H-PAD Update
Occasional Newsletter #8, March 30, 2021
(also available as a pdf for downloading and/or printing)
Updating Current H-PAD Activities
Historians for Peace and Democracy (H-PAD) is currently involved in several activities, and is offering a number of resources to members and supporters around the country. Here is an update. For more complete information please, visit our web site at https://new.historiansforpeace.org/
The Virtual Speakers Program is still available for free presentations to spring classes &community groups
H-PAD launched its Virtual Speakers Program in March 2021. Forty outstanding professional historians, activists, and independent scholars have volunteered to speak to classes, campuses, community-based groups, and other organizations. No honorarium is required or expected, just a mutually-agreed-upon date, time, and topic. The presentations can be tailored to meet both parties’ interests, expertise, convenience, and needs.
H-PAD has organized speakers bureaus in the past, but the current widespread use of video conferencing technology allows us to extend the invitation beyond our own locales to include organizations across the United States and around the world. If you would like to learn about the speakers and how to invite them, please click here.
New video interviews added to the H-PAD Liberating History
Our Liberating History series features lightning video interviews with leading historians of 3-4 minutes. Just added are our fifth episode, “Black Panthers Against Patriarchy,” in which Robyn Spencer discusses why so many Black women saw the Black Panther Party as a place of feminist empowerment.
In another new episode, Prasannan Parthasarathi puts “India’s Far Right in Historical Perspective,” explaining its origins in the country’s caste system and the ideology of Hindu nationalism. And be sure to check out our earlier Liberating History episodes as well: Irene Gendzier on the roots of Trump’s Middle East policy, Donna Murch on crack and mass incarceration, and Ellen Schrecker on McCarthyism past and present.
The New Sanctions Syllabus
The new Sanctions Syllabus was developed by Renate Bridenthal, Molly Nolan, and Prasannan Parthasarathi, three members of the H-PAD Empire Working Group. It dissects “economic sanctions – their forms, legality, and effectiveness, their history across the twentieth century and their current deployment, as well as blowback from and resistance to them.” The syllabus offers definitions, examples, and links to a wealth of articles, books, and films. It examines the use and impact of sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Russia, China, apartheid South Africa, and Israel, with a particular discussion of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. To access the syllabus, click here.
Sponsoring Sessions at the 2022 American Historical Association (AHA) Conference
H-PAD and Radical History Review are again teaming up to sponsor affiliate sessions at the 2022 AHA Annual meeting (New Orleans, January 6-9, 2022) as we did at the 2020 AHA Meeting. At the 2020 AHA meeting we sponsored 11 sessions focusing variously on scholarly discourse, social-political analysis, and activist discussion. All told, we had over 250 attendees at our sessions that were led by 53 presenters–some from RHR, some from H-PAD, some from both, and some from neither. A sum-up of our efforts at the 2020 AHA is available here.
We very soon will be calling for proposals for RHR/H-PAD sessions for next year’s AHA. Stay tuned!
Join H-PAD, Engage the Current Crisis!
Join us in these and other ongoing activities. See our newsletters, Facebook page, and website for details. Contact us with your questions and for more with information.
Newsletter content and text by Margaret Power, Kevin Young, and Andor Skotnes
H-PAD web site, https://new.historiansforpeace.org/; Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/historiansforpeace
***And if you haven’t been receiving H-PAD Notes, a periodic listing of useful articles in the press and in cyberspace for progressive historians and activists, edited by Jim O’Brien, check out the most recent editions at https://new.historiansforpeace.org/?s=H-pad+notes, and sign up for upcoming editions.