the internet at large, not just the PHD crowd.

Some of these LOLs do rely on and reinforce a certain amount of very basic historic knowledge as with this take on Marxist theory:

see more Historic LOL
But, as I said, this is pretty darn basic.

In terms of promoting historical consciousness on the web it seems to me that the real strength of the site is the regular postings of interesting historical photo collections such as this one, linking to a series of civil war photographs:

see more Historic LOL

Because these carefully chosen collections appear on a popular meme website they are viewed by an extraordinary number of people. Traditional archives simply do not have this audience. If the site did not attract internet users through its funny juxtapositions of pop culture and historic image these colections would not be seen; the fact that such collections are shared on facebook just as many times if not more than the average (less historic) Historic LOL, indicates that the site's viewers and contributors are indeed interested in such documents. By tapping into a meme-based site, these genuine primary sources are seen by those who wouldn't necessarily go out and look for interesting collections on their own.

Additionally, this website would also be a great source of information for future academics wishing to study how internet users in the early 21st century related to and understood history, but that's a whole other can of worms and I won't get into it here.

The last meme I wanted to mention is an animation put out by the Neely brothers a few years ago:

It's a very strange and crudely animated short that makes the case (in song form!) that JFK was in fact a robot created by American scientists to defeat communism. Historically accurate? Not a chance. Oddly amusing? You bet. This video has nearly half a million views. Another clip done by the same folks on George Washington has over 2 million. I wonder if this animation would have been as popular if it had contained more actual history. What if JFK was still a robot but more details of his actual presidency were rapped about? Would the absurdity still draw people in so they could learn something? As it is, the JFK animation doesn't convey mush actual information however I do see potential there for digital history as long as there is a balance between the amusement factor and facts.

In order to disseminate historical knowledge to a general audience online (ie. an audience that is not specifically looking for or interested in historical knowledge), there must be a certain amount of humour or contemporary relevance, some kind of meme-making quality. Though I can understand why most academics scorn these memes I believe some do contribute to increasing historic consciousness and can convey the appeal and relevance of studying history. Perhaps most importantly, I believe it is impossible to ignore how the internet-hype-machine works and how modern internet users consume and spread cultural knowledge. While we must remain conscientious about what knowledge is being transmitted, denying these forms of communication would render history far less relevant on the web.

Memes are how more and more people are learning about interesting and amusing bytes of cultural knowledge. Without embracing them in some form I fear this Historic LOL might be proven true:


see more Historic LOL

Schmistory 2.0

History on the web: it's happening, I'm catching up.

I have long been an advocate that history need not be restricted to the printed pages and badly circulated lecture halls that traditionally define the academic discipline. Whether in the form of a well-researched historical drama or an impressively detailed comic book (see Chester Brown's brilliant biography of Louis Riel) there are plenty of unexpected ways in which the public can digest history. That being said, up until my first Digital History class this past Wednesday I had been, rather conspicuously, ignoring the potential of the digital world. I've never considered myself a tech-wise individual... perhaps even lapsing  into the realm of technophobic at times, but that is, hopefully, about to change. By taking this class I hope to find out how the internet and digital technologies are changing the way the members of the public think about and consume history, and how I can be a part of that new world of communication. While I may still relish the thought of telling my grandchildren about the ancient days of dial-up internet ("Back when I was a kid you had to kick everyone off the phonelines and even then it took ten minutes to load a page!") I am looking forward to the rewards and challenges of working in a new medium.

Wish me luck. I'll keep you posted.