MO3351 Doing and Practicing Transnational and Global History

Although the Spanish Flu Project fell through this did not prevent me from preparing a blog post on the subject, as I found the topic rather fascinating even before the current pandemic. Having done further research on the matter I concluded that the parallels between Corrie O’Ronah and the Spanish Flu are even more striking than I previously assessed. Many people don’t know, but whether the virus originated from China is unclear in both cases. The Spanish Flu having claimed – according to some estimates – up to 100 million lives – which my dear friend Jerry DeGroot points out is more than either world wars – it is fascinating to study how it remains overshadowed to this day by atrocities that were consciously inflicted by people. Surely, if the Spanish Flu happened in any other century than the 20th, it would have been the single greatest tragedy of the period.

That said, a pandemic like the Spanish Flu would have been impossible without the interconnected and indeed, very transnational global context of the early 20th century. The Black Death™ or Justinian’s Plague killed off higher percentages of the population than Spanish Flu, but took place in a world much less interconnected than post-WWI Europe and it is modern research that shows that those pandemics were Eurasian phenomena, as opposed to the contemporary perceptions of it. The Spanish Flu was perceived – and rightly so – as a global health crisis, and I would argue as the first one of such kind. Soldiers returning from the front, travelling on crowded vessels across the oceans, and en masse unsanitary conditions across the trenches, no mans lands and mass graves of Europe, as well as the general lack of orderly procedures facilitated – if not caused – the Spanish Flu pandemic, the spread of which was further perpetuated by a global network of trade, migration, and other forms of interaction.

However, the above-detailed interconnectivity of nations on a global scale also bred enquiries into where this deadly virus originated from. Accusations were made, boogeymen were designated, and old frustrations and prejudices were resurfacing, hinting at yet another one in the striking line of analogies with COVID-19.

The first of these nations, on which particular blame was placed was the titular country of Spain, indicated in the name we use to refer to the Spanish Flu. While we know for sure with the power of hindsight that Spain was most definitely not the origin of the virus, it is quite intriguing to evaluate why it was designated as such. There was a sentiment in the newly forming global community, which slowly evolved into the League of Nations by 1920, that the blame must not be placed on countries that were belligerents in the preceding conflict, which was then perceived as ‘the war to end all wars’. Thereby it was neutral Spain that reached the top in the long list of countries involved in the litany of theories revolving around the origins of the pandemic. This is not to say that at the time other theories weren’t present, in fact quite the contrary was true. In addition, there also seemed to be solid clues as to why Spain could have been the country of origin for this killing export. However, as we all know, those who control the language wield quite the power. And as such, it was a matter of diplomacy, rather than that of science that the terminology of the Spanish Flu was determined in the way it was.

Moving on, the next suspect on the list was France, and more precisely the Brest area that attracted particular attention in regard to the suspected origin of coronavirus the Spanish Flu. Perhaps it requires little explanation for why the masses of soldiers living right next to the corpses of their dead comrades bred suspicion as to the origin of the virus. Furthermore, even in the direct wake of the war, there were myriad – from a current perspective – necessary health regulations sacrificed at the altar of returning to normalcy. Soldiers were crammed together in barracks at a scale never seen before, and as they returned home they scattered the germs accumulated across the frontlines all over the world. Australian, New Zealander, and Indian, as well as Maghreb and Sub-Saharan soldiers all fought in the trenches of Old Europe, and many of them weren’t here to stay. In fact, their travels back and forth across the oceans, along with the mass transport of around one million American troops probably served as primary conduits for the spread of the pandemic.

Another theory, and indeed the one we hold to be the most likely one today was that the Spanish Flu originated from a military pig farm near a military base in Kansas. Given that we now know that the pandemic was a strain of H1N1, which often originate from swine, we have the scientific tools to be able to tell based on patterns in the spread of the virus and in the international reception that Patient 0 likely ate from a communal meal at that military base, infected by a mutated pig that carried the virus.

However, given the current state of world affairs, the most striking theory is that the virus originated from China. Given the early 20th century’s constitutional malarky and War Lord Period in China, the documentation of the pandemic lagged behind. Indeed, an unusually mild flu season was reported in China in 1918, which might have been the result of poor documentation on the account of the the above-mentioned reasons. However, many at the time, as well as the renowned epidemiologist Claude Hannoun in 1993 speculated that the virus must have originated from China, then spreading to the United States, and then Brest, with the Allied forces being the primary carriers for the disease. This was reinforced by the notion of the mild flu season in China, which Hannoun argued could have been the caused by the Chinese population building up immunity to the Spanish Flu, and unknowingly carrying it to America and Europe. This theory seemed to be supported by the tens of thousands of Chinese workers behind the frontlines in Western Europe. Humphries in 2014 also unearthed documents suggesting the spread of a respiratory disease in China in 1917, feeding into the theory of early immunity. A year later in 2016 however, further evidence was found of the circulation of the Spanish Flu in Europe even before the Chinese records. Thereby it is unlikely that China was the origin of the Spanish Flu.

In conclusion, many speculations can be made as to how relatively recent accusations regarding the spread of the Spanish Flu feed into anti-Chinese sentiment in the West today, and as well as to how the current Chinese regime deflects blame based on these recent findings being false. With the current pandemic going on however, it would be unwise and irresponsible to articulate said speculations. What is relevant from a transnational standpoint is that in the globally interconnected age if a pandemic shows up on the radar, the community will start pointing fingers. And where those fingers are pointed have a lasting effect on how we preserve the memory of such tragedies.

           My last blog post is more of a thank you, though it unfortunately is nowhere near as thrilling as Grant’s amazing haiku. This module has been a wonderful experience, both because of the people in it as well as the content itself. It has been nothing like any other module at St Andrews that I have taken, and I am incredibly grateful to have taken a hold of this opportunity. I remember early at the beginning of the semester I wasn’t sure if this was a path I wanted to go down, as with all the theory we were getting into, I was feeling a bit out of depth. But now, I realise that the theory-intensive weeks were an appropriate way to start the semester. Articles such as the AHR Conversation were great ways to gain understanding about the debates surrounding the fields of transnational and global history. Having the base of theory and then moving on to case studies made for a smooth transition of understanding how the theory/methods/perspectives could be utilised with actual concrete examples. All of this then contributed to the preparation to pick project topics. Although the possibilities were endless for what topic to go for, and I admit I had some trouble coming up with ideas, I admire the way that this module allowed everyone to pick something they were truly interested or passionate about. Unlike your typical honours modules, it was challenging but also quite liberating not having to pick pre-chosen topics/essay questions from an assigned list. I found it fascinating to see where other people’s passions lay and loved the process of watching everyone develop and make progress on their chosen projects. I can quite clearly see now how a module such as this is great preparation for our upcoming dissertations next year.

            As I said in a previous blog post, whaling is a topic that I knew very little about and had been in the periphery of my understanding for quite some time. I am thankful that this module has allowed me to delve further into the industry and come to a better understanding of how it operated and the wide-reaching effects that it had. This module has given me a greater appreciation for the developing methods and perspectives that are contained within the field of history. It has, in a sense, reinvigorated my interests and has given me a fresh new way to experience the topic and engage with material. As I think ahead to my future, perhaps I am not unlike Charmaine, and a MLitt in Transnational History is not out of the realm of possibilities…

Edit: I’ve been preparing this post for a while now, and it turned out to be my magnum opus, as well as a culmination of my series of Hungarian themed posts. Release the Kraken! Enjoy!

Where be Hungarians? I touched upon multiple facets of Hungarian identities and socio-psychological phenomena. But where are they? Before you throw an atlas in my face, let me stress that yes, I know, Hungarians are in Hungary. But this is transnational history. And indeed, this module opened my eye to the historical patterns of Hungarians migrating all over the world, and Hungarian diasporas showing up in the most unlikely places. How does a Hungarian rabbi end up in Montevideo, where he preaches in a Hungarian synagogue to a congregation of Hungarian Jews? Well, he was my ancestor through the Liedemann line, from whom my family, the Metzgers are descended . The name was changed from von Metz to Metzger, to Mészáros. (I was considering changing it back to Metzger after I moved to Scotland, but I decided to give you guys a hard time instead.) That said, my ancestor in Montevideo anticipated little about the interconnected and wide-spread network of Hungarian diasporas in the 21st century world, such as about my patriotic Hungarian uncle living in Basel, Switzerland, who escaped from Hungary much later, in the 1960s. I would like to elaborate on the various Hungarian communities in the world, how they ended up there, and how they remained connected throughout the years.

Most notable of famous Hungarian expats is most likely the founder of modern Zionism, Theodore Herzl, who happened to go to the same high school as I did, back in Budapest, albeit more than a hundred years apart. While Herzl himself needs no introduction, as he is widely regarded as a rather significant figure as the Chairman of the First Zionist Congress, the story of his cousin, Jenő Heltai is a much more intriguing one. Heltai stayed in Hungary despite the urging of Herzl to migrate to the Holy Land. Heltai was a reformed Jew, and as such much more neatly integrated into Hungarian society at large. In fact, he refused to leave the country even during the Second World War, when Jews faced prosecution and genocide. Heltai was so insistent on staying in Hungary that he asked the governor Miklós Horthy for a letter of immunity from the Nazis, which would have allowed him to leave with a British passport, but he refused, and locked himself into his cellar instead. His diaries are an invaluable account of the atrocities committed by the Arrow Cross during the final days of the war. Heltai himself survived, and thankfully his biggest complaint based on his diaries was that he ran out of pipe tobacco around December, 1944, and resorted to smoking herbs and spices instead, just like the invading Red Army, whose infamous blend of tar, grass, and herbs (machorka) was a staple of the Soviet experience of World War II.

However, much more interesting are the Hungarians who left. Sándor Márai for example immigrated to America during the hard line communist dictatorship of the 50s, and ended up in San Diego, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. He documented his entire journey and his prior experiences in Hungary in a quite elaborate manner, and his published journals served as a scathing criticism of the regimes in Hungary. President Reagan personally wrote to him on his 75th birthday, and proclaimed him to be a vanguard of democracy and freedom. To this day, Márai remains a national icon and has a cult following within the Hungarian intelligentsia. In San Diego a Hungarian community centre bares his name, where Hungarian children can learn about the motherland, and incorporating their Hungarian studies into their new American identities.

A pair of Hungarian nuclear scientists worked on the Manhattan Project as well, namely Ede Teller and Leó Szilárd. Both of them Jewish – they immigrated to the United States along with Albert Einstein and were awarded medals by presidents Truman and Eisenhower respectively. Reading Einstein’s biographies, it seems apparent to the reader that Teller’s contributions to the atomic bomb were crucial in the preliminary phase of research, whereas Szilárd was overseeing the development of the hydrogen bomb. Hungarian scientists worked on the development of modern science en masse, and nearly all in immigration, the exception being Albert Szentgörgyi, who discovered a method to extract vitamin C from paprika. János Neumann left Hungary as a Jew in the late 1920s because anti-semitism was on the rise, and went on to invent game theory and the first modern computer in Germany, then in America. Furthermore, Imre Kertész was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature for his auto-biographical novel, Fateless, recounting his experiences as a fourteen years old boy in Auschwitz. Having survived the camp, he returned to Budapest, but also faced prosecution by the communist regime, thereby escaping to West Germany, where he worked on his book for twenty years. A further twenty years passed between the initial publication and the Nobel Prize in 2002, after which the Hungarian neoliberal left proclaimed him to be their hero, but Kertész refused their support, claiming that they would turn him into a ‘holocaust clown’. He suffered from depression all his life and died of old age in 2016. May his memory be an inspiration to all of us.

A great many Hungarians ended up in much more unlikely places. The oddest towns across the American Midwest have flourishing Hungarian communities, such as the Twin Cities in Minnesota, or Cincinnati in Ohio. These communities have been aiding the resistance movement in Hungary for the last 150 years, ever since Lajos Kossuth, the leader of the Hungarian uprising of 1848 against the Habsburgs was banished. He founded many Hungarian communities in America, and assisted the work of utopian socialist thinker, the Scotsman Robert Owen, who built phalansteries in the New World, where the workers held communal ownership of the means of production. Hungarian Jews are still a notable chunk of the Orthodox community in Williamsburg, many of whom are descendants of the Szatmár Jewish community in Eastern Hungary, who faced wide-spread prosecution in the late 1890s, as a result of a young Christian girl being murdered in the village of Tiszaeszlár, and the townsfolk blaming it on the Jews, who supposedly baked her blood into their bread. Despite the Prime Minister’s best efforts, the community was nearly wiped out, and their descendants formed a diaspora in 1920s New York.

Jews and political refugees aren’t the only kinds of Hungarians living abroad however. In fact, many of them did not make the decision consciously, but it was the 1920 Treaty of Trianon that caused the border to simply go over their heads. For this reason, out of the roughly 15 million Hungarians alive today, around 2.5 million live in neighbouring countries, such as the Vojvodina Hungarians in Northern Serbia, the Burgenland Hungarians in Austria, or the Hungarian minorities in Western Ukraine and Southern Slovakia. Most notable of them are the Székely tribe of Transylvania, who were the first Hungarians to migrate to the Carpathian Basin, as long ago as the early 880s. Their culture is a unique blend of Hungarian patriotism, and rural Romanian culture, and they preserved one of the most colourful Hungarian dialects, along with their trans-Carpathian compatriots, the Csángó. I take immense pride in meeting Székely people in St Andrews, and being able to converse with them in Hungarian, be they from New York, or Nagyvárad (Ordaea, Romania).

A famous comedian Louis CK also elaborated on his Hungarian ancestry in his latest special. Indeed, CK does not stand for anything, it is just a more palatable way of pronouncing Székely for Americans, which might also help you in the endeavour if you were wondering. Coincidentally, but not indicating his lineage, his Jewish family converted to Catholicism in the early 1920s, adopting the Székely family name. CK’s grandfather, Géza Székely was not convinced that the changed name would be suffiecient to shield them from prosecution, so he fled to Mexico with his family, where Louis CK himself resided until he was seven. The rest of their lineage was wiped out by the Nazis, 44 members of their family, if we believe CK.

To sum up, the global Hungarian community stands together on June 4 of each year, which is the Day of National Belonging. On this day each year, expats come back to Hungary to help the disadvantaged members of the community and schoolboys are involved in charity programs to help the poor. I myself took part in this endeavour, having taken children with Down Syndrome to a sailing trip around Lake Balaton, the largest body of water in Central Europe. The date marks the anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon, the very signatories of which ended up spending their life in immigration in Paris and London, such as Count Albert Apponyi, whose brilliant speech in defense of Hungary was told in four languages at Trianon, but achieved little more than compassion on part of the Entente Cordiale. Fragmented and challenged by the tides of 20th century history, the transnational community of Hungary keeps in touch and remains well-organised and interconnected to this day.

It is widely accepted that the two most foundational influences of western civilisation are Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman traditions. However, few scholars go the extra mile in deriving actual teleological significance from these foundations, with the most remarkable exception being the Hungarian philosopher, Béla Hamvas. As a much prosecuted mystic and student of Theology and Philosophy, Hamvas faced significant neglect throughout his adult life, exercising the notion of secessio mons sacer from the various oppressive regimes of the short 20th century. This however, did not prevent post-socialist thinkers from recognising the uncanny significance of Hamvas, hailing him in the few golden years between the end of socialism and the infection of capitalism as one of the most important traditionalist thinkers in history. As one of his posthumous students put it:

In 1955 in Hungary there lived only one single person who could have not only conversed but actually exchanged views with Heraclitus, Buddha, Lao Tse, and Shakespeare, and that in each one’s mother tongue. If these four prophets of the human spirit had gotten off the plane in Tiszapalkonya, and if they had addressed the first laborer they came across, and if this had happened to be Béla Hamvas himself, after talking for three nights straight – during the day Hamvas had to carry mortar, but perhaps his guests would have given him a hand – well then, what might they have thought: if in this country the unskilled laborers are like this man, what then might the scholars be like? But had they looked around the country, they would have understood everything.

Géza Szőcs

Indeed, Hamvas was one of the greatest thinkers in the history of mankind, a grand master, whose writings – I am honoured to say – initiated me into adulthood, and hold much significance in determining my view of the world. I am a firm believer that his work must be introduced to foreign audiences, and it seems only apparent that he must be acknowledged as the towering intellect he was.

But why is his work to be considered relevant from a transnational perspective? Whatever I write here will inevitably end up as a mere watered-down reduction of Hamvas’ deep and elaborate philosophy, but given that it is my life’s mission to follow in his footsteps and live up to his memory, I have no choice but to try my best.

Hamvas claims that Judeo-Christian tradition was based on dogma, orthodoxy, Pharisee-morality, and faith derived from practice – simply put, G-d being in the centre. As Diderot famously gave the advice: Do not seek to believe just out of the blue. Go to church, say your prayers when you can, think about G-d, and read the lives of saints. Belief will come naturally. Hamvas follows up elaborating on how Greco-Roman tradition instead relies on mysticism, deviancy, and faith derived from personal fate – simply put, the individual being in the centre. one can see the pattern leading to hypocrisy being inherent to Judeo-Christian tradition, and corruption being inherent to Greco-Roman tradition, of course to varying degrees in both cases. This duality manifested in Rome coopting Christianity, and thereby uniting the two traditions, however, this proved to be only a cosmetic touch, and the two traditions went on parallel to one another, determining the history of Europe. It is also elaborated on that transnationally speaking, there were region- and continent-wide trends in the spirit of each epoch after the fall of Rome, directly corresponding with one of the two above-mentioned traditions.

Rome fell, and with it fell corruption and Greco-Roman tradition for a long period. This does not mean per se that there was no corruption in the Middle Ages, but it manifested more along the lines of hypocrisy. The term zeitgeist comes to mind. None of these periods are clear-cut, or exclusive, but they do encompass rather neatly the cyclicality of European history, regardless of the nation state being the fundamental unit of analysis in regards to temporal affairs and chronology. Rome lived on in Byzantium and in the Corpus Iuris Civilis, upon which we base our legal system we inherited. However, the zeitgeist shifted from mysticism to dogma, and orthodoxy. The Middle Ages were thereby followed by the Renaissance, where humanism arose, G-d was no longer in the centre and hypocrisy was replaced once more with corruption. Conversely, the following Baroque, Neo-Classicism, and Romanticism eras made this switch thrice more, with the latter finally “killing G-d”, and styles and intellectual movements defining whole ages were shattered into multiple paths of thought, and eventually even those gave way to the oversaturated neoliberal technocratic nightmare we inhabit today.

What is important to take away from the above-detailed theory might very well be the most important source of legitimacy for transnational history. If one can identify the underlying relation to G-d throughout the different periods and epochs of history as a transnational, or better put nationless notion, then the romantic idea of a nation-state as such ceases to serve as a unit of analysis altogether. These very ideas came to be only after the fall of said duality. There was no French, Italian, or Hungarian nation prior to modernity. In historical terms, it is the idea of the nation-state that needs justification, not the writing of history in transnational terms. The terminology might be brand new. But people only started writing national histories around 200 years ago. It is national history that is the radical idea, and according to Hamvas, studying the history of mankind with the transcending of borders is an important return to the old way. The good way. The traditional way. “Follow not the ancients. But follow what the ancients followed.” The discipline might be new. But the underlying sentiment is age-old.

Do you recognize this symbol?

Chances are that the answer is yes. But what is it? Is it an S? An 8? A sideways infinity sign?

You’ve probably seen it in children’s notebooks and on graffitied walls, or maybe you even like to draw it yourself? That’s because for over a century this symbol has been replicated in classrooms and on walls in every continent (well, except for Antarctica). And It’s even found in places which don’t use the Roman alphabet. Though pattern is universal in the sense that it can be found everywhere, no one can be sure when or how it originated, or even what it symbolizes. Can we really consider it a symbol if its meaning is unknown? Or is it simply symbolic of our propensity to replicate and an obsession with symmetry?

If there is no explicit meaning then perhaps it can be better labelled a ‘meme’, a term which was coined by the public intellectual Richard Dawkins in his seminal work from 1976 The Selfish Gene—a man who I unfortunately failed to see speak at St Andrews in 2018. In this book, Dawkins seeks to explain why some ideas, even those which are dangerous or trivial, like martyrdom for example, continue to persist and proliferate. What he argues is that ideas, regardless of their merit, are in constant competition to survive in a state of natural selection. These ideas can spread like viruses, unconcerned with the wellbeing of their hosts (I.E. penance and martyrdom) and the term meme itself is derived from the Greek “mimeme”, meaning something imitated or viral. Thus, this ‘Universal S’ should be thought of not as a symbol, but rather as a meme, because it has no apparent meaning or utility, yet like a virus it continues to persist.

With the advent of the internet and mass media this memetic phenomenon has become even more apparent and it seems that no matter where we look our image world is already mediated.  In fact, the word meme has become entirely associated with the internet, even if it’s not a uniquely digital. There are a few other pre-digital examples of memes which come to mind, like Kilroy, a WW2 era graffiti cartoon of unknown origin.

I don’t have the time in this post to explain the entire (albeit short) history of the Universal S and the search for its origins, but I’ll try and give a short summary of evidence thus far and the leading theories.

Perhaps the most plausible theory is that the S was an easily replicated pattern to be included into textiles, carvings, and other designs which may have stretched back to the middle ages or even before, possibly representative of the ancient symbol of infinity or the ouroboros (snake eating itself). However, it’s hard to find concrete evidence of this is.

Another theory is that the S was simply a geometric puzzle included in challenge books from the 19^th and 20^th century. These books, such as matchstick books, may have for example asked you to “draw an S or an eight using 14 lines or matchsticks.” This challenge then would have been shared between classmates, families, and co-workers as a way to pass time. And without any inherent symbolic meaning or use past this, no one would have ever taken the time to formally document its origins or spread.

The most comprehensive study I could find therefore comes from the Scandinavian youtuber, Lemmino, who spent years exploring puzzle books, forums, and graffiti. Though he can’t be sure where the S originated, the earliest use he could find was in an engineering guide pamphlet from 1890. Lemmino also discovered another important usage of two Universal S’s in artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s seminal work, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict.

Because the Universal S is so insignificant, it has gone more or less undetected in academia and formal channels. In fact, the only theory relating to the S I could find from an academic came from Paul Cobley, a professor of Language and Media at Middelsex University who offers a simple, yet insightful argument that the S spread so far because “It’s fun to draw”. And maybe this is the answer to such an unimportant question.

Two weeks ago Bernhard and Milinda opened class with a discussion of the transnationality of nudism and ‘the global naturist movement’. While this light-hearted conversation was clearly meant to be only a quirky way to pass the time until everyone had joined the call, I can’t help but see this as a challenge to write a blog post on the movement—especially after listening to an episode about it on my favourite history podcast, The Dollop. In this episode, the podcast presenters open with a wonderful quotation on the ever idiosyncratic American founding father, Benjamin Franklin, that serves as what I agree is a good introduction to this topic.

But I’ve found it much more agreeable to my constitution to bath in another element, cold air. With this in view I rise every morning and sit in my chamber without any clothes whatsoever—half an hour to an hour reading or writing.” — Benjamin Franklin, 1750.

In fact, nudism (also known as naturism) has a long history in America, especially with those in the political and social elite. There were also many other famous American men who enjoyed nude activities. John Quincy Adams, Walt Whitman, Thomas Jefferson, and later Henry David Thoreau and Theodore Roosevelt.

While these persons may all have been men of influence, their penchant for bareness was more of an personal ritual and cannot be considered part of a movement and was still considered radical in early America. And though the word naturism would be coined in 1778 by the Belgian Jean Baptiste Luc Planchon as a term to describe healthy living, it would not be until the end of the 19^th century that it would become synonymous with nakedness.

The first documented naturist club, the ‘Fellowship of the Naked Trust’, was established in British India in 1891 by Charles Edward Gordon Crawford, an English judge for the Bombay Civil Service. But the commune struggled to find members and dissolved upon Crawford’s death in 1894.

In 1902, a German philosopher named Henrich Pudor published a set of articles and later a book promoting the social and practical benefits of nudity in education and sports, namely in body/class image and mobility. Though naturism, termed Nacktkultur, borrowed from the contemporary Lebensreform and Wandervogel movements which promoted athletics and healthy living, it more than anything took hold as a reaction to rapid industrialization and urbanization. By spending time in nature, getting exercise, and eating a plant based diet—all while naked of course—naturists hoped to counteract what they saw as negative aspects of urban life like disease and pollution. At this same time, many more liberal doctors were also prescribing fresh air and sunlight (or heliopathy) as treatment for Tuberculosis, Rheumatism, Scrofula, and Rickets. In 1921, the Frisian island of Sylt opened its first official nudist beach as a getaway destination and in 1930 the Berlin School of Nudism opened—though this was less of a school and more of an advocacy group. From 1902-1932, many of these early German naturists read and participated in the publication of the first journal of nudism. Initially, the naturist movement was associated with left wing political movements, pacifists, and homosexuals. For this reason, restrictions were placed on naturists in Germany when Hitler’s regime took power. As Germans fled for America in the late 1920s, they often found themselves living in cities even larger and more urbanized than their German counterparts. Soon, dozens of naturist camps began to pop up in the areas surrounding American cities and became a regular destination for more than just German immigrants, especially in summer months.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, naturism as a movement, like other organizations of the time, began to lose its universalist identity as certain clubs became open only to members of the landed class or certain ethnic/religious groups. In 1951, several national European and American nudist groups came together to form the International Naturist Federation or INF. But, since this type of organization and politicization of nudity was in conflict with its grass roots origins, many naturists preferred not to join. Thus, while historians can trace networks of naturists using data from groups like the INF, they are unable to account for the many who existed outside.

Through the second half of the 20^th century and up to today, naturism has found its niche within the hospitality industry as many resorts and clubs have begun to offer the same types of amenities as their clothed counterparts. Today there even exist nudist cruises and five start hotels, while in Croatia up to 15% of their tourism sector can be attributed to nudist retreats. This new nakedness, however, cannot perhaps be referred to as naturism even if it is nudism, as it has become out of touch with its countercultural origins. Still, there are countless less formal nude beaches and parks in operation worldwide as many people continue to advocate the naturist lifestyle. One such advocate is Dame Helen Mirren, who once said, ‘I do believe in naturism and am my happiest on a nude beach with people of all ages and races.’ Some of these modern naturists even continue the movements political traditions, like those who practice the lifestyle in Indonesia, defying the country’s strict laws against public nudity. Other groups like the Young Naturists and Nudists America have sought to bring nakedness and healthy outdoor living to young people as a mean of coping with a society that is so plagued by issues of body image, substance abuse, and a lack of exercise.

“By being unencumbered by clothing,” argues a writer for menswear magazine The Rake, “we reconnect with a state of pre-Judeo/Christian guilt, one of utter innocence and joyful embracement [of nature and humanity].”

Coming from Hungary, ‘revisionism’ (well… the Hungarian equivalent per se) was one of the earliest words in my historical political vocabulary. Indeed, in a very Hungarian context revisionism refers with near exclusivity to the rejection of the Treaty of Trianon, and the corresponding downfall of the nation in its direct wake. Thus, the revisionism of Hungarian revisionists consists in advocating for the redrawing of the current borders, which were established in 1920, and for the revival of medieval and Habsburgist social structures. To this end, it is a worthwhile endeavour to enumerate some of the groups of interest belonging to this colourful bunch. From absolute monarchists and traditionalists (advocates of the supposedly legitimate Habsburg monarchy), the list goes on to neo-fascists and Hungarists (paramilitary groups, who are advocates of the post-Habsburg, crypto-fascist establishment), tribal anarchists (claiming monopoly over the Turanic heritage and pre-Christian traditions revolving around the right of conquest), as well as hardline communists, who idolise Béla Kun, and his Red Army, which took back Slovakia in the immediate wake of World War I. Perhaps the above-detailed circus is a fitting illustration of the multifarious and all-encompassing nature of revisionist notions in Hungary.

For the above reasons many Hungarians – which I admit, at various points in the past included yours truly – when they hear the word ‘revisionism’ immediately associate to the political fallacy, that is the strict revisionism of Trianon, as opposed to the teleological fallacy, which revisionism is in more general terms.

Why is that the case? If one attempts to embark on a journey to take a transnational survey of revisionism in Eastern Europe, he will find that much of the suffering in the short 20th century was rooted in a rejection of the current status quo, and the revision of current identities in favour of supposed former ones. Slovakian nationalism for example derived its legitimacy from a forged continuity with the Teutonic tribes, who populated the Northern Carpathians under late Rome. Albania engaged in the same operation, tracing back their origin to the Illyrians. Romania went so far as to adopt Rome into the very nation of their name, based on a much debated theory of continuity between them and the Dacians. The list goes on. If we believe all revisionists, then we would have to accept that indeed, nearly all countries in the region are rightful heirs of Rome, and Rome never really fell to begin with.

This would have been all well as long as these forged identities, which were organically developed to empower those on the peripheries of Europe were not exploited by modern politicians to gain political capital, or by radical movements to rationalise one people’s superiority over the other. And as we all know, both of these options turned out to be the case – often in overlap – leading to some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind.

Mazzini – someone not exempt from charges of revisionism – argued that belonging to a nation was like a daily plebiscite. In his interpretation, the troops that Garibaldi commanded on his conquest of unification had to choose to be Italian, and with each individual choice they made, they had to pick the Italian option. In his – in hindsight – extraordinarily romantic terms, it was the Italian identity succeeding in this daily struggle that paved the way for its manifestation on the map of Europe, namely a unified Italy. Anderson expands on Mazzini’s point insofar as he coined the term ‘imagined community’. Nations exist on a practical level per se, but they are quite hard to grasp in themselves. Are they the land enclosed by their borders? Are they the people making up its population? Or are they perhaps more than the sum of all of these? Anderson and Webber claim that nations are imagined communities in the sense that they are created from the narratives people tell about them. Having established national identities as the practical projections of narratives, it seems paramount that one remains conscious that as any narrative, a national identity is prone to revisionism.

Metternich famously said that ‘Paris sneezes, Europe catches a cold’. To this day, the statement seems to stand, albeit originally intended as a warning to the Holy Alliance between the remaining absolute monarchies of 19th century Europe. Indeed, amidst the romanticist breeze that swept through Europe at the time many national identities were formed across the continent, blossoming into the modern nation states we know and love today. However, not all of these states included both elements of the French revolution and the long 19th century in their respective formations, leading to massive atrocities. I’d argue that these atrocities happened because of varying degrees of revisionism across Central and Eastern Europe, which was much more prone to its negative effects.

The two above mentioned developments happened hand in hand in the archetypal French revolution, namely 1) civil social changes, and 2) national awakening. Yugoslavia after its dissolution for example suffered the consequences of each of its many demographics’ respective revisionism. They internalised civil society, which was coerced from the people by decades of assimilationist policies and suppression of regional identities, resulting in the most severe loss of life in Europe since World War II. In Yugoslavia thereby, it can be said that the proneness to revisionism happened because civil society was relatively well-developed when measured against the rest of the Eastern Block (ie the dictatorship of Belgrade was imposed instead of that of Moscow), but it was not accompanied by a healthy national awakening, thereby leading to accumulating social frustrations.

Coming back to the example of my ancestral homeland, Hungary, quite an opposite parable can be drawn in retrospect, in terms of the reasons behind revisionist tendencies. A national awakening did in fact take place, and many would argue that it even went too far. However, it was not accompanied by the foundations of a civil society, and instead aristocratic, feudal nationalism outlived the grassroots popular movement we know from Italy and France. Thus, when the first wave of transnationally present nationalist breeze hit Hungary – as paradoxical as that may sound – the seeds for the next wave of revisionist identitarianism were already sown.

What I seek with this

Is exploration of form

Style is crucial

We speak of transnationals

Historical links and flows

What do they all mean

All too often we

Posture and pose we obscure

Why they all should care

We study ideas

But why do they all matter

Is this relevant

My lessons are thus

Old sources merit review

Second looks tell much

Relate to today

Speak to the public interest

Descend from jargon

Clarify ideas

Define everything you mean

Purpose must be found

Reveal the hidden

Embrace emotion feeling

Say what you must say

This is the result

The ivory tower falls

All can think and know

Truth be told, I was quite excited to see the long-form presentation about transnational feminist movements in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula in the early decades of the last century. After having gone through the finished presentation twice, I am elated to say that it did not disappoint!

I quite enjoyed Ana’s presentation on the subject, especially the underlying questions established in the beginning. Indubitably, these provided a balanced and intuitive framework of analysis for discussion, and also opened up four quite intriguing frontiers, which proved to be fruitful basis for a comprehensive introduction to the matter at hand. A clear-cut and articulate portrayal of the notion of Machismo was given, thereby establishing the historical pressures on women in the discussed regions, and how Machismo facilitated feminism at the time, and more precisely the need for it. Furthermore, it also inspired me to do more reading on the issue of Machismo, which is quite an achievement from Ana, given the gruelling workload this time of the year.

My mini research project led me down a rabbit hole of neologism and transnational thought. For example, having done reading on the matter both in English and in Hungarian, I noticed how the word ‘macho’ appears to this day in a wide array of literature and other media. I found this to be a convergent pattern between different cultures, in terms of the terminology, and its respective origins. While it is agreed on that in most Indo-European languages the word ”macho” first appears around the 1920s, originating from Mexican Spanish, and meaning ‘masculine’. This is quite neat so far, however, I found that the word “macsó” in Hungarian has a very similar meaning, but also a completely different origin. While English, German, French, and Castilian Spanish languages all borrowed the word from Latin America, in Hungarian “macsó” – with the exact same pronunciation as “macho” – originates from the name of an ethnic group of the same name in the Carpathian Basin. The “macsó” people of Southern Hungary found themselves on the frontier of multiple transnational conflicts, and as such got a reputation for being rough and stoic, a very similar pattern to what the word entails on the other side of the Atlantic. I am currently doing further research into cognitive linguistics, and learning more about how the same linguistic phenomenology appears across different languages independently from one another.

That said, this side project of mine is nowhere near the main point of the presentation, which adeptly showcases the early decades of first wave feminism in the regions discussed. Another interesting facet of this, which Ana elaborated on is the apparent colonial connotation of the subject. It is explained quite neatly that pre-colonial Spanish legal systems affected and inspired the way, in which feminism blossomed in the Ibero-American sphere. I found it especially fascinating that a major factor in this was Muslim law in medieval Spain.

While I find the questions raised at the end of the presentation rather insightful, I would also like to add three of mine, based on my interpretation of Ana’s precise and outstanding research:

1. How does Machismo contradict the – in regards to gender at least – egalitarian pre-colonial origins of Iberian law? Could it be due to a synthesis of pre-Colombian and Iberian cultures? Or could it be due to the absolutist tendencies under Charles V and Philip II, which in hindsight amplified the masculine elements of Iberian cultures?
2. How do second and third wave feminism manifest in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, given the different origins of the movement in the regions discussed? Do they manifest? And if so, do they retain their criticism of Machismo, which we know is prevalent to this day?
3. How does Machismo impact men? Is its effect fully assertive, or does it indoctrinate men to maintain a facade of stoicism and confidence, similar to the US, Canada, and Western Europe?

Overall, I found the topic to be a multi-faceted and intriguing excursion, as well as a rather thought-provoking exploration of modern femininity and masculinity in Latin America and Iberia. I would be keen to learn more about how feminism manifests across different cultures, given the complexities provided by colonialism and transnational pressures. Thanks Ana for this very cool presentation!

            The thing I have appreciated most about this module is the space it has given us to form our own opinions and dig deeper into more diverse material than typical chronological modules do. Spending so many weeks dissecting what transnational history and global history are and in what capacity they can serve, I think, was a great way to open up our minds to the possibilities and the range and depth of places we could go. This is fully demonstrated by everyone’s projects, which span such a vast range of topic that no one is really overlapping in material. I really enjoyed listening to everyone’s presentations this past week; it was great to hear more in depth about what everyone has been doing, and to see how their projects have developed since our first initial meeting where we quickly covered everybody’s topics.

            What I think this module has done best more than anything, is expose us to areas that are not within the bounds of “mainstream” history, or history that is typically widely taught. From listening to everyone’s presentations, I realised how so much opportunity has been wasted through the teaching of “mainstream” or “typical” history. In particular, Charmaine and Timo’s presentations really struck this chord with me. They both covered topics which I either knew little-to-nothing about, or topics that I had touched upon in the past but not fully explored from a transnational perspective. In high school we briefly talked about the Cuban Missile Crisis in the context of John F. Kennedy’s presidency, and just last year I took a module at St Andrews about Cubans from an ethnomusicology perspective. However, in neither of these did I get exposure to the presence of Chinese in Cuba. I found Charmaine’s very comprehensive overview of how the Chinese fit into Cuban history fascinating, especially her explanation of how Chinese-Cubans occupy spaces in both Cuban and Chinese society, and how they see themselves as both and not one over the other.

            I really enjoyed Timo’s presentation because it opened my mind to a history that I knew very little about. I found it extremely informative and comprehensive, with his breakdown of regional identities and ethnic differences making me think deeper about my own project concerning whaling identities, which incorporates many ethnicities, and made me wonder if there was a place for regionalism within my own work.

            The range of presentations just demonstrates how multi-faceted the transnational and global approaches are to history, and how we should not limit ourselves by confining our thinking to pre-transnational frameworks. By utilising global and transnational frameworks, we are able to create a more comprehensive and deeper understanding regarding areas that have often been overlooked by more popular scholarship. Everyone has done amazing research on their respective topics, and it has been wonderful to see that research culminate in these presentations. I am sure that everyone’s essays will only continue to demonstrate our understandings, and I applaud everyone for their hard work thus far!

Its been a while since I’ve written a blog post, and between me working on other essays and researching for my final project, I’ve gone back to the very first question that we looked at this semester: what does it mean to do Transnational History? Transnational History, for me, is about ‘meeting people in the middle’. This is, of course, a question historians spend years pondering about. So, although I am not an expert, and it’s likely that my answer will change the more I sit and think about it, I’m still going to try and justify what I mean by this.

To illustrate what I mean by this, I touch on a tension that I feel like we’ve highlighted persistently as a class: ‘belonging’ and ‘foreign’, and ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’. We’ve mentioned this a lot in class. Owen and Izzy touched upon it in their blog posts. Quite a few of us are researching on identity formulation. Overall, this common thread means that I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to ‘belong’ to a place, and what it means to be a ‘foreigner’. In my own research (and from reflecting upon my own upbringing in Hong Kong), I’ve learned that you can occupy both positions simultaneously. Watching my classmates present this week helped fortify this thought.

Timo’s presentation, in particular, struck a chord with me. He highlighted how ‘regional identity was more powerful than racial or national distinctions’, even after a lot of ‘official’ national distinctions were demarcated by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and also at the 1919 Versailles Conference. These regions worked together because various ethnic groups bonded over their difference, sort of akin to the metaphor ‘separate but equal’ (though, of course, that represented something entirely different in the US’ context). By acknowledging ethnic diversity, i.e. mutual ‘outsiderness’, these people were able to form their own borders and distinctions, creating and constructing their own ‘belonging’ in the form of regional identities. Regional identities thus functioned as a middle-way between ethnic diversity and national integration. I found this idea incredibly thought-provoking, especially for my own research, as it seems to suggest that people-from-below have much more agency in the construction of transnational identities than we think. As such, our conceptions of ‘transnational’ and ‘international’ ought to not be defined solely by the actions of Big Men, or Diplomats in fancy suits. Ordinary people have the power to not only deconstruct the boundaries between ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’, but, in some cases, also play with and manipulate them from within by changing their positionality. So, ‘meeting people in the middle’. In Timo’s context, it means finding that happy middle-ground, that bit of a Venn diagram where different people can bond over similarities in spite of their differences. It is the simultaneous coexistence of multiple identities at once.

However, ‘meeting in the middle’ can also be used as a euphemism for ‘interrogating contradictions’. In the Met Gala example Izzy and Owen wrote about, it means negotiating between your own image and culture and the cultural construction others have created for you. This thought, I think, is best expressed in one of my favourite TV shows: ‘I’m surprised you think you can choose your own image’. Racist stereotyping and cultural appropriation is frustrating, and the world would be better off without it, but we can’t forget that it does define us to some degree. What people think and see of Asians like myself, for instance, defines our interactions with the world, the kinds of tips and strategies we put it place and pass down to defend ourselves against prejudice. In order to understand Asians – or, more specifically for this example, Asians in the West – we can’t simply look at the way Asians understand themselves. We need to also examine how their image is seen by others, and examine the ‘middle’, where those two intersect and contradict.

So, by ‘meeting people in the middle’, we are interrogating points of contact between different groups of people, different contexts, and thus different worldviews. It’s imperative, before we even get to the middle, that we understand the contexts within their own frameworks. Only then can we examine the way they intersect, and fish around for similarities and ruptures. In particular, this heuristic is conducive to examining social structures: race, identity formation, power. All together, then, these combine to form the backbone of Transnational History, at least in the way I understand it.

Now what? Bear with me whilst I get cheesy. I didn’t expect to come out of this semester armed with a heuristic that just clicks with me. MO3351 is, undoubtedly, my favourite module that I’ve done so far. It’s uniquely interdisciplinary, and has allowed me to sharpen my methodological toolbox by incorporating in Philosophical, Anthropological, and Geographical techniques into my research. It has given me the drive to keep up with my languages, no matter how much Duolingo frustrates me. All-in-all, I’ve come out this semester with a fresh, new perspective on how we ought to understand human interactions with one another.

In my last product I want to discuss Izzy’s excellent presentation on the influence of the Rhodes Scholarship on the academic study of race. I chose this presentation because I honestly didn’t even know what the Rhode’s scholarship was until I head Izzy bring it up during tutorial. I actually found having the presentations uploaded online was a very constructive way for me to learn and remember what was being said in each presentation.

What I found most interesting about the presentation, is that Izzy’s project heavily relies on lived experience and how the experiences of her two case studies (Locke and Hall) in being Rhode’s Scholars at Oxford, then shaped their academic work regarding race. Izzy outlines how initially, Locke and Hall’s approaches to race differ through their backgrounds. On one hand, Hall had always been involved in matters of race at Oxford and viewed race as a product of social behaviours. On the other hand, Locke, was initially resistant to being viewed as championing race matters. Eventually, Locke too begins to include racial matters in his academic writing. What is most interesting to me is the connection between Locke’s time at Oxford and this ‘switch’ in his mentality – it goes to show the importance of academic discourse and lived experience in shaping the political aims of scholars and activists, something which I am also looking into in my project. 

The contrast Locke draws between the experience of being black in the United Kingdom versus America (his home country) is also very interesting, and leads us to believe that perhaps if Locke had never been a Rhodes scholar, and thus never studied at Oxford, he would never have moved onto including race as an important matter of discussion in his academic work. This also led me to question the experience of race in St Andrews, and how that in itself is able to shape the way in which we view race in regards to our academic work. We do not have many black students at St Andrews, it is a fact but it is also a shame. Izzy’s presentation has greatly outlined this problem for me as it demonstrates how the lived experience of race in a university campus can lead to the shaping of both future academic work, journalism and even politics. 

All in all, i found the presentation to be very engaging, as I could draw parallels between Izzy’s project and the relevance of the questions regarding matters of race in academia today. I wish Izzy and everyone the best of luck finishing their projects and am excited to see what everyone comes up with !

In the spirit of collaboration, I want to pick up on Izzy’s post from Friday on the Met Gala and write a bit about the documentary The First Monday in May that some of us talked about at the unconference and what I got from it, particularly that which is relevant to our module.

I would definitely agree with Izzy that it is much more than a documentary about clothes, and deals with a number of issues on a range of topics – fashion as a form of fine art, its place inside and/or outside of the museum and as an expression of the social, cultural and political circumstances in which it is created (something apparent in the surge of face masks being marketed by fashion brands today and something also due to be explored in more detail in this year’s exhibition About Time: Fashion and Duration).

One of the key issues that the documentary deals with, which Izzy mentioned and that struck me most, in the context of an exhibition to which the Met Gala serves as the opening, entitled China: Through the Looking Glass, is the question of when cultural appreciation becomes cultural appropriation. For this event, accusations of the latter began almost immediately after the announcement of the theme, and throughout the documentary, the key figures involved in the curation of the exhibition withstand these suggestions of appropriating Chinese culture and history, as it comes to dominate external conversation in the build up to the event.

The practice of orientalism and cultural exploitation of ‘the East’ throughout history have been well documented and exposed in literature, both academic and popular, in recent years. Coincidentally, I’m reading a book just now called ‘Salaryman’ by Meg Pei, which tells the story of a Japanese businessman, Jun Shimada, transferred to work in America and details the complexities of the process in adapting to the different social and cultural climate, both in a personal and professional context. In the opening, Shimada addresses the reader directly and remarks on American understandings of Japanese culture saying ‘You may resent us, you may make fun of us; you may like our food and quaint customs, think of Mount Fuji and geisha girls, Toyotas, transistors, temples or perhaps World War II and Pearl Harbour’. Importantly, breaking the fourth wall, he says ‘Who are we? Do you care?’. Shimada, with these questions, suggests that the stereotypical characterisation of Japan is the extent to which ‘the West’ knows and cares to know about Japan, in this book, and ‘the East’, more broadly.

Although the book considers a different aspect of this transnational reception of culture from Asia to North America from the documentary, and each comes from a different point of view on the issue, both address many of the same concerns and issues regarding the recognition and contestation of cultural difference in a transnational setting. However, unlike many of the other characters in Pei’s book, who fail to recognise their preconceptions about Japan as such, Andrew Bolton, the chief curator of the exhibition, makes clear in the documentary and as is evident in the title of the exhibition China: Through the Looking Glass, the exhibition’s intention is to consider those Western perspectives of China as perspectives and their expressions in fashion throughout history; indeed, to confront those perhaps stereotypical and orientalist interpretations of Chinese culture and society in fashion, and consider the reasons for and implications of doing so. As Izzy said, ‘Every year the Met Gala has provided a snapshot of what is important to art, culture, fashion and more than just high society. Despite being decadent, it sheds light on important issues, taking a risk and a stand. It has adapted when called insular, Eurocentric and will only continue to do so’. The documentary reflects this mission particularly well, portrays fashion as an enlightening lens through which we can view such a transnational process and its history, and presents an interesting case study for many of the aspects of transnational history we have been considering this semester. 

——

Looking over my blog posts from across this semester, including this one, they appear quite sporadic, quite chaotic in terms of the range of content they’ve addressed, from the early days of the Coronavirus and the transnational movement of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to more relevant material on the translation of transnational concepts and the model of feminism for the writing of transnational lives.  Perhaps this range is representative of the nature of this semester. But, more positively and constructively, I think they represent how applicable the methods we have learned in this module are both to the history we study and the world we live in today.

           There were a couple of weeks this semester where I neglected to write any blog posts, leaving me to write most of them within the last month or so. I have realised that I never gave any sort of project update, as many of my more recent blog posts have instead been about a project that I did last semester. When we were first set to choose our project topics this semester, I knew I wanted to explore a subject that touched on maritime history and travel. Whaling kind of came out of the blue – it was a last-minute topic that I came up with when I was brainstorming. When I was in high school, I did a project on whales for my marine biology class but focused more on the biology aspects and did not really look at the industry itself. Growing up in Massachusetts, whale insignia is quite prevalent, especially due to the popular (and very middle-class) brand, Vineyard Vines, whose logo is a whale. Vineyard Vines was created by a pair of brothers from Martha’s Vineyard, another hotspot for whaling during the industry’s height. However, the brand has no deeper connections to the industry itself, and it seems like the brothers who started the company are simply profiting off the popularity of whale image, without any regard for its historical connections.

            The only prior knowledge that I had on the industry was fringe information – not much more than knowing it existed, along with basic knowledge about Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. However, since engaging with material, both scholarship and whaleship logs and journals, I am surprised that teaching about the industry is not commonplace. Perhaps living in Cambridge is too far removed from the industry’s more crucial locations like New Bedford and Nantucket. I have never been to either location, both at one point the crux of New England whaling, but I have no doubt that the industry is probably more well known in those areas, as both sport their own museum dedicated to the industry, holding extensive archival collections.

            I have really enjoyed getting to engage with 19^th century whaling, as I have gotten the opportunity to read about a subject that had always existed on the periphery, and had always been one of those things I always hoped to get around to “eventually”. Much like the Spanish Flu, which had considerable impact on Massachusetts, I have been surprised that the topic of whaling in New England is not widely circulated in the state. It is easy to brush over or neglect topics that have not had direct impact on oneself or where one lives, but in this case, the whaling industry had a tremendous impact on the state, the effects of which are still seen now. Nantucket, as well as Martha’s Vineyard, are known for being extremely wealthy – popular summer destinations for those who can afford. Most of this wealth stems from the island’s early successes with whaling in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Many of Massachusetts’s coastal towns can be described in this same manner.

            It has been quite an eye-opening experience being able to engage with the concept of identity among the whalers in New England, the South Pacific, and around Alaska. I have found it fascinating to read about how extensive the network of the industry was. In New England, it had close ties to slavery as many slaves would escape North and join a whaling ship, either as refugees or as hired workers. In the South Pacific, considerable reliance was placed on Maori tribes and other local populations for trade for the sustaining of voyages. The Arctic had similar relationships, but also had the unique practice of “trade fairs”, where indigenous groups and traders from all over would gather together and barter. The dependency on minorities has not surprised me, but nevertheless it is quite interesting how when thinking of general assumptions and associations with the industry, more attention is directed to the white whalers or European whalers. In Moby Dick, although Melville does stress the multi-ethnic crew of Ishmael, the whole epic journey of the Pequod has had such a tremendous impact on the history of literature, that attention is taken away from the authenticity of the journey. Although many of the events and things that Melville alludes to do come from some basis of fact, much of what he has written is so overly dramatised, including characters whose characteristics and stereotypes have been so overly emphasised, that I would argue that reading the novel does not mean the reader has any greater knowledge of the industry over someone who has not. What Melville does offer is an insight to how people during the 19^th century perceived the industry, and in this sense it makes for a helpful resource, as the image that Melville depicts was perpetuated by Nantucket and the island’s efforts to market a particular vibe.

            I hope in my essay I can engage with all three of my contact zones to a reasonable extent. I am worried that I have chosen too many, and that I should cut it down to two. Whether or not I keep all three, I am very thankful to have chosen this topic, as although it was slow starting, I have found it to be very enjoyable so far.

I wasn’t sure if our last blog posts had to be particularly reflective. I’ve really enjoyed the process of simply writing every week, having to consider alternative views on a subject. In the process of writing many of these blogs I’ve figured out my views change halfway through, perhaps indicating that I don’t edit my work enough. At the risk of sounding incredibly cheesy, I’ve really enjoyed this module. It has given me insight into how academic collaboration works while remaining accessible. I’d like to preface the blog post that follows with the fact it is a ramble. I made a mood board, purely out of my own interest and boredom on this rainy Friday afternoon. Maybe through reading it you’ll learn something new- about Twitter, how I spend my time on Instagram or the workings of the Costume Institute. Maybe you’ll tell me what you favourite outfit is on Tuesday.

It really is a strange feeling not being in St Andrews for the start of May. Although this Monday marked the start of revision week, this year students will not be flocking to the pubs, enjoying the few days outdoors and on the grass in the quads basking in the sunshine at the end of classes for the year. I worry through my blog posts I’ve become to fixated on our current context, then having to remind myself that everything we write is dictated by the current state of affairs to some extent. This is central to historiography is it not? This concept has been the basis of my own project, the idea that background and upbringing can shape interests, identity and discussion.

Back to the point. I love the start of May. May Dip brings excitement and staying up all night, watching a pinky sunrise. I’m not ashamed to admit not much revision gets done in the first week (sorry dad), as everyone is still winding down into focus mode at the end of the semester. But my absolute favourite thing about May has to be the Met Gala. We discussed it a little during the Unconference, about the idea of modern museums, after Owen brought up that he had recently watched the First Monday in May (great documentary and if you haven’t seen it you really don’t have an excuse- it goes beyond being girly and only about fashion I promise), detailing how the 2015 incarnation of the Gala had come together. The Costume Institute Gala takes place every year at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York, and marks the opening of its annual exhibition. Since its conception in 1948, it has become a symbol of luxury, society and decadence. It is held every year on the first Monday of May, which this year would have taken place next week. It has been postponed due to the current circumstances, which raised questions but also gave me the chance to discuss one of my absolute favourite things. If the opening to the exhibition has been postponed, will the Gala follow suit? Does this in turn lose the allure of May as the opening to the summer season, are these all outdated concepts we should move past?

I was particularly excited for the Met Gala this year, as I was anxious to see who scored an invitation. Anna Wintour, the editor of American Vogue, chairs a committee and almost has final say on all the invitees. If you’ve ever seen the Devil Wears Prada, you’ll have some idea of this woman’s perceived persona. Yet the invitations to the Met Gala in past years have demonstrated more than just who has caught her eye. Wintour has frequently identified rising stars and given them legitimacy through their attendance of the Met Gala in ways that the conventional Award Season has failed. This has repeatedly been a common critique of shows like the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes etc. They do not recognise rising talent quickly enough, and in particular showcase diversity as willingly as they should. The notable example that comes to mind is Awkwafina, perhaps most well known for her role as Peik-Lin in 2018’s blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians. Last year she was nominated for categories like the Rising Star award, but left out of the heavyweight Supporting Actress of which many argue she was worthy. Since then, she starred in more serious roles, most notably Lulu Wang’s the Farewell, which garnered heavy praise for showcasing the cultural differences faced by many Asian-Americans, who often feel ostracised within both traditionally American and Asian communities. Through the Met Gala and their attendance, Awkwafina among other figures like Lupita Nyong’o have gained recognition and appreciation of their work through their attendance of this event rather than through an accolade.

This push for diversity within the entertainment industry and an understanding of ‘high society’ has also been promoted by the Costume Institute’s director, Andrew Bolton. His choice of themes over the last few years have moved away from traditional and often Eurocentric understandings of fashion to consider voices and viewpoints from farther afield. 2019 saw ‘Camp: Notes on Fashion’ which encouraged conversations about gender theory, the LGBTQ+ community and inclusion within the fashion industry. 2017 was ‘the Art of the Between’ and was the first time an Asian woman had been featured as the theme through the likes of Rei Kawakubo, the designer of Commes des Garçons. 2015’s ‘China: Through the Looking Glass’ examined the influence of Chinese art, film and pop culture on Western fashion. The latter two years saw much criticism of the designers who dress celebrities, as many commentators argue they did not creatively interpret the themes in many cases. There were notable exceptions. In 2015, Rihanna wore little-known (then) designer Guo Pei’s yellow dress which instantly gain him notoriety and became one of the biggest memes of the year (yes, that omelette dress).

It seems easy from an outside perspective, of someone who will probably never attend the Met Gala to level a critique out the Best/Worst Dressed. Many stars and attendees do whole-heartedly accept the theme and go all out, yet so many outfits have fallen flat. Perhaps this blog post has become a long ramble, and this will seem trivial. It may not be the most important thing right now, to discuss the loss of this event amongst the chaos of what is going on. Yet I believe this year’s Met Gala would have been greatly significant in indicating where pop culture was headed for the year. Lizzo attended last year’s ball and soon after became the popstar of the summer/year and continues to find immense success. The Gala is not a Magic-8 ball for the next big thing, not by a long stretch. These figures are very much established by the time they set foot on those steps. Rather, what Wintour has been able to turn this event into is a recognition of the ‘Other’. Over the last few decades people of all colours, races, genders and sexualities have been invited. It has brought immense diversity and credibility to the event as it has continued to set the precedent. I’m sure this year the cast of Boon Joon-Ho’s Parasite, would have been in attendance, and probably the director himself.

I was reading about this year’s event for this blog entry, reminding myself of the some of the best outfits from the past few years, and my favourite red carpet moments. I cannot explain why this event brings me so much joy, but I think it has something to do with the juxtaposition of the seemingly superficial decadence of the event, and how intertwined it has become with culture, history and art. The designers spend months putting together cohesive looks that tell a story, the Gala becomes the culmination of Andrew Bolton’s year. The dialogue in the days following are articles dissecting hidden notes within looks, where artists and designers found their inspiration, which is an education in itself. There is so much scope to view the history of the Costume Institute Gala as postcolonial, considering spatial and material history, the intersections between fashion and art history in our globalised world. If you’re interested, and have nothing else to do on Monday, probably closer to Tuesday morning for most of us, have a look at #HFTMetGala. I only recently discovered the world of ‘High Fashion Twitter’ about a dozen or so girls my age who have created their own virtual Met Gala for Monday. Read about it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/fashion/coronavirus-met-gala-twitter.html. They have adapted this year’s theme of ‘About Time: Fashion and Duration’ to ‘Temporal Conflation’. They have created five challenges, mood boards, providing almost a whole world of interpretation of Bolton’s original ideas, which will hopefully be unveiled when the exhibition opens later this year. Vogue Magazine has piggy-backed the idea, hosting a competition to re-create your favourite look from the past at home rather than interpret this year’s theme. This demonstrates how we continue to adapt technology, fashion and art. This pandemic has proved useful as a lens to promote a shift in culture. Traditional celebrity/influencer status is diminishing, teenagers are taking over Twitter and High Fashion, and even Billy Porter can’t quite keep up. I’m not sure I’ve been able to get my point across here, in this very long organza-themed ramble. Every year the Met Gala has provided a snapshot of what is important to art, culture, fashion and more than just high society. Despite being decadent, it sheds light on important issues, taking a risk and a stand. It has adapted when called insular, Eurocentric and will only continue to do so. It has fared better than many of the other events in the entertainment industry, and I wonder what I’ll be doing on the first Monday in May next year.