Qualities of Cleopatra: Possible Threat to Rome

Cleopatra was a highly educated woman even as a woman of royalty. Although education had taken a hit Ptolemy VIII and IX, Ptolemy XII attempted to restore Alexandria to its former intellectual glory. Regardless of the politics that went into education, Alexandria was home of the finest library in the world and was adjacent to the Mouseion, a research center. Some popular subjects that were emphasized included medicine, philosophy, rhetoric and oratory.

Cleopatra had access to lectures and the Library. She was able to learn medicine from sitting in on lectures. Cleopatra did have a tutor to school her in other subjects. She was skilled in languages in a manner that captivated her audience. She was able to speak multiple languages such as Ethiopian, Arabes, and Parthians. Unlike other Ptolemies, Cleopatra had been able to speak Egyptian.

Roller, Duane. Cleopatra: A Biography. New York: Oxford University Press (2010).

The Korean Gandhi

I want to talk about a new character for this post. This person was instrumental in Kim’s success as a candidate, although he was unbeknownst to this. He arguably could’ve held the post that the Kim family now holds today, but under much different circumstances. His name, is Cho Man Sik (조만식).

Just to give you an overview of his political relevance and stature:

He received an education in law and legal structure from a Japanese University. He was an iconic leader of the Korean nationalists in 1945 and also the head of a movement for economic self-development. Most notably, he was often referred to as the “Korean Gandhi” because of his stance on non-violent civil disobedience. A good example of this was his refusal to ‘adopt a Japanese surname, in exchange for his Korean surname.’

Although largely unknown, the North Korean political sphere was heavily dominated by nationalist ideals, as opposed to those of communism. A local people’s government founded by Cho was headed by 17 nationalists and 3 communists. This tidbit is important because the ratio would later change as a result of Soviet Deception regarding Cho, and nationalists as a whole.

[The most important thing to note about Cho, was his involvement in catapulting Kim to a position of political dominance.]

Cho was himself approached by Soviet leadership to be groomed for what would eventually be Kim’s role. However, he was reluctant to accept due to his “strong aversion to communism and mistrust of foreign superpowers.” This led to Kim’s selection for the role instead.

In 1945, Kim was largely unknown to the general public. The Soviets decided to hold a conference to boost Kim’s notoriety. On October 14, 1945, “Lebedev (Soviet NKVD leader) opened the rally and presented Kim as a national hero and outstanding guerilla leader.” That day, Kim spoke alongside Cho in what was perceived to be a conference held by two of the most prominent political figures in North Korea. Kim was later appointed to a position within the ranks of the “Democratic Party,” an organization founded by Cho with minor Soviet involvement.

Following the revelation that “ministers of the Soviet Union, U.S. and Britain…. made a decision to establish a joint trusteeship over Korea for a period of 5 years,” Cho resigned from his position in the Democratic Party and was followed by a multitude of his supporters.

This led to problems regarding the authenticity of the group, which was slowly becoming dominated by communists. Thus, in an effort to recoup the legitimacy, the Soviets attempted to persuade Cho to return to his post. Being the Korean Gandhi he was, Cho refused to relinquish his political ideals to appease soviet leadership.

Unfortunately this left very few options for the USSR. One of which, was ousting Cho as a foreign spy, which they did, by pushing that he was “in contact with South Korean reactionaries” and in “secret cooperation with Japanese police.” “Cho was promptly arrested” and his supporters expelled. His position was given to another communist guerilla leader, subsequently making the USSR the ‘majority shareholders’ of the Democratic Party.

In essence, Cho was important because he allowed Kim (unintentionally) to piggyback off of his prowess as a powerful and authentic Korean leader. This allowed Kim to maintain public attention and eventually gain control, once the public perceived the nationalists to be polluting the Democratic Party.

I apologize if this is longer than it should be. I tried to cut some irrelevant details, but still retain the core content of the post. If you took the time to read it though, let me know what you think!

Thanks!!

-TLDR; Powerful and well known Korean leader, Cho, becomes associated with Kim, thus allowing Kim to piggyback off of his notoriety. Eventually Cho's stubbornness leads to his demise and the destruction of an authentic leadership, with Cho, in a powerful North Korean party. This party is then overtaken by the USSR to maintain a veil of legitimacy for Kim's campaign. 

(This information is taken from Andrei Lankov, a respected historian of this time period)

Lanʹkov, A. N. From Stalin to Kim Il Sung: The Formation of North Korea, 1945-1960. New              Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2002.

The Iron Age: Hesiod’s View of the Elderly

Just like iron rusting when exposed to oxygen and moisture, Hesiod believes the human condition tarnishes when one crosses the threshold from maturity to old age. In his poem “The Five Ages,” Hesiod describes five age groups: children, youth, adolescence, adulthood and old age. The “Golden race,” or childhood, is described as care free and “dear to the gods” (Hesiod 25). The second race, “Silver,” a stage in between childhood and adolescence; it is short-lived because of “their lack of wits.” The “Bronze” age is even less valuable; Hesiod regards it as monstrous due to their precedence on fighting and war (26).

Though four of the five age groups are described in terms of metal, the fourth group, adulthood, are the “Heroes.” This is the ideal age; they are noble, just, and divine. Hesiod goes as far as to say that this is the age that he wishes he didn’t live past because, “I had nothing to do with this fifth generation,/Wish I had died before or been born after,/Because this is the “Iron Age” (28). This age is painful and vexing. Even more, Hesiod believes it unravels the family unit and turns children against their parents (29).

According to Thomas Falkner, Hesiod only has a tiny stanza that speaks highly of old age (Falkner 58). This is in stark contrast to Homer’s Iliad, which was written around the same time and shows reverence for experience only gained through aging (there is a 200 year range that both of the poets fall in). Ultimately, this proves that the pre-Classical period did not have a unified view of the elderly.

Though this complicates my original thought for a thesis, it’s solidified my approach to my paper. There are both positive and negative views of the elderly throughout both eras, but the slight nuances between the pre-Classical and Classical ages reveal a shift in perception. For example, Homer focuses on wisdom in old age; Aristophanes focuses on cunning and wit. Hesiod focuses on societal and physical deterioration; Aristotle focuses on internal, moral deterioration (as well as physical, which is a theme shared in both eras).

Falkner, Thomas M. The Poetics of Old Age in Greek Epic, Lyric, and Tragedy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.

Hesiod. Works and Days – Theogony. Trans. Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1993.

A Quaker Woman Says Get Out of Town: Conflict & Gender in Quakerism

After the first decades of the Quaker movement, a division amongst the Quakers affected the unity, clarity, and authority of the movement itself. Conflict began to slowly take hold starting in the late 1660s with a group termed the Separatists arising to critique and challenge original leadership of the movement. This schism in leadership and mission coincided with an overall turn towards a more organized and systematic approach to the spiritual process at large. Relatedly, Quakers experienced heightened persecution at the time. Therefore, it may have been natural for the Quakers to rely on increased organization, as opposed to spontaneous spiritual practice, in order to achieve solidarity. Ironically, the struggle between factions occurred even as the movement sought to strengthen bureaucratically (Mack 273-280). The conflict holds interest in relation to my paper because it signifies an evolving landscape for women leaders in Quakerism. As Phyllis Mack explains, the women preacher who “had engaged in a sort of spiritual cross-dressing by adopting the persona of the rowdy, male, Old Testament prophet was to be metamorphosed into the virtuous and respectable clerk of the women’s meeting” (Mack 275). Here, Mack demonstrates the important limiting factor of further consolidation and organization of the movement. Legitimization of the movement inherently meant that women were relegated to the traditional role of virtue, a means of reigning in earlier, unregulated speech, experience and emotion (Mack 275-277). Organization signified cutting out the unknowable, uncontrollable elements of the movement- as Mack argues, women in spontaneous roles of power. In general, the division amongst Quakers is significant to my paper in a few ways. One, it begs the question of whether the initial authority of women in the movement was somewhat an anomaly and if so, did women’s authority swiftly die off to a decidedly un-radical limitation of virtue? Two, it demands that traditional power structures be seen as crucially tied to gender concepts; hence, women operated more freely when the structures of Quakerism were far more influx.

Lastly, in conjunction with the idea of division in the Quaker movement, I would like to illuminate some of the ideas from Elizabeth Stirredge’s autobiography. She spoke out against John Story, one of the leaders of the Separatists, and she described, “John Story and three of his party came to my house to rebuke me...I told him, What I had against him I never received from man, nor by any information from any one, ‘But what I have against thee is from the evidence of God in my own conscience” (Stirredge 131). She goes on to relate criticism of his conduct of meetings, even going as far as to state, “this was not his place to abide here a-preaching...[his] place is to return home into the north” (Stirredge 132). Therefore, although the movement was barreling towards engendered structures, women continued to employ spirituality as a way in which to maneuver Quaker politics and remain less subject to the effects of organization. As Stirredge states, she heard from no man, but directly from God. Undoubtedly, Stirredge agreed with the spiritual impetus driving her, willing to express objections in the city she perceived as her domain of influence, not Story’s as she so expressed.

Mack, Phyllis. Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1995.

Stirredge, Elizabeth. “Strength in Weakness Manifest.” Autobiographical Writings by Early Quaker

Women. Edited by David Booy. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004.

Defining the Young Soldiers Part II

I have already set an age range of under 19 for soldiers I will be examining.  This was, I thought, the hard part.  But now I realize I have a harder task ahead of me.  What do I call them?  Their are several terms used to describe this young soldiers, boy soldiers, young soldiers, youth soldiers, underage soldiers, and child soldiers.  But which would best serve the needs of my paper?  I like the term boy soldiers as it implies youth and with my definition of the age for "youth" I believe this will be the easiest and best route.  However, does it fit to call someone towards the end of the age range, in other words 17-19, a boy soldier?  Would it be best if I had two classifications and describe these classifications in the footnotes.  For example a boy soldier might be between the ages of 9-16 while a young or youth soldier might be a soldier between the ages of 17-19?  As you can tell I would like feedback from this from multiple people, I feel that it would be best to get several third party opinions on what to call my research subjects.
James Marten, one of my secondary source authors, refers to them as children regardless of age as long as they are under 19 or 20.  For William C. Davis, another secondary source I plan to use, naming them was easy.  Davis could refer to them as Cadets in his book due to the fact that it was the VMI Cadets that were the larger portion of underage soldiers.  He quotes what some of the veterans had said to the Cadets, "Don't you want a sugar rag? . . . Where are you cradles? . . . Better go to your mammy" (Davis 80).  All of these quotes by Confederate veterans "of age" imply that the cadets, the youngest of which was around the age of 15, where babies.  I would like to have a term for these soldiers that accurately fits.  And child soldier fits, for those under the age of 15.  However, one would be hardpressed to find a 16-19 year old who would refer to himself as a "child soldier."  If I use two terms I risk confusion, if I use one term I risk using a term that may  not apply that well to the entire age range I am studying.

Sources:
Davis, William C.  The Battle of New Market.  Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State Press, 1975.

Joan the Mystic

This week I took a break from quantifying Joan’s Inquisition Trial and instead directed my research towards secondary source work regarding Joan, cross-dressing in the Middle Ages, and Inquisition Trials of the medieval period, all in an effort to better contextualize Joan’s trial itself. One secondary source in particular, Anne Llewellyn Barstow’s “Joan of Arc and Female Mysticism”, was important in regards to my quantification categories.

Throughout the article, Barstow argues that research on Joan very clearly reveals her to have been a female mystic as “her visions led her into the central places of masculine power, where she performed as an active mystic,” (Barstow 29). Barstow repeatedly argues that mysticism allowed women throughout the late medieval period to assert and insert themselves into a men’s world, measuring themselves “against male authority figures,” (Barstow 30). This article especially sheds light on Joan’s trial in two particular ways. The first, and perhaps most obvious, is how the idea of Joan as a mystic influences my quantification process, and particularly the need for a “mystic” category and a “magic” category to be clearly distinct and separate. Secondly, however, Barstow’s article lends interesting insight into the idea of Joan asserting herself in a man’s world, in other ways alongside her choice for male dress. I am unsure currently how to interweave this revelation into my paper, although I am certain it is an important idea that shows hopefully a new side to Joan and how cross-dressing was perhaps not the only way or not even the most effective way Joan asserted herself in the patriarchal culture of medieval England.

Barstow, Anne Llewellyn. “Joan of Arc and Female Mysticism.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 1, no. 2 (1985): 29-42.

West Europe and Athletic Defiance: Cracks in the Western Alliance of the Cold War

            Overall the 1980 Olympic boycott was the largest sporting boycott in the history of the modern Olympic movement. Of the 118 non-Soviet bloc Olympic national committees, 62 of them elected not to send their own teams. However, this seemingly potent number did not come at the behest of the Carter administration and their efforts, but rather in spite of the Americans. Many of the nations who did not attend where not going based on the volition of the American government, but rather boycotted for their own reasons such as Islamic solidarity. In fact the boycott showed a large divide in the Western alliance, as will follow.

If Carter could have chosen any global region to join the boycott, it would have been West Europe. Not only did those nations have some of the strongest international prestige and sporting reputations, but also they were where the heart of the Olympic movement was located. Outside of Los Angeles and Montreal, the only Olympiads hosted outside of Europe had been in Tokyo and Mexico City. The IOC headquarters was located in Belgium. Greece had founded the ancient Olympics upon which the modern games where based. How did Carter and his lieutenants fair in garnishing support amongst the Western nations? Come time for the opening ceremony, only West Germany wasn’t in attendance. Even as early as January 16 the Canadian Olympic Committee had sent a telegram to both the USOC and Lord Killanin of the IOC denouncing the American idea of a boycott as an effective deterrent against Soviet aggression (Congress, 20). As historian Derick Hulme Jr. notes: “Great Britain exhibited the most enthusiasm for Carter’s policies… Canada was supportive, but noncommittal, while West German and Greek reactions where lukewarm at best. France was hostile to the U.S. initiative.” These semi friendly responses weren’t coming from the nations respective Olympic committees they from among the official governments who, unlike the United States, where completely unwilling to corner their own Olympic committees into non-attendance. The Carter administration placed such high importance upon the Olympic boycott that the attendance of almost all West European states severely dented their reputation inside the Carter White House.

Sources

U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. Subcommittee on Transportation and Commerce. Alternatives to the Moscow Olympics: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Transportation and Commerce of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. 96^th Cong., 2^nd sess., January 30, 1980.

Hulme, Derrick L. The Political Olympics: Moscow, Afghanistan, and the 1980 U.S. Boycott. Santa Barbara, Ca: Preager Publishers, 1990.

The Arrest of the Parisian Parliament (A slight correction)

Last class period I made an error in reporting Queen Mother Anne's response to the rebellion of the Parisian Parlaiment. While many rebels did die, the leader of the rebellion Monsieur de Broussel, was spared. 

In my research I have read the account of the rebellion by Madame de Motteville, one of the queen's ladies in waiting. According to her, the queen did not act entirely alone. She needed the help of two people, one direct and one indirect. These two people were the king's uncle, the Duke of Orleans, and the prince of Conde who indirectly helped by winning a victory over the Spanish at the Battle of Lens. The Prince of Conde's assistance was that he freed up troops that could be returned to the capital and (unsuccessfully) this was supposed to distract the people. 

I think its safe to say that the French Revolution was not spontaneous and that the groundwork had already begun. When the queen sent men to the home of Monsieur de Broussel one of Broussel's servants ran to the window and started shouting into the street for help. She yelled, "They are taking my master! They are taking our liberator!" and the people rushed to his defense. Madame de Motteville tells us that the king's men valiantly defended themselves after having arrested Broussel but that they people were on them, placing chains in the city streets to block their carriage. 

Eventually the king's men were rescued by a larger regiment of soldiers who "dispersed the crowd" which to me, implies that there was a significant amount of violence. It should be noted that this is written to put the crown in the best possible light, the people are depicted as villains and the king's men as doing their sacred duty. 

Broussel was taken prisoner and the people surrounded the royal palace. Eventually the people were able to take royal ministers hostage and the queen traded Broussel for her ministers. This was probably something she did not wish to do, but was forced to do. However, it made her appear merciful after Broussel's betrayal and she was able to avoid a much larger rebellion. Broussel did promise not to instigate further rebellion as a condition for his release, and the demands of the parliament were dropped. This is probably because Broussel had been dragged out of his home by the king's men and knew that if he reneged on the deal he could be very easily reacquired and mercy might not be shown again.

A Famous Work: Michael Walzer's "Just and Unjust Wars"

One of the books that I'd been trying to acquire had finally come in (although, to my chagrin, I had to purchase it, because it was not available anywhere in the library system). This book, Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars, is one of the most heavily-cited works in the entire just war literature, and for good reason: the author is a famous political intellectual by this point (speaking before Congress on several occasions and hosting several TED events), and the book is credited with the revivial of the just war tradition academically. Basically put, Walzer's argument in the book is that we need to re-adopt old notions of justice when we talk about war, and to do so he goes through nearly every aspect of how we talk about war today to show how it contains traces of old just war language.

Of interest here (so far, anyway, given that I'm not done reading it,) is Ch. 2, "The Crime of War," and Ch. 3, "The Rules of War," where we see Walzer discuss the jus ad bellum and jus in bello distinction. In Ch. 2, Walzer describes just war theory as is normally portrayed, which includes describing the two concerns, and in that description he mentions that "The two sorts of judgement [jus ad bellum and jus in bello] are logically independent. It is perfectly possible for a just war to be fought unjustly and for an unjust war to be fought in strict accordance with the rules" (Walzer, 21). A pretty straightforward claim, and one that can be useful to help put people into camps in my paper, but it is in Ch. 3 that we see an interesting defense of his claim of his.

In Ch. 3, Walzer is discussing how soldiers on both sides of a war in modern times-whether their cause be just or unjust-are "morally equal" such that "They can try to kill me, and I can try to kill them, but it is wrong to cut the throats of their wounded, or to shoot them down when they are trying to surrender" (Walzer, 36). This is because modern wars are fought by soldiers who are essentially coerced (in some fashion) into fighting such that they have a sort of special moral status applied to them in a way that, say, a mercenary or a chivalrous knight would not get (Walzer, 34-35). As such, there is a generally agreed-upon distinction between the generals (who, like a chivalrous knight) have essentially "opted-in" to the war and soldiers who have been coerced, with the former being criminals in unjust wars, and the latter being only responsible for in bello considerations (Walzer, 36). He brings up the case of Erwin Rommel (Hitler's famous commander in North Africa), who despite the fact that he was one of Hitler's generals, nevertheless "escaped the moral infamy of the war he fought" because of the fact that "he was an honorable man" for refusing to shoot prisoners and burned the Commando Order, which ordered that "all enemy soldiers encountered behind the German line were to be killed at once" (Walzer, 38). As Walzer mentions, it would not make sense to praise Rommel for his actions if we at the same time held him responsible for Hitler's wars of aggression; Rommel was only concerned with "the soldier's task of fighting" and as such we draw a distinction between the "the war itself, for which soldiers [Rommel] are not responsible, and the conduct of the war, for which they [Rommel] are responsible, at least within their own sphere of activity." (Walzer, 38-39)

This belief is in sharp contrast to the beliefs of General Eisenhower, whom Walzer mentions refused the custom of permitting captured generals to visit the victorious general after the battle was over on the basis that "Daily as it progressed [WWII] there grew within me the conviction that, as never before...the forces that stood for human good and men's rights were...confronted by a completely evil conspiracy with which no compromise could be tolerated" (Walzer, 37). For Eisenhower, it does not matter if German soldiers fight honorably-they've committed a crime by fighting at all (Walzer, 37-38). This gets to the heart of what my paper is about, and I hope that (as I continue reading) that there is more useful stuff to get out of this book.