You know the old saying: “those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” Given everything that has happened in the past few weeks I feel this quote is more relevant than ever. It’s why I believe everyone should strive to be an historian. Many of my friends think that being a history major […]

As Dr. Nick would say, “Hi Everybody!” After a several year hiatus, I’ve decided it’s time to get back into the blogging spirit. A lot has changed since my last post back in the pre-turbulent time that was 2016. My wife Melissa and I now have two beautiful sons: a two year old named Tobei […]

The past few weeks have left me in a bit of a dilemma with regards to the final project. My original idea, creating a website dedicated to the history of the St. Louis Vipers Roller Hockey team was too narrow of a topic. In hindsight when I thought up the idea for the project I […]

In 1916, Tristan Zara issued what came to be known as the Dada Manifesto, a treatise that sought to explain just what Dada is, which is to say that it is nothing (“A hobby horse, a nurse both in Russian and Rumanian: Dada”). The Dadaists were about breaking boundaries, reshaping the way society viewed art. […]

Archives make decisions every day about what artifacts to display, which documents to make public and, more importantly, how to preserve those artifacts and documents. While environmentally controlled storage facilities are the norm for many archives, digitization might offer the best solution, and yet, the digital age is presenting new challenges for archivists and other […]

It should come as no surprise that I am an avid hockey fan. In fact, as I write this blog post, my teammates and I are preparing to play for a Collegiate Roller  Hockey Championship here in Cedar Rapids. If we do so it will be UMSL’s second championship in the school’s history. (Fun fact, […]

Disclaimer: upon first reading this week’s articles I didn’t get the sense that oral history and digital history were compatible. The tent metaphor proposed by the authors of Oral History Curation in the Digital Age left me more puzzled than enlightened. And while the Mashapaug Project was creative and interesting, I still didn’t get the sense that the oral history […]

Is there a significant difference between the terms digital humanities and digital history? On the most basic level the answer seems obvious: just as history is a subset of the humanities so too is “digital history” a subset of “digital humanities.” But perhaps this dichotomy is too simple. Maybe there is not a clear cut distinction […]

Everyone is familiar with Saturday Night Live’s famous “More Cowbell” skit featuring Will Farrel and Christopher Walken as Bruce Dickens. At many points throughout the skit Dickens constantly encourages Gene (Farrel) to “explore the studio’s space” in order to really take advantage of the cowbell. (All of this with strenuous objections from the band). Although […]