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I spent an hour or so this evening browsing around on Blogcatalog, where I recently set up an account. I’m still getting used to using sites like Blogcatalog and MyBlogLog, so I haven’t done that much with them yet. But I do like being able to look for interesting blogs by zooming through their categories, or by noting what blogs are associated with folks who have interests similar to mine. Tonight I paged through Blogcatalog’s history category, and ended out adding four history-related blogs to my Newsgator feeds and to this site’s blogroll. The blogs, and the things that got my attention from each one, are briefly described below.
From Civil War Memory, an article on the tension over memorializing individuals — in this case, a potential plan to create a monument to recently deceased black civil rights attorney Oliver Hill — when the very act of memorializing seems to conflict with dominant political or social leadership and their influence. While I’ve studied quite a bit about the Civil War, my ongoing interest in Civil War history tends to revolve more around issues of this kind, and the difficult challenge of handling historical memories … whether related to the Civil War or other key (especially controversial) historical events.
From Clio and Me, an article asking questions about a pair of dramatically different stereo images from the First World War. The meaning of imagery like this and how we relate to it in terms of historical memory and contemporary culture is, to me, something we would do well to understand more about, as more and more of our world is represented to us in pictures and video, rather than text.
From Ponder and Dream, wonderful original historical illustrations that just make you think. See for example, this one, which is prefaced by a Longfellow poem. Or just start with sites home page and look at as many as you can.
From The Victorian Peeper, an image and article about a Victorian “dinosaur theme park,” originally intended to demonstrate themes in evolution. I’m pretty much fascinated by all things Victorian — European and American — and by the connections between Victorian England, Victorian America, and our contemporary culture. Such connections are much more compelling than our stereotypical view of the Victorian period tends to encompass, a topic that I hope to cover in future articles.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2007 at 12:14 am and is filed under blogging, blogroll, site updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
. I’m sorry to hear about plumbing problems at your house. I’m pretty sure that it is a quite distraction when you hope to be able to spend times on other interesting...
Thank you for the mention. It’s interesting how I have two of the blogs you mention here on my blogroll (Civil War Memory and the Victorian Peeper) and i do not think I learned about them through BlogCatalog. I guess I wasn’t looking hard enough.
Another way to find blogs on BlogCatalog is to participate in the forums. If I enjoy someone’s conversation there I am apt to click on their avatar in order to find out more about them. This blog, by the way, I did not find through BlogCatalog, but rather MyBlogLog, and not because I was browsing today, but because I was checking out people who, in MBL-speak, joined my community.
BC and MBL were both strange places to me at first, but they can lead to serendipitous discoveries, as I’ve been learning this summer.
You’re certainly welcome. Thanks for stopping by my site and leaving a comment. It IS interesting about the two common blogs; I hadn’t even noticed them on your blogroll until now.
Thanks for the tip on participating in the forums. I had been watching them a bit, hadn’t jumped into any yet, but will make sure to do so. MBL and BC are the first two networks of this sort I’ve joined; it IS a little odd at first, much different from just getting blog articles through an RSS reader and leaving a few comments here and there. I think I’m going to like it; I enjoy coming across people with similar interests, and like what their viewpoints and interpretations contribute to my own thought.
Bye for now!
Dale
Blog Catalog and mybloglog are great ways to bring traffic ! I wish u all the best
Hello. Thanks for the good wishes and I wish the same for you also. I’ve joined your communities on MyBlogLog, so we can keep in touch.