During a recent session on the Dawes Act a student asked me how long American Indians had been in North America. I gave her the most honest answer I could. “Always.” I could tell this wasn’t what she was looking for. She was hoping instead for a longer diatribe speaking to Beringia, coastal routes, and…
If you know me, you know my research. Seriously, I talk about it a lot. To anyone I can. I talk about history in general. And increasingly, gopher tortoises. (But that’s beside the fact.) The point is, I’m always talking about history to anyone I can find. So it was no surprise the other day…
We’ve all had them—ancient professors who dress poorly, haven’t shaved in between three and four lifetimes, get covered in chalk and don’t seem to notice or mind, and go through lectures with a clarity and calmness only possible after the thousandth iteration. This, it seems, is the image of the “Ivory Tower,” the “absent-minded professor,”…
