Teaching the Empire: A Q&A with Scott O. Moore

May 20th, 2020

We talked to Scott O. Moore, an assistant professor of history at Eastern Connecticut State University and author of Teaching the Empire: Education and State Loyalty in Late Habsburg Austria.

Teaching the Empire explores how Habsburg Austria utilized education to cultivate the patriotism of its people.

Q: What got you interested in studying and writing about civic education in Late Habsburg Austria?

Scott O. Moore: I’ve always been fascinated by the issue of identity – how people think about themselves and others. This interest is part of the reason why I’ve always been attracted to the history of the Habsburg Monarchy. It was such a diverse country, and culturally it was defined by forces pulling its people together, but also pulling them apart. Because of the Monarchy’s collapse after World War I, historians have usually focused on the things that diminished the cohesion of Habsburg society. There has also been an enormous amount of interest in the development of national and ethnic identity, but not so much the development of a Habsburg or Austrian. Because of these trends, I thought it would be interesting to look at what was tying the Monarchy’s citizens together. That led me to look at civic education. I wanted to explore the way institutions, like schools, helped create a sense of cohesion and “togetherness” among the Monarchy’s population, even when that population spoke different languages, followed different religions, or adhered to different cultural customs.

Q: What was unique about Habsburg Austria’s system of civic education?

Moore: One of the most interesting things I discovered in my research is how similar Habsburg civic education was to its neighbors. Because the Monarchy was a multinational state, there has always been an assumption that it couldn’t develop civic education in the same way its more ethnically homogeneous neighbors did. The thought was that without language and culture to tie people together, it would be harder to make them share common heroes, a common view of their history, or share common values. I discovered the opposite. Like other European countries and the US, Habsburg Austria consciously used schools to teach a common, patriotic version of the past. It used holidays and public celebrations to enhance a sense of belonging. It also utilized all the tools of the modern state to achieve these goals. Habsburg civic education was a consciously crafted, well-engineered process. What was unique, of course, was that officials attempted to reach these goals in a multinational state, where they couldn’t rely on a common language or culture. Because of this, the teaching of things like history and civic values actually became more important. Habsburg officials wanted students to realize that even if their neighbors spoke a different language, everyone was bound by a common, shared history, that everyone who lived in Austria shared the common goal of making the state strong, that everyone had a common purpose.

Q: Do you feel there is a comparable civic education system now?

Moore: If you look at schools in the US, I think we can see the legacy of traditional civic education. We still use holidays, like President’s Day or the Fourth of July, to enhance the patriotism of students; we still teach civics and government with the hope of making well-informed citizens; and many would argue (much to the frustration of many professional historians) that teaching history in schools is a patriotic exercise. Obviously there are considerable differences, but I think that public schools still share many of the missions they had when they were created in the 19th century. That said, as Europe and the United States become increasingly diverse, I think that policy makers could learn from exploring the history of the Habsburg Monarchy. Prior to World War I, it was the only European state that embraced a multi-national, multi-ethnic identity, challenging the notion that linguistic or cultural unity was the best way to forge a sense of community.

Thank you so much to Scott for his time! If you would like to know more about the book you can get your own copy or request it from your local library.

You can get 40% off Teaching the Empire and any other Purdue University Press book by ordering from our website and using the code PURDUE40 at checkout.

Filed under: PurduePress
Article tags: Central European Studies, PUP, Q&A

Through Astronaut Eyes: A Q&A with Jennifer Levasseur

May 20th, 2020

We talked to Jennifer Levasseur, a museum curator in the Department of Space History at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC and the author of Through Astronaut Eyes: Photographing Early Human Spaceflight.

Through Astronaut Eyes explores the origins and impact of astronaut still photography from 1962 to 1972, the period when human spaceflight first captured the imagination of people around the world. Featuring over seventy images from the heroic age of space exploration, the book presents the story of how human daring along with technological ingenuity allowed people to see the Earth and stars as they never had before.

Q: How did this project start?

Jennifer Levasseur: As a graduate student intern at the National Portrait Gallery, I cataloged photographic portraits of notable figures, learning how to describe them in words for digital records. A few years later, I took over responsibility for the human spaceflight camera collection at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. That meant caring for material culture from human spaceflight, and it overlapped with thinking about the visual products and interpreting the messages in images. My questions began to include how astronauts, our representatives in space exploration, also had to capture what they saw to tell us stories. The cameras tell a technological story, but the images tell sublime stories also defined by the people who took them – people who defined themselves as pilots, engineers, or scientists, but not photographers. The reality of spaceflight complicated a narrative of exploration photography seen for almost a century prior to the 1960s, so that brought more intensity to how we remember that time, even if we weren’t alive.

Q: Is there any single photograph, or even a couple, that you think encapsulate the unique and interesting subject that is astronaut photography?

Levasseur: Some images captured by astronauts hold special meaning because they’ve permeated our culture so deeply, they’re now almost part of our everyday lives. Most books still use the image of the whole Earth from Apollo 17 as the image of our planet even though it’s almost 50 years old. Or how we still think of the Buzz Aldrin image “Moonman” as the quintessential astronaut image. Those serve as the iconic, but I always love looking through those that seem mundane and yet reveal something new upon each viewing. Like a favorite movie you’ve seen hundreds of time, it’s awesome to look for something you haven’t caught before. I think Earth-facing photography can be that since our planet is incredibly diverse. But for the era my book examines, everything leading up to the end of the Apollo program, the image Michael Collins took looking towards Earth with the lunar module in the foreground is just beyond words in its sublimity. Sometimes called the “loneliest man” image because Collins is the only human in all of history to that point not captured in the photograph, the perspective is unique and almost unimaginable. That one really captures the story of the missions, the people, and our planet all in one frame.

Q: Given the stakes of traveling in space, what do you think is the best defense for time spent on astronaut photography, something that may not seem pertinent to mission success?

Levasseur: Astronauts opinions overall hovered at lukewarm on adding photography to their mission duties, with some very supportive and invested in the final products, and others preferring to mostly ignore it or find other tasks where they could specialize. But few of them could deny the privileged position it put them in, to see something just over 500 humans have ever seen even today. From that position, they can all contribute to seeing space to understand it better, and photographs are critical to that narrative. Astronauts tell stories in interviews, and have for decades after their missions, but that same message can be conveyed with a simple image. It brings the story to life, and inspires, and prompting new generations with that inspiration was a key factor in NASA’s mission, really their directive from Congress, to share with everyone what was learned through their work. NASA had that cultural/educational component from day one, so things like artwork, films, photographs, and eventually displays in museums were critical to fulfilling that part of their mission.

Q: Are there astronauts that are historically considered good or bad “space photographers”?

Levasseur: Two astronauts were significant contributors to showing the intent of the person behind the lens. Alan Bean was an artist and conceived of his photographs more like a professional photographer than any other astronaut of his generation. His photographs of Pete Conrad next to Surveyor 3 on the Moon with the lunar module in the background are particularly sublime. Much later, on the last servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009, John Grunsfeld took a photo of his reflection in Hubble that serves as a book-end of the images of Bean, showing a path from very classic landscape photography, thoughtful and considered, to something almost abstract and modern art-like. Astronauts really evolved as thoughtful participants in photography from the day of just pointing and shooting out the window.

Q: Why you think astronaut photography is so important for the public’s feelings towards space travel?

Levasseur: We can see space and our world and our universe through many eyes: described by astronauts from memories of what they saw, in photographs they took with cameras, and through telescopes directed at things we cannot see with our own eyes. The visible world around us, as seen through photographs, offers a sense of our place in it. When the languages of math or science are too complicated for some of us, the visual language of images simplifies that information and makes it possible for almost anyone to grasp. Knowing a person was on the other side of a camera lens, we connect to that event through that person. Their story is intertwined with what is seen in the images. The astronauts are part of the portal through which we see and understand the image content, and they can’t and shouldn’t be removed from the stories we tell about those images. In a time when the isolating experiences of being an astronaut seem more understandable than ever to the rest of us, the photographs they’ve captured prompt new thinking about their value to understanding the big picture of human life on Earth.

Thank you so much to Jennifer for her time! If you would like to know more about the book you can get your own copy or request it from your local library.

You can get 40% off Through Astronaut Eyes and any other Purdue University Press book by ordering from our website and using the code PURDUE40 at checkout.

Filed under: PurduePress
Article tags: Aeronautics and Astronautics, PUP, Q&A

Featured Database: Gale Business Plan Builder

May 5th, 2020

Getting Started with Gale Business Plan Builder

Parrish Library’s Featured Database aims to give a very brief introduction to the basic features of one of the Purdue Libraries and the School of Information Studies (PULSIS) specialized subscription databases. This Featured Database highlights Gale Business Plan Builder, brought to you Gale, a Cengage Company.

Link

The List of Business Databases is the alphabetical list of the databases specially selected for those in a business program of study. Access the databases off-campus with your Purdue login and password.

Focus

Gale Business’s Plan Builder is a step-by-step online planning tool for starting, managing and optimizing a business or nonprofit.

Tutorial

Click Getting Started with Gale Business: Plan Builder to see the basics of using Gale Business: Plan Builder.

How can I use this resource?

Gale Business: Plan Builder is a great tool for all stages of business development starting with creating an entrepreneur profile that can help you reflect on whether entrepreneurship is a good fit with your interests, skills, and life circumstances.

Related Resources

Some other resources you might want to explore, are:

Gale Business: Entrepreneurship, a portal for entrepreneurs containing business plans, entrepreneurial articles, small business forms and related information.

Find us on YouTube!

You can find additional tutorials for a variety of our subscription resources on our YouTube channel.

Featured Database comes to you from the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management & Economics. If you would like more information about this database, or if you would like a demonstration of it for a class, contact parrlib@purdue.edu. Also let us know if you know of a colleague who would benefit from this, or future Featured Databases.

Since usage statistics are an important barometer when databases are up for renewal, tell us your favorite database, and we will gladly promote it. Send an email to parrlib@purdue.edu.

Filed under: database, general, MGMT
Article tags: database, DBOM, parrish library, research, tutorial

Open Access and COVID-19

May 4th, 2020

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has brought into sharp focus the importance of access to digital information. Collaboration in a digital environment has become paramount as researchers seek to answer questions about the novel coronavirus. These researchers and scholars need immediate access to research and datasets being used by other scholars in order to build on existing work, to rapidly push the rate of dissemination and discovery for other scholars to keep moving these important efforts forward.

Both higher education as well as K–12 educational institutions throughout the world are closed. Those institutions capable of moving teaching and learning to digital environments have now done so. To meet the needs of online education, dozens of educational companies and publishers have made their content and platforms free.

The idea of providing free access to knowledge is not new. The Budapest Open Access Initiative laid out a way in which new technology could combine with old traditions to “make possible an unprecedented public good. . . . The public good they make possible is the world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-reviewed journal literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds.”

These words were written in 2002. Since that time, many libraries have sought to make scholarship freely available by participating in the Open Access movement. Open Access can take many forms, from supporting publications that are born open (Gold Open Access) to opening versions of subscription journal articles (Green Open Access). In establishing and maintaining institutional repositories, libraries support Green Open Access—providing free versions of scholarly works that may otherwise require large fees to read. Purdue e-Pubs is the institutional repository of Purdue University, established by Purdue Libraries nearly 15 years ago. In that time, we have published more than 75,000 works, all freely available online to anyone throughout the world. Open scholarship posted to Purdue e-Pubs has been downloaded more than 21 million times, in more than 230 countries. With quarantine and stay-at-home measures in force, the need for access to open works has never been higher. This year, Purdue e-Pubs downloads increased significantly compared to downloads this same time last year: January by 28%, February by 19%, and March by 10%.

Open Access fulfills our land-grant mission by giving back to our community, increasing the pace of research and development, leading to greater access and use of scholarship, and providing needed resources to practitioners and technical workers.

In these unprecedented times, the need for free, immediate access to scholarly literature is more important than ever. The Purdue e-Pubs team is here to help the Purdue community open your work to the world. We provide a free publisher sharing policy review service and will upload works on your behalf. If you would like to participate, contact Nina Collins, nkcollin@purdue.edu, or send a list of publications to epubs@purdue.edu.

Filed under: Open_Access, PurduePress
Article tags: open access, PUP

Data Science is Thriving at Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies

May 1st, 2020

At Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies, we are dedicated to the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap. Nearly every one of Purdue’s 40,000+ students engages with Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies during their academic careers, and the expertise of our faculty and liaison librarians spans across all colleges and departments. As a result, we are uniquely positioned to respond to the University-wide Integrated Data Science Initiative (IDSI) with innovative, collaborative, and inspiring ideas.

Dedicated to helping our students achieve success in the growing field of data science, our faculty and staff are creating inventive courses, tackling ambitious research projects, building a growing learning community, launching interdisciplinary initiatives, and developing programming for instructors keen to integrate data science into their own undergraduate courses. We are proud to present their stories in our latest publication.

May they spark your imagination as you pursue your own next giant leap!

Support Purdue Libraries & Initiatives Like These Now

Filed under: general
Article tags: Critical Data Studies, data science

Books for All Boilermakers

May 1st, 2020

Our wonderful selection of books on Purdue include two books published for Purdue’s 150th Anniversary, Ever True and Purdue at 150, biographies on notable Purdue alumni, a new collection of Neil Armstrong’s letters, and many others.

Ever True: 150 Years of Giant Leaps at Purdue University
by John Norberg