{"title":"Institutionalising African Gender Studies and the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy at the University of Ghana","authors":"Cyrelene Amoah-Boampong","doi":"10.1111/hic3.70014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.70014","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The 21st century solidified the quintessential role of gender in the political and academic spheres. The contestations over the idea of gender as a valid analytical concept and the viability of feminist methodologies, approaches and analyses as legitimate scientific inquiry have essentially become a moot point. The discipline of gender studies in sub-Saharan Africa has evolved with active contestations around power, representation, sexuality, masculinity and knowledge production. This study examines the evolution and role of gender studies centres in making gender a legitimate business of the University of Ghana. The institutionalization of the concept of gender within the Ghanaian academe contributes to the theorisation of African women's experiences from multiple angles. It problematises the forces that shape women's differentiated lives, raising the bar on feminist scholarship on the African continent.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46376,"journal":{"name":"History Compass","volume":"23 4-6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144171476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Commodities and Power: Tracking Europe's Relations With Asia in the Classroom","authors":"Adam Clulow","doi":"10.1111/hic3.70013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.70013","url":null,"abstract":"<p>From their high point in the early 2000s, commodity histories seem to be in decline. If the publishing world has retreated, it is also the case that teaching with commodities has never been more rewarding. For the past few years, I have been experimenting with different variants of a class that aims to use recent scholarship on a half dozen commodities not to track their long trajectories across time but rather to help students work through one of the great questions of global history: the changing relationship between Europe and Asia across the period from roughly 1500–1900. Looking at everyday commodities provides a more concrete way to consider this question, revealing how Asian or European consumers who never ventured far from home participated in a global shift with enormous consequences. In this brief historiographical essay, I explore a selection of works examining six different commodities—silver, spices, deerskins, porcelain, tea and opium—that provide a clear sense of shifting relations between Europe and Asia across the early modern period.</p>","PeriodicalId":46376,"journal":{"name":"History Compass","volume":"23 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/hic3.70013","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144140780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Litigating Jews: New Directions in the Study of Medieval English Jewry, c. 1190–1290","authors":"Emma Cavell","doi":"10.1111/hic3.70011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.70011","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article seeks to map out possibilities for an intensive and wide-ranging study of Jewish litigation and legal agency within the English king's jurisdiction in the period c. 1190–1290. Despite a small number of studies of Jews and the king's law courts in England in recent years—including my own work on Jewish women litigants at the Exchequer of the Jews—this remains a neglected <i>desideratum</i> of medieval Anglo-Jewish history. Considering the potential of the records of all the king's law courts between 1190, from around which time the records begin to survive, and 1290, the year in which the Jews were expelled from England, this essay does two things. First, it reviews the developments, since 2015, in our understanding of Jews at law and in litigation in medieval England, as well as touching briefly upon the main cognate fields. Second, it provides a series of examples to demonstrate (just some of) the exciting new directions in the study of medieval English Jewry promised by the records of the king's law courts.</p>","PeriodicalId":46376,"journal":{"name":"History Compass","volume":"23 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/hic3.70011","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143949816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lawless Love and Legal Headaches: The Case for Court Records as a Source of Legal and Historical Realities in Colonial Histories","authors":"Elizabeth Bowyer","doi":"10.1111/hic3.70010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.70010","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The extensive legal, social, religious, and political discussions surrounding marriage that were present in colonial New Zealand have meant that researchers of Aotearoa New Zealand's past have assumed that colonial couples were invariably married. Furthermore, there has been a prevailing assumption that the courts of law upheld and enforced marriages when couples appeared in court. Recent archival findings are compelling us to reconsider the degree to which colonial inhabitants adhered to conventional marriage practices and how the courts of law applied marriage law doctrinally. This article posits that court records, as a source of social and legal drama, are vital to uncovering not only the existence and extent of non-conforming couples in colonial spaces but also how ‘lawless love’ interplayed with colonial economic and legal practices that expose the pragmatic and flexible nature of the law in colonial settings. This suggests that a doctrinal approach to legal histories, which involves taking the law as it was written and assuming that people lived by it, is not an accurate measure of legal and social realities.</p>","PeriodicalId":46376,"journal":{"name":"History Compass","volume":"23 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/hic3.70010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143902822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Chupacabras to Capybaras: Animal History and Latin American Horizons","authors":"Stephen B. Neufeld","doi":"10.1111/hic3.70009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.70009","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Animal history has flourished as a field of study and worked its way into Latin American scholarship. This essay traces relatively recent developments in the historiography to update areas of focus scholarship warranting further efforts. A brief overview of the field uses a key 2013 work as its launching point toward understanding animal history. It considers the geography of studies which have slowly turned from exclusively rural to more urban in focus. Specific areas of niche scholarship addressing insects, ecologies, conservation, and companion animals fuel a discussion of current trends. Related to this, new appraisals about the epistemology of nature and the authority of Latin Americans as agents in this formulation continue to challenge old assumptions. This leads to the consideration of subjectivity and indigenous worldviews that add enormously to the nuance of the field. The final part of the essay ponders some new ideas emerging on the topic and those that remain underserved. It concludes that further scholarship should account for postcolonial and post-structural approaches, and work toward highlighting the subject formation of animals in our history.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46376,"journal":{"name":"History Compass","volume":"23 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143896977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"African Intersectionalities and Decolonisation of African Women's and Gender Studies","authors":"Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso","doi":"10.1111/hic3.70008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.70008","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the context of extant efforts in the decolonisation of African Studies, transnationalisation of feminist theorising, and the rise of intersectionality as an analytical tool in gender studies, I argue for the adoption of an ‘African intersectionalities’ framework towards achieving the decolonisation of African women's and gender studies. The article engages a critical review of feminist intersectionality theory and its trajectory, executes a decolonial reading to propose an African intersectionality specifically, and explores the emancipatory potentials for harnessing the interconnections of both literatures in the field of African women's and gender studies.</p>","PeriodicalId":46376,"journal":{"name":"History Compass","volume":"23 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/hic3.70008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143554310","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Locating the Professional Cook: An Historical and Anthropological Perspective","authors":"Jed Hilton","doi":"10.1111/hic3.70007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.70007","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Historical scholarship on the topics of food, cooking, and eating has flourished in recent years. Within this growing body of literature, chefs have recently been introduced as a legitimate subject of historical investigation. However, to date, no clear theoretical or methodological model has been developed to study this underutilised and under-theorised historical subject. Drawing upon anthropological readings of history, this article aims to provide a theoretical framework for the historical analysis of professional cooks. It suggests that, when examined from a cultural perspective, professional cooks are unique subjects of historical investigation that act as a window onto broader cultural and social transformations of the specific contexts in which they are embedded. The intention of this article is to bring thematic and methodological clarity to the category of professional cooks and reflect on the analytical utility that they can bring for cultural historians.</p>","PeriodicalId":46376,"journal":{"name":"History Compass","volume":"23 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/hic3.70007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143111611","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Disability in Early Modern Japan: A Survey of Concepts and Issues","authors":"Wei Yu Wayne Tan","doi":"10.1111/hic3.70006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.70006","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This article discusses current conceptual frameworks and new directions in disability studies, with a focus on certain disabilities and particular groups of people with disabilities in early modern Japan (or Tokugawa Japan, 1600–1868). Disability historians of non-Euro-American societies can benefit from asking the common questions that motivate disability history and, more generally, disability studies. Historical research on disability in early modern Japan contributes to the collective effort of explaining how disability is related to the understanding of medicine, disease, and illness, how people with disabilities embody their experiences, and how disability intersects with cultural knowledge, gender, and material conditions in society.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46376,"journal":{"name":"History Compass","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143117789","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fragrant Attraction: Aromatics in Premodern Chinese History","authors":"Yan Liu","doi":"10.1111/hic3.70001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.70001","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This essay surveys the history of aromatics in China from antiquity to the 17th-century. Compared to the extensive study of the spice trade that has shaped world history, much less has been explored on the movement of these fragrant substances from their natural habitats in South, Southeast, and West Asia to China. By reviewing both early and recent scholarship on the topic, the essay demonstrates the wide circulation of these materials along the Silk Roads enabled by multiethnic traders, religious practitioners, and diplomats. Once imported into China, they acquired diverse uses in healing, food culture, and religious practices that generated new knowledge and transformed Chinese society. Their unique smells could also alter the ways of prescribing medicines and relishing food, and enhance the bodily experience of the devoted. An in-depth study of aromatics using a multidisciplinary approach will not only deepen our understanding of premodern Chinese society but also offer an alternative worldview of aromatics that counteracts the one habituated by the “rise of the West” in early modern times.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46376,"journal":{"name":"History Compass","volume":"22 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142860831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Landscape of Toleration: Central Europe in the Early Modern Era","authors":"Maciej Ptaszyński, Alexander Schunka","doi":"10.1111/hic3.70003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.70003","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The question of religious toleration was crucial in the early modern era. Challenging simplistic views of toleration as mere peaceful coexistence, this essay explores its complexities from a historical perspective. It argues that toleration was a deliberate choice demanding effort and served as a flexible political tool in various contexts. Drawing on examples from Brandenburg-Prussia and Poland-Lithuania, it shows how toleration shaped political assets and public opinion. This essay introduces the concept of a “toleration landscape” to depict its multifaceted influence on society. Ultimately, it asserts Central Europe's pivotal role in early modern toleration, bridging historical divides between Eastern and Western Europe.</p>","PeriodicalId":46376,"journal":{"name":"History Compass","volume":"22 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/hic3.70003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142749355","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}