Failed Crusades - History Faculty

Thanks to Jim Mowatt of the podcast Historyzine I found out about the history podcast The History Faculty (feed). Make sure you copy the feed from here, because the site is not giving it away so easily and Jim Mowatt warns in advance that the on site videos are made with a still camera, so that audio is the way to go.

On The History Faculty historians are invited to lecture about their specialism and this results in a list of very varied subjects. Out of this list I took two lectures that are related to the crusades. On both lectures Professor Graham Loud of the University of Leeds speaks. First he lines out the Second Crusade, which, he claims, was better organized and led than the first. The first was actually quite unexpectedly successful at capturing Jerusalem and founding the Latin Kingdom. And so, the second, set out to be even better than that, yet failed. This lecture explains how. Unfortunately, the lecture is cut off by the end rather abruptly, making you feel there may me some crucial stuff missing.

Then, after this crusade, in 1187, there is the battle of Hattin (or Chitin as Israelis such as myself know it). During this battle Saladin thoroughly defeated the Christians and even if the Latin Kingdom continued the exist for a bit more, but it was effectively done for. Saladin's victory was predictable and yet the Christians engaged. Loud explains why this was so. Militarily it was foolish, but politically there were enough reasons to take Saladin on.

The feed is not systematically organized, which is makes it not straightforward to find the subject to your liking, but there is much to find.

Mizrachim - Thinking Allowed

The last episode of Thinking Allowed had an item about the Mizrahi Jews of Israel. For Laurie Taylor and possibly for the overwhelming majority of his listeners there was a lot of news to be learned here.

I have experienced myself in many exchanges with people outside Israel that they are not aware of the division between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews and especially not of the implications this has in Israeli society. The Sephardi Jews, literally, are the Spanish Jews. They are the Jews that have a different liturgy from the Ashkenazi, that is literally German Jews. The Ashkenazim are the Jews of European origin and the Sephardi have found their diaspora from the Iberian peninsula, throughout North Africa, the near East until deep into Asia. This is why they are also called: Mizrachim, easterners.

The original zionists were Ashkenazim and they were the founders of the state of Israel. Yet, the mizrachim joined early on and in large numbers immediately after the foundation of the state. In spite of the fact they became 2nd rate citizens in many ways, they came to make up a majority of the population and became quite the political power to reckon with. Here is where Thinking Allowed more or less stops and the modern Israeli may want to add that this has been true until recently but the division between Ashkenazim and Mizrachim in Israel is less pronounced and less important today.

More Thinking Allowed:
The weekly social science stop,
Substance and Sociology,
Hole in the Wall,
Moral relativism,
Male Immaturity.

Freek de Jonge - Simek 's Nachts (Elsevier)

Zoals ik in mijn vorige recensie al schreef: ik heb weinig vertrouwen in interviews met komieken. En ik heb Freek de Jonge expliciet genoemd als iemand die mij altijd tegenvalt. Daar is trouwens wel een uitzondering op. Ergens in de jaren tachtig werd hij geinterviewd in Vrij Nederland door Bibeb. Maar toen was ik nog zo jong en zo idolaat van hem.

Niettemin haastte ik me om het interview dat Simek gisteravond met hem had zo snel mogelijk te horen. Met Simek weet je het nooit en bovendien, hoe heeft hij toch al die coryfeeen naar Elseviers versie van zijn programma gekregen? De reeks die hij tot nu toe heeft neergezet is indrukwekkend. Is iedereen bezig om dit programma terug op de radio te krijgen? Dat zou meer dan terecht zijn. Simek is een uniek geluid in de wereld van interviewers, ook al heeft hij naast pieken behoorlijke dalen (ik vond het gesprek met Ab Osterhaus na een goed begin vervelend worden), het blijft top.

Met Freek de Jonge heeft Simek al mijn verwachtingen overtroffen. Dit werd een buitengewoon programma. Freek was ontspannen en Simek maakte een goede connectie en op die moment stroomt Simek 's Nachts als de Amazone. Groots, heftig en gevarieerd. En Freek wist een brug te leggen naar mijn bewondering van vroeger.

Meer Simek 's Nachts:
Kees van Kooten (Elsevier),
Connie Palmen (Elsevier),
Dhyan Sutorius (RVU),
Louis Tas (RVU),
Piet Hein Eek (RVU).

Adoration by Egoyan - Mighty Movie Podcast

I knew Atom Egoyan from The Sweet Hereafter in which Ian Holm plays a sad lawyer who needs to deal with a pretty sad law suit while simultaneously he is scrambling to help his daughter who is slipping in a destructive life style. A good movie, but no cheery one to easily let you loose afterwards.

In the Mighty Movie Podcast host Dan Persons interviews Atom Egoyan about his latest movie Adoration. The theme is as tough as with the other movie. A young boy who has lost his parents in a car accident engages in spreading a lie about his parents. Although this may be seen as a part of mourning or of search for identity, the lie in itself comes with certain consequences.

Apart from the fact that this may be a good movie, if tough, like the other one I knew, the podcast does everything to prepare you for viewing and in addition allows a peek into the thoughts Egoyan has about this film and its plot. Persons has created in this way a very valuable and I think exceptional rubric about film and we can consider ourselves very lucky this is available on podcast.

More Mighty Movie Podcast:
Nursery University.

Romanticism - Entitled Opinions

Romanticism tends to figure in history podcasts about the nineteenth century. It is usually defined more as a state of mind than just a trend in art or philosophy. However, I never get away with the feeling that that romanticist state of mind is actually something so strong in the modern human condition, it is fit to refer to it more generally, also outside the realm of nineteenth century history.

The podcast Entitled Opinions seems to do just that. Or at least, in a first, but certainly not the last show - this is promised on air - on the subject the attention goes out much more intensively to picturing very carefully what exactly is this state of mind. The connection both the host Robert Harrison and Denise Gigante display seems so much alive that it just confirms my idea Romanticism is still here today.

The examples however do come from the nineteenth century writers and poets so even Harrison and Gigante do not necessarily agree with me. What they emphasize in this show is the fascination the romantics had with organic form and how they let this play out in their work. This was found not just in the content and not just in the form, but as Gigante tells us also in the way works were arrived at; constructed, or better allowed to growth into existence in an organic way.

More Entitled Opinions:
Sartre's Existentialism,
Five Free Favorites of Jesse Willis.

Politics 114B - UCLA political science course

This is a guest post written by Saeed Ahmed

Politics 114B, "United States Political Thought; 1865 to the Present," taught by Brian Walker in the spring 2008, available in both video and audio formats in the UCLA Bruincast website, is divided into two parts (or units), which Dr. Walker refers to as American Political Theory, Here and Now and The Roots of Contemporary American Political Theory, respectively. The first comprises of lectures covering political philosophies starting with conservatism, neoconservatism, religious conservatism, libertarianism, and moving leftward to Rawls' ideas of justice, and eventually Chomskyisc progressivism. This unit is meant to describe, in summary fashion, what makes up the foundations of different schools as they exist today. Unit two is essentially a history of political philosophy from the post civil era to the present.

In the first lecture, Dr. Walker starts by listing major issues and social challenges that have caused political struggle over the last 150 years: Slavery, race and inequality; the women's movement; the importance of the military in American politics; the growth of the US as a hegemonic power; and the role of technology. These are some of the issues that provide the material of political philosophic dispute, which the course covers.

Much of the course is spent discussing subtleties. For example, it is emphasized that in US political thinking, nearly all intellectual traditions are essentially "liberal" (including conservatives), in that they believe in equality, justice and law. So the dichotomy is not between liberal and conservative, but rather consists of more nuanced distinctions based on what are considered proper responses to social challenges.

Conservative schools are distinguished: traditional (think William Buckley, George Will), neo- (e.g. Irving Kristol, William Kristol, David Fromm), religious, and liberatarian. On the other side are "progressive liberals", "welfare state liberals," and "anarchists".

Two key thinkers, who in many ways optimize the two streams of thought that the course is trying to contrast are John Rawls and Robert Nozick. Rawls elucidates a very complex notion of liberalism and justice, and Nozick persuasively advocates a individualistic, liberatarian philosophy. While not opposites, and not exhausitive in their coverage of all prior political philosophers, these two thinkers synthesize many of the key elements of the progressive liberal and conservative liberal traditions.

Absent from this course is the type of conservatism which is exemplified by certain elements of American media today, such as right-wing talk radio, and certain hosts on Fox News such as Glenn Beck. I think one or two lectures covering the liberal and conservative media would have been good to add to this course. That is because most people get more exposure to these, than the more heady journals, books, and manuscripts which are discussed in this course.

This is an upper division course, so to fully appreciate it, considerable attention, effort and diligence is required. Listeners should know some basic US history, and if they don't, probably could benefit by listening first to Gretchen Reilly's course on post-civil war history (currently available in Itunes). The reading list for the course (which can be downloaded from the course website) is quite extensive. Sampling some of these readings may also contribute to a better understanding of this challenging material.

More Political Science
Political Science 10 (UCLA),
Political Science 179 (Berkeley).

More UCLA
History 1c,
Israel Studies.