Recent ucr_chass_hist_oapolicydeposits items

The First Cavalries in the Ancient Near East

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract As a causative factor in premodern history, it is hard to overrate the significance of cavalry, the organized use, that is, of skilled riders in mounted warfare. Yet the origins of cavalry have garnered scant attention lately, at least among historians of the ancient Near East. The reasons for this neglect are complex, but the essential cause is that military historians, once a plentiful group, now make up only a tiny band within the academy. Cavalry’s origins therefore remain murky. A prevailing theory, the “Early Steppe Riders Thesis,” supposes that good military riding appeared as early as the fourth millennium B.C. on the steppes of Eurasia. The minority theory (the “Iron Age Near East Thesis”) has cavalry evolving from chariotry in the Iron Age Near East. The present essay uses this larger debate as a springboard, but its focus is narrower. Its aim is to establish when, where, and under what circumstances cavalry rose in the ancient Near East. I exploit new finds...

From the Ground Up: Community-Based Participatory Research Reclaiming the Science of Lead

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

For decades, the dominant approach to lead poisoning has been to focus on homes affected by lead paint and to treat children who are already suffering from lead poisoning. This individualizing approach developed in the context of the defunding and deregulation of government agencies in the 1980s. In recent years, however, community-academic partnerships have reframed lead as an environmental issue produced by the development of the lead industry in the twentieth century and connected to overlapping histories of exploitation, discrimination, and inaction. These community-based projects have contributed to shifting research agendas (by emphasizing historical analysis and the study of the soil and dust), achieved policy changes (with a focus on community-level solutions), and built networks and solidarity with groups advocating for climate justice, tenant organizing, and food security.

Rock Archivo de LÁ:Mapping Transnational Latinx Music Scenes

Sat, 23 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This essay presents an overview of the ad hoc archival practices of

Rock Archivo de LÁ, an online archive of rock Angelino memorabilia,

and explores its applications for the study of public history. I discuss

how the materials in the archive reveal the spatial understanding and

place-making practices of their creators, Latin American immigrants and

US-born Latinxs, through which they assert their belonging in Southern

California and beyond.

“Seremos capaces de pensar por nuestra cuenta (We’re capable of thinking on our own): 1990s Immigrant Los Angeles and Latin American Intellectual and Publishing Traditions”

Mon, 11 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

“Seremos capaces de pensar por nuestra cuenta (We’re capable of thinking on our own): 1990s Immigrant Los Angeles and Latin American Intellectual and Publishing Traditions”

“LA/LÁ: Muy Breve historia de Los Angeles(LÁ) como punto de encuentro del circuito musical latinoamericano.” 10-15. in La Banda Elástica, 30th Anniversary Bookzine. (La Banda Elástica), December 2022.

Sat, 9 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

“LA/LÁ: Muy Breve historia de Los Angeles(LÁ) como punto de encuentro del circuito musical latinoamericano.” 10-15. in La Banda Elástica, 30th Anniversary Bookzine. (La Banda Elástica), December 2022.

“La Banda Elástica at the Epicenter of Indie Print Culture in Los Angeles,” 32-36, in La Banda Elástica, 30th Anniversary Bookzine. (La Banda Elástica), December 2022.

Sat, 9 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

“La Banda Elástica at the Epicenter of Indie Print Culture in Los Angeles,” 32-36, in La Banda Elástica, 30th Anniversary Bookzine. (La Banda Elástica), December 2022.

Frustration, Joy, and Shards of Fact

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract This paper explores the connections between archival research and teaching as an adjunct faculty member and mother. The form of the essay is an example of the “I-Search paper,” a first-person account of the research process. In I-Search papers, authors start with the “search story,” where they explain their initial research questions, then describe their “search results” in detail, including the primary sources they found, and end with a reflection on the research process. This essay is two I-Search papers in one—bringing together the experience of reading about students’ historical research experiences with the author's own version of a research story. The essay is about teaching and research and their intersections, and especially what teaching has taught the author about research. The account of the individual research experience touches on the archival experiences of frustration and boredom, and the tension between wanting to find something in the archives...

Razabilly: Transforming Sights, Sounds, and History in the Los Angeles Latina/o Rockabilly Scene

Sun, 2 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Razabilly: Transforming Sights, Sounds, and History in the Los Angeles Latina/o Rockabilly Scene

Teach in Spanglish: Latinx History with Bilingual Primary Sources

Sat, 15 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Teach in Spanglish: Latinx History with Bilingual Primary Sources

Review: The Heart of the Mission: Latino Art and Politics in San Francisco, by Cary Cordova

Sat, 15 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Review: The Heart of the Mission: Latino Art and Politics in San Francisco, by Cary Cordova

Use of historical mapping to understand sources of soil-lead contamination: Case study of Santa Ana, CA

Thu, 4 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This paper investigates the historical sources of soil-lead contamination in Santa Ana, California. Even though dangerous levels of soil-lead have been found in a wide variety of communities across the United States, public health institutions lack clarity on the historical origins of these crises. This study uses geo-spatial data collected through archival research to estimate the impact of two potential sources of lead contamination in the past -- lead-paint and leaded gasoline. It examines, through a combination of statistical and historical methods, the association between lead concentrations in contemporary soil samples and patterns in the evolution of the city's physical features, such as the growth of urbanized areas and the historical flow of traffic. We emphasize the value of historical data collected through archival research for understanding the sources of environmental lead, particularly leaded gasoline, which our study found to be the most likely and most prominent...

Building Confianza: Collective Public History in the Time of Distance – a Joint Reflection from the Boyle Heights Museum Team

Mon, 21 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Building Confianza: Collective Public History in the Time of Distance – a Joint Reflection from the Boyle Heights Museum Team

Mapping the city from below: Approaches in charting out Latinx historical and quotidian presence in metropolitan Los Angeles: 1990–2020

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

How do marginalized ethnic communities assert their presence in the American urban space? This article examines maps and location descriptions found in ‘Rock Angelino’ concert flyers, lyrics of songs, and spoken word multimedia pieces as examples of ‘mapping from below’ practices from the 1990s to the near present, which Latinxs have used to place themselves in the historical geography and cultural imaginary of Los Angeles. While people of Latin American descent have been part of Los Angeles since its founding, their presence has often been neglected and diminished in the maps created by government agencies, and in more recent times, by gentrifying real estate enterprises that inaccurately portray the past and present of Los Angeles as a White space with few selective geographical locations of communities of colour. By employing critical geography and cultural history methodologies, this piece demonstrates how Latinxs have been cartographers of their own communities. Most significantly...

Mapping Ephemeral Music Forums in Latina/o Los Angeles

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Mapping Ephemeral Music Forums in Latina/o Los Angeles

J esse S pohnholz . The Convent of Wesel: The Event That Never Was and the Invention of Tradition .

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

J esse S pohnholz . The Convent of Wesel: The Event That Never Was and the Invention of Tradition .

Powers of the ScriptPrescription and Performance in Turn-of-the-Century France

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

For all their concern with the nature of medical authority, historians of medicine have paid remarkably little attention to the history of the medical script, the main medium in and through which the doctor’s authority is enacted. This essay analyzes the medical prescription as an instance of a written performative. While focusing on the changing uses of one particular documentary genre in turn-of-the-twentieth-century France, it seeks to outline a broader theory of graphic performativity, or of the conditions under which the symbolic power of the oral performance is transferred and transformed as it is transcribed on paper.

The Drug Fetish: Capitalism, the Mass Press, and the Body of the Worker in Austrian Socialism, 1888–1920

Fri, 22 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Drug Fetish: Capitalism, the Mass Press, and the Body of the Worker in Austrian Socialism, 1888–1920

The Lives in Objects: Native Americans, British Colonists, and Cultures of Labor and Exchange in the Southeast

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The Lives in Objects: Native Americans, British Colonists, and Cultures of Labor and Exchange in the Southeast

German Colonial Wars and the Context of Military Violence

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

German Colonial Wars and the Context of Military Violence

Account of the Martyrs in the Provinces of La Florida

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Account of the Martyrs in the Provinces of La Florida

Cradling the Sacred: Image, Ritual, and Affect in Mexican and Mesoamerican Material Religion

Tue, 15 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Cradling the Sacred: Image, Ritual, and Affect in Mexican and Mesoamerican Material Religion

The Ming Prince and Daoism: Institutional Patronage of an Elite by Richard G. Wang (review)

Tue, 19 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The Ming Prince and Daoism: Institutional Patronage of an Elite by Richard G. Wang (review)