Map of the Inca Empire
This map of the Inca Empire (Wayback Machine link) is great for showing the rapid expansion of the Incas across the Andes region. On the original map it was a little difficult to correlate the numbered excerpts with the colored regions, so I made new numbers that will show up a little better on classroom projectors.
Map of Spanish Viceroyalties
I came across this map of Spanish viceroyalties (link no longer available) a few months ago, and since it can be difficult to find good maps online I thought I'd post it here. Even though there's a plethora of maps on the Internet, it still seems like the best ones are either overhead-projector transparencies, or printed in books. This map is of Spanish territory in the Americas during the eighteenth century – it covers all of Latin America and the Spanish-American colonial empire, as well as neighboring British territory, and the Portuguese viceroyalty of Brazil.
The Spanish viceroyalties shown on the map are:
- Viceroyalty of New Spain
- Viceroyalty of New Granada
- Viceroyalty of Peru
- Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
(Revised and republished April 21st, 2025)
Ruins of the Acropolis, 1966 - Athens, Greece
These photos (Kodak slides) were also taken by my grandparents while on vacation in 1966, and they've been scanned but not altered. The first image is of the Acropolis of Athens, and in this citadel all the other images except the last are found.
The middle images are of the Parthenon, and also of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, an ancient amphitheater.
Second to last is the Porch of the Caryatids, also known as the "Porch of the Maidens,"which is found at the Erechtheion, an ancient Greek temple in the Acropolis.
The last image is of the Panathenaic Stadium, the location of the Panathenaic Games between the sixth and third centuries BC. The Panathenaic Games were like the Ancient Olympic Games but only Athenians competed. In the late 1800s the stadium was rebuilt, and the first modern Olympic Games took place there in 1896.
Roman Ruins, 1966 - Rome, Italy
These photos of Roman ruins were taken in 1966 by my grandparents. These images are scanned Kodak slides, and they have not been altered. The first image with the inscription is near the Basilica Aemilia of the Forum. More information can be found on the inscription at the Index of Latin Inscriptions at the University of Chicago (97A23.11).
I’m assuming the last image is also in the Forum, and the other slides are some interesting takes of the Colosseum.
A Courtesy - Not an Obligation
Some might as a courtesy, but it shouldn’t be considered an obligation.
via DF
(Revised and republished April 21st, 2025)
The artistry of the postmodern GIF
Animated GIFs: The Birth of a Medium | Off Book | PBS Digital Studios
(Revised and republished April 21st, 2025)
Presenting in Seattle
I just returned from a history conference in Seattle. It was the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association (Wayback Machine link). It was a great conference, well run, and very friendly.
I presented, "Processing the Suburbs: Gender, Technology, and Paperwork in Postwar America." At the heart of the paper is the need to provide a historical component to the Digital Humanities, and to better understand the historical foundations of modern digital culture.
(Revised and republished April 21st, 2025)
Lake Tahoe Milky Way Night Time Lapse on Vimeo
Lake Tahoe Milky Way Night Time Lapse
(Revised and republished April 21st, 2025)
New Digital Humanities Minor at UCLA
I'm interested to find out more about this new program at UCLA. It seems like an excellent way to get students propelled into Digital Humanities projects. Students Should Embrace UCLA's New Digital Humanities Minor: Daily Bruin
(Revised and republished April 21st, 2025)
Born Digital newspaper project
This summer I've been working on the "Born Digital" project at the Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research (CBSR) at UC Riverside. The Born Digital project is an effort to help preserve small, weekly newspapers that are currently being produced in digital formats.
While digital technology has allowed modern newspapers to be created and distributed in new and exciting ways, it has also made the records of those newspapers more fragile. The Born Digital project helps newspaper publishers preserve, and make accessible to the general public at no charge, their digital files. As an online archive, the Born Digital project is a portion of the California Digital Newspaper Collection, which holds titles from 1846 to the present.
More information about the Born Digital project is available in this UCR news article: http://newsroom.ucr.edu/2667 (Wayback Machine link)
(Revised and republished April 21st, 2025)
Remember The Conference
I'm in San Antonio, Texas, today (right down the street from ) to present a paper at the PCA/ACA conference. It's a joint conference of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association: pcaaca.org My paper is on the history of modern consumer culture and digital technology.
(Revised and republished April 21st, 2025)
Book Review: The Conquest of Nature
In our class tonight on Environmental History: "Nature, Space, and Place," we'll be discussing David Blackbourn's, The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape and the Making of Modern Germany. Our class posts discussion points and reviews on our student-powered blog. My review of The Conquest of Nature is below, and it was also on the class blog: Nature | Space | Place.
“A Patina of ‘Naturalness’”
Book Review: The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape and the Making of Modern Germany, by David Blackbourn.
The Conquest of Nature, written by David Blackbourn, is a masterful work of environmental history. Published in 2006, The Conquest of Nature details the transition of Germany from a conglomeration of kingdoms in the mid 1700s into a modern nation-state. Blackbourn’s ability to marshal a wide variety of sources, from census records to works of literature, gives The Conquest of Nature a robust and weighty feel. The sheer depth of Blackbourn’s research is impressive enough, but the scope of such a national history, especially one with such dark interludes during the twentieth century, lends a sense of awe. The history of modern Germany and the country’s national identity are entangled in the landscape of the region. By examining the relationship of technology and the environment, the negotiation between people and nature, and the contemporary perceptions of geographic position in an increasingly globalized worldview, the history of Germany is shown as a story of both hope and despair, promise and sacrifice.
The Shadow Scholar
The Shadow Scholar - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education (Wayback Machine link).
...and two other related articles:
The Paper Market (Wayback Machine link)
(Revised and republished April 21st, 2025)
The Mexican Suitcase
Images of War, Finally Unpacked - The New York Times, 2010
(Revised and republished April 19th, 2025)
The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D.
The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D., Matthew Might, 2010:
You push at the boundary for a few years, until one day the boundary gives way.
(Revised and republished April 12th, 2025)