On This Day...September 29

1758 England's Admiral Horatio Nelson was born.

1789 A regular army was established by the U.S. War Department with several hundred men.

1829 The first public appearance by London's re-organized police force was met with jeers from political opponents. The force became known as Scotland Yard.

1918 Allied forces scored a decisive breakthrough on the Hindenburg Line during World War I.

1967 The International Monetary Fund reformed monetary systems around the world.

1988 The space shuttle Discovery took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. It was the first manned space flight since the Challenger disaster.

On This Day...September 28

551 B.C. Teacher and philosopher Confucius was born. He dedicated most of his life to teaching, starting at the age of 22 when he opened his first school.

48 B.C. Pompey the Great was murdered on the orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt.

1066 William the Conqueror invaded England.

1850 The U.S. Navy abolished flogging as a form of punishment.

1939 Germany and the Soviet Union agreed on a plan to partition Poland.

1989 Ferdinand E. Marcos died in Hawaii, in exile, at the age of 72.

1995 Yasser Arafat of the PLO and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed an accord that transferred control of the West Bank.

2009 Iran tested its longest-range missiles and warned they could reach any place that threatens the country, including Israel, parts of Europe and U.S. military bases in the Mideast.

Women's Studies Colloquium

Debora Halbert: “The Labor of Creativity: Women’s Work, Quilting, and the Uncommodified Life.”
Presentation Date & Place: October 1 (12:30 to 2:00 pm) in Saunders Hall, Room 624.

While the law of copyright has become important as a regulatory tool governing the culture industries, there is a disconnect between the way people create, the reasons for their interest in creating things, and the way the law “protects” the end result of creativity. While public attention is focused on the theft of intellectual property, the everyday use and meaning of intellectual property is far less clear. Furthermore, the law does not tend to apply as clearly to areas of creative expression populated by women. This means, for example, that artistic expressions in women’s work – quilts, macramé, crochet, cooking, and fashion, are less apt to be protected by copyright than works of art that fit within a more traditional understanding of artistic expression as something that is “fixed in a tangible form” by an “original author.” By contrast, women’s creative work is often collaborative, without direct access to an original author, deemed too “practical” to achieve copyright status, or based upon traditions that are in the public domain.

In this talk, I’d like to walk through a series of stories as they relate to women’s work and intellectual property. These stories range from the legal story of copyright to the stories women tell about their own work. In preparing the paper upon which this talk was based, I collected the stories of quilters in an effort to think through the nexus between creativity and the law. Quilting is a creative activity where copyright plays a very small role except to impose restrictions on the actions of quilters. The women who took my survey saw creativity as part of a connection between themselves, their families and their communities. Their creative work, in other words, is a gift they want to share instead of a product they want to own.

History Workshop - this Friday!

The second meeting of the History Workshop will take place on Friday, October 1st at 2:30 pm in the History Department Library. The topic will be "Communities Imagined, Emotional, and Textual: English Identity and Hybridity in the Tenth Century" by Professor Karen Jolly. A brief description of the topic is included in the attached flyer.

Matt Romaniello and Suzanna Reiss

Duel - a new play by Richard Tillotson

All the World’s a Stage Theatre Company will present a Readers’ Theater production of Richard Tillotson’s new play, DUEL, directed by Paul Mitri of the UH Drama Department, at Church of the Crossroads, Weaver Hall, on Friday and Saturday evenings, September 24 and 25, at 7:30 pm.

Admission is free, donation suggested. Attached is a press release and poster. Below is a full synopsis.

Duel tells the story of an attempt to create a television mini-series about the life-long rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, a rivalry which began when the two first met as officers in the American revolutionary army. It ended with the famous duel when Burr took Hamilton's life. In the intervening decades, the men engaged in a progressively more venomous competition as lawyers and businessmen, in politics, and as patrons of an enigmatic courtesan known as Mrs. Reynolds. Hamilton's liaison became a notorious scandal that destroyed his chances for the presidency. This episode in American history is a tragic story. But the play's other story, the contemporary attempt to create a TV show about Hamilton and Burr, is comic. The producer is a woman who admires Burr for his feminism and thinks Hamilton was a corrupt womanizer. Her adversary is an historian she hires to vet thesc-ript for historical authenticity, who admires Hamilton for his brilliance but regards Burr as villainous. As the Hollywood producer and the English historian struggle to make their own views prevail, they must contend with other interpretations by a power-hungry film director and the actors who strive to upstage one another. The play cuts back and forth in time, presenting competing visions of "what actually happened” in the eighteenth century while the producer and the historian discover themselves involved in a messy love affair. Unable to agree on their own personal history, they still manage to collaboratively imagine the tragic conclusion of Hamilton and Burr’s life-long life-long rivalry.

Aloha United Way Bake Sale and White Elephant - Mahalo!

The History Department would like to take this opportunity to send out a "big" mahalo to all that participated in yesterday's fundraiser, from those that volunteered to bake, contributed items to sell, made info signs, helped carry tables/chairs and boxes, and to those that came by to make purchases or gave a donation. It was a great effort and a terrific turn out. We collected $418 for Aloha United Way. Thanks again for caring and "making a difference in the community."

LIVE UNITED

GIVE. ADVOCATE. VOLUNTEER

On This Day...September 22

1792 The first French Republic was proclaimed.

1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of Jan. 1, 1863.

1949 The Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb.

1961 - U.S President John F. Kennedy signed a congressional act that established the Peace Corps.

Bake Sale and White Elephant - TOMORROW!

Aloha,

Our Bake Sale and White Elephant to benefit Aloha United Way is tomorrow in the Sakamaki Courtyard, Diamond Head side of the building (adjacent to the Post building).

Please come along and try our ono baked foods and pick up a bargain or two - all for a great cause!

Mahalo!

On This Day...September 21

1792 - The French National Convention voted to abolish the monarchy.

1931 - Britain went off the gold standard.

1931 - Japanese forces began occupying China's northeast territory of Manchuria.

1937 - J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" was first published.

1966 - The Soviet probe Zond 5 returned to Earth. The spacecraft completed the first unmanned round-trip flight to the moon.

1985 - North and South Korea opened their borders for their family reunion program.

On This Day...September 17

1778 - The United States signed its first treaty with a Native American tribe, the Delaware Nation.

1862 - The bloodiest day in U.S. military history: 23,100 were killed, wounded or captured at Maryland in the Civil War battle of Antietam. The Rebel advance was ended with heavy losses to both armies.

1937 - At Mount Rushmore, Abraham Lincoln's face was dedicated.

1939 - The Soviet Union invaded Poland, just 16 days after Germany had invaded Poland.

1983 - Vanessa Williams, as Miss New York, became the first black woman to be crowned Miss America.

On This Day...September 16

1400 - Welsh-born Owain Glyndwr was proclaimed Prince of Wales after rebelling against English rule.

1620 - The Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England, with 102 passengers on board.

1630 - The village of Shawmut, Massachusetts, changed its name to Boston.

1638 - French King Louis XIV was born.

1976 - Women gained formal approval from the Episcopal Church to be ordained as priests and bishops.

1988 - Tom Browning pitched the 12th perfect game in major league baseball.

On This Day...September 14

1814 - Francis Scott Key wrote the "Star-Spangled Banner" after witnessing the 1812 British bombardment of Fort McHenry, MD. In 1931 the song became the official U.S. national anthem.

1847 - U.S. forces, led by General Winfield Scott, took control of Mexico City.

1901 - U.S. President William McKinley died of gunshot wounds, and was succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt.

1987 - Tony Magnuson set a new skateboard high jump record when he cleared 9.5 feet above the top of the U-ramp.

SE Asian Archaeology lecture on 9/16/10 at UH Manoa

Southeast Asian Heritage, Community Development, and the Role of Archaeologists in the Process

Dr. Nigel Chang (Department of Anthropology, Archaeology & Sociology, James Cook University, Australia)

Thursday, September 16th, 3:00 pm, Crawford Hall 105

At the end of February, 2010, the (now) James Cook University led 10th excavation season at Ban Non Wat, Northeast Thailand was completed. The Ban Non Wat excavations are one of the longest-running archaeological research projects in Southeast Asia, and this project has led to greater, local, public involvement and interest than might otherwise be the case. Currently, strong local government interest is being translated into the building of a Community Learning Centre; some are arguing that the site be nominated for World Heritage status.

How did this come about? Is this the sort of thing that archaeologists should be doing? Is there such a thing as too much knowledge or community involvement, and does this intensity of research provide fuel for the illicit trafficking in antiquities? These questions will all be considered at Ban Non Wat as well as for another (also JCU-led) ongoing project; this time based in Laos and with a significant commercial component. Of particular interest is the issue of how the Laos-based project's status as a contract archaeology project affects the nature of community engagement.

Dr. Nigel Chang (Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Archaeology and Sociology) holds a Ph.D. from the University of Otago and co-directs the Society and Environment at Ban Non Wat, Northeast Thailand Project. He has worked in Thailand since 1991, worked in Cambodia several times, and currently also directs archaeological research in Laos.

Co-sponsored with the UHM Center for Southeast Asian Studies

For further information, please contact Dr. Miriam Stark at
miriams@hawaii.edu

Dr. Miriam Stark
Dept Anthropology, U Hawai'i-M¨¡noa
2424 Maile Way, Saunders 346
Honolulu, Hawai'i 96822 U.S.A.
Tel. 808-956-7552/Fax 808-956-9541

Lower Mekong Archaeological Project:
http://www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/Projects/LOMAP/index.html

Luce Asian Archaeology Program:
http://www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/Projects/LAAP/

Women's Studies Colloquium

On This Day...September 13

1759 - The British defeated the French on the Plains of Abraham in the final French and Indian War.

1789 - The United States Government took out its first loan.

1922 - The highest shaded temperature was recorded at 136.4 degrees Fahrenheit in El Azizia, Libya.

1959 - Luna 2 became the first space probe to reach the moon. It was launched by the Soviet Union on September 12.

1993 - Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed an accord granting limited Palestinian autonomy.

2001 - Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State, named Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States.

Bake Sale and White Elephant Sale - September 22nd

History Advising at the East West Center

Aloha, and welcome to the Department of History blog!

We will be attending the High School Counselors Workshop on Friday, September 10th at the Hawaii Imin Conference Center (at the East West Center). This is part of the Manoa Experience, and sponsored by the Office of Admissions, and will allow us to showcase our program and network with counselors and students along with other staff and faculty as part of the Academic and Student Services Fair.

Time: 8:00 am to 9:30 a.m. Friday, September 10th

Location: Garden Dining Rooms on the ground floor, Hawaii Imin Conference Center, East West Center