The Histories of 1989: Ryan Adams, Taylor Swift, and the Berlin Wall

How much harder would it be to teach the end of the Cold War after the release of Taylor Swift’s 1989? What look would appear in undergraduates’ eyes if I tried to teach them about the fall of the Berlin Wall right now? Could you put all of those 1989s together? 

Those questions passed through my mind as I listened to Ryan Adams’ new cover of the pop singer’s bestseller today. I looked at the album artwork on my computer screen—1989 simply stated in a bold font—and it initially seemed far removed from the historic events of the last century. This is a very different 1989 than what I had spent so many years learning about and teaching. 

Then I stopped myself. Are they really that far removed? 

The sounds of 40-year old Adams and 25-year old Swift converge at a fascinating historical crossroads. Adams told Zane Lowe that his recreation of 1989 was born out a dark moment in his life and continued to grow because of his appreciation for Swift as a songwriter. He wanted to it be like Bruce Springsteen on Nebraska, that artist’s first acoustic album. 

So Adams and Swift meet in the 1980s—Adams as someone who came of age during the decade, and emerged singing first punk rock, and then country and rock-and-roll. Swift was born at the decade’s end, imagining it rather than remembering it. Out of that imagination she created an album that recalls ‘80s pop flair—a flash of bright color amid thoughtful lyrics.

There’s a kind of historical poetry in their meeting. You could delve into the forms of style and their various influences to explore these facets further.

Modern country music gives birth to two very different artists, who both leave the genre only to cross paths again in another arena. And in that later meeting you get elements of rock, grunge, and dance. You could spend the better part of a semester in a pop culture class exploring those many elements.  

Now, for the real question: what does all of this have to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall? At first glance, nothing at all. Except that it makes clear how an inescapable event for anyone born before 1989 doesn’t resonate in the same way for those actually born that year. Memory for Gen X and the Millenials is born out of decidedly different contexts, especially in terms of social and political recollections. 

Soldiers standing on top of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 16, 1989. Image from Wikimedia Commons. 

I used to ask my students what was the first major historical event they could remember. (Almost all of them were born in 1990 or later.) Most of them said 9/11. A few would stretch their memories back far enough to recall Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. I don’t know what Taylor Swift would say, but I imagine she might recall something within that range. 

For these young people, the 1980s could not possibly have held the kind of insecurity they learned in 2001 and its aftermath. The fall of the Berlin Wall seems inevitable rather than profound to them. Yet, could you get that mixture of grit and pop that emerges in the 1990s without it? Those sounds that mark the growth of Adams’ career—how much do they resonate with the 1990s' much anticipated “end of history” and subsequent disenchantment? 

Music tracks a fascinating continuity through so much change. The instrumental and lyrical references to the past intermix simultaneously with new technology, form, and other elements prodding the art form towards something new and different. It makes for an uneven and all the more fascinating narrative. How incredibly opportune for the student of history, then, that two talented artists have focused their talents on a year already laden with historical significance. 

It also shows me how I had it all wrong. Thanks to Taylor Swift, there’s probably no better time to teach 1989. 

The next challenge: incorporating Tiananmen Square into the mix.

Australia Travels and Cairo History Lessons at the Queen Victoria Building

We're nearing the end of our trip to Australia. For nearly two weeks we've made our way up the country's east coast, starting in Sydney and then going to Byron Bay, the Sunshine Coast, and Cairns. We've slept in camper vans, hiked along beaches, searched for koalas, and tread the hallowed ground of Steve Irwin. We've snorkeled along the Great Barrier Reef and even spotted a family of clown fish near their precious anemone. 

Google "Gallipoli" and the number three result is the 1981 film starring a young Mel Gibson when his Aussie accent was still strong. The campaign continues to figure prominently in Australian culture, regularly serving as the subject of films and books. Most recently, Russell Crowe starred in The Water Diviner, where he played a farmer searching for three missing sons who fought in Gallipoli. 

For our last few days in Oz, we're back in Sydney. And today while Stephen had a few photography meetings, I wandered through the Queen Victoria Building. I was struck afresh by the deep significance that Gallipoli and the First World War continues to hold for Australians. A shop dedicated entirely to toy soldiers made its Gallipoli collection the showpiece in its shop window. And when I wandered through the ABC Shop (a media store not a liquor outlet, Alabama friends), at least half of their limited selection of nonfiction books were dedicated to Gallipoli and experiences related to it. 

For some context, the Gallipoli Campaign was carried out by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC forces) in April of 1915, when the British decided they would try to weaken Nazi power by attacking their allies. In an attempt to overthrow the Ottomans, the ANZAC and British forces attached Turkey in concert with the French. Their efforts met with disastrous results. More than 8,000 Australian soldiers (nearly 400 of them officers) were killed before the troops were evacuated in December. Despite the failure, the event became a historical and cultural turning point for Australians, serving as a defining moment in making them their own nation as opposed to a colony of Britain.

In a way, the toy soldiers, the books, and their location in this still-elaborate hallmark of the Victorian era with its giant sculpture of Queen Victoria at the entryway, was an unexpected exhibit of the layers of colonial history that made Australia. That history, however, is well outside my area of expertise and a poor fit for a blog post. It did bring me back to by dissertation, though. (The project has been fresh on my mind as I work on a book proposal based on it.) 

Ma'adi, the suburban enclave outside of Cairo that I studied, became home to the ANZAC troops before their deployment. So it seems a fitting moment to share a bit of that history. The Egyptian Gazette described the bustling life at the Ma'adi train station that they witnessed upon the arrival on the Australian Light Brigade in December 1914: 

Stalwart khaki-clad forms with their broad-brimmed hats, sleeves rolled up revealing burnt brown arms stroll about awaiting the arrival of train-loads of baggage, foot, etc, from Cairo, to be stacked on carts and hustled off to the camp... A sharp “Keep off that,”  brings understanding of intention if not of words. These are the men “on duty;” on the opposite side of the line are seen the crowds of “off duty” men awaiting the train to Cairo and amusements.

While the English-language paper gave a celebratory report, the arrival of the ANZACs was more trying for Cairene Egyptians. One Ma'adi home was converted into a hospital for the troops — a site continually challenged by miscommunication and cultural clashes with Egyptian servants. Soldiers were regularly reprimanded for harassing the nearby villagers. Tensions between the soldiers and locals erupted in April 1915 — just as the ANZACs were being about to leave for Turkey — when a riot broke out in Cairo's brothel district.* For Egyptians, these events fueled anti-British sentiments and helped grow popular support for the nationalist movement. 

What had not occurred to me until now, however, was that these conflicts between the Egyptians and Australians in Ma'adi and throughout Cairo participated in the making of two nations, not one. The First World War broke down the prestige of the British Empire for not only the Egyptians, but also the Australians, even as they were being called upon to actively fight for it. Did the Australian soldiers sense their weakness and vulnerability in the face of the upcoming battle? Was there a frustration that fueled their unruly behavior — a sense that they needed to rebel in some way against this European war? 

Being here in Sydney now sheds new light on the sliver of ANZAC history that I covered in my research sheds. Two nations in the making as two empires—the British and the Ottoman—faltered. I did not come to Australia for research or work, yet I find myself impressed and humbled by the ways in which global history lessons continue to surround me.

*For more on Cairo's 1915 riot see Mario M. Ruiz, "Manly Spectacles and Imperial Soldiers in Wartime Egypt, 1914-19," Middle Eastern Studies, 45:3 (May 2009), 351-371.

New Job, New Blog and Learning to Define Success

About two months ago I started a new job as the assistant editor of fresh style magazine. As a creative lifestyle magazine, it that has me investing in a side of my talents I never thought had professional potential. I spend most of my days writing and managing our website, and about once a week I head home to create a new handmade project or test a recipe. During my second week on the job, I even created my own recipe for Gluten-Free Brazilian Carrot Cake Cupcakes. What amazes me most is that on a daily basis, I am now working on the kinds of things most people try to fit into their spare time as a hobby. 

The move to this job, though, even the willingness to consider a 9-to-5 position in an office was a rather intense process. Because I want this blog to be about processes and how things come into being, I thought it would be a good place to reflect on how this job became something new and exciting for me. It has caused me to question how I define success, and what it takes to find work that you love. 

Seven Years in the Making

When I started college, I wanted to be a writer. Since at least middle school, that was my dream, and by 18 years old, I imagined a career in journalism where I would publish fiction on the side. The entire reason I started studying history was because during an experiential learning course at C-SPAN's headquarters in DC, the cable news channel's founder Brian Lamb told me that if I wanted to be a journalist, I needed to know my history. After my first history class, I was hooked and eventually decided to forego journalism for a career in academia instead. I remember thinking that with the combination of research, writing, and teaching, being a professor was my actual ideal job. After all, I would still be writing, even if I wasn’t a “writer” per se. It seemed like a way to write without the risks and potential rejection of pursuing writing full time. 

I didn't immediately jump into graduate school, though. Following some sage advice from my advisor in the history department, I waited and got a full-time job instead. I spent two years working in the PR and marketing office at the University of Denver, my alma mater. I had been a work study and intern in the office throughout undergrad, so it was a natural transition. While it wasn't bad work, it didn't hold my attention in a way that made me want to stay long term. After about a six months, I knew I wanted to return to school and eventually join the ranks of academia.

More than six years of graduate school in the history PhD program at Rutgers University ensued. Looking back, I enjoyed probably 90% of my experience as graduate student. I loved discussing ideas and thinking through the complex ways that change takes place. I felt at home within those hallowed hall of higher learning, and wanted to stay there. Not that the experience was without its points of frustration. In particular, the apparent lack of substantial connection to the broader public was difficult for me to understand. Especially the idea of working for years on a research project that few people would read or find interesting made me wonder if there might be some other track, or a way that I might still make a bigger impact while remaining happily within the security of a tenured job. 

My real problems in academia came at the end of grad school, when I confronted the dire inequalities of academic employment—something for which I had little real preparation. There have been numerous blog posts, online and print newspaper articles, and other studies on the problems that plague the job market in higher education. I will not rehash them here. Suffice to say, despite my very best efforts (which included learning and doing research in Arabic) I became one of the hardworking, diligent and committed PhDs unable to find work beyond adjunct teaching. As the story goes, there were elements of my personal life that arguably got in the way of my academic success. My husband Stephen has a successful photography business here in Birmingham, so moving from one short term position to another as a Visiting Professor meant we would have to live apart—an option we ruled out at the start of our marriage. I also needed a job in a relatively large city, so that Stephen could still find work. Those priorities made finding a job all the harder, so I started adjunct teaching, first at Birmingham-Southern College and then at the University of Alabama. While I loved both schools, the students there, and teaching in general, after a year of working full-time hours for less than part-time pay, I simply couldn't face another semester of scrambling for classes, pouring my energy into lecture writing, and grading on the weekends, only to see the hope of a "real job" continue to feel further and further away. Perhaps it’s that sense of artifice—that working as an adjunct isn’t substantial, significant or real—that makes it such a humiliating line of work. That and the dismal pay. 

Defining success

Considering a job outside of academia, though, required a difficult shift in my mentality. Surprisingly, I found my training in history proved especially valuable on a personal level when it came to deciding to apply for a different kind of job. For my dissertation, I studied people who descended from the survivors of the Spanish Inquisition, who escaped massacre at the hands of the Ottomans on the Greeks Isle of Chios, and who fled Nazi persecution—this mixture of diasporic peoples and their progeny all eventually ended up in an especially multinational neighborhood south of Cairo, called Ma'adi. While their stories taught me about the global flows of economic, social, and cultural influences, they also taught me about resilience. 

Most of the people I studied suffered incredible losses—some personal, some financial, others a combination of tragedies—yet they adapted and adjusted their lives, capitalizing on the unexpected opportunities that opened up amid their struggles. Ultimately, many of them turned the experience of survival into a method for making a new life. Learning about their willingness to adjust has since proved to be the most rewarding element to come from my years of research and writing. Their stories inspired me to consider looking beyond the narrow goal of a tenure-track job. Just acknowledging that it was narrow provided a sense of freedom. Rather than lose hope and grow frustrated and angry, why not look at the other things I’m capable of doing and find other options? Why not define my success, rather than letting my supposed career track define it for me? 

PhD programs groom you for tenure-track work. Thankfully, more professional associations, including the American Historical Association, are now encouraging graduate programs and students to broaden their horizons and see graduate work as the accrual of a useful set of skills rather than one particular kind of job. Most PhD students, however, go to grad school after already accepting that only attaining a tenure-track job will mean they have achieved success. Such stringency can become a strange religion, where you worship ideas, feed off the the competition over claiming them, and find salvation in the security of tenure. It was heartbreaking to have my seeming redemption withheld after so much work. Realizing there was more to me than that one line of work, however, transformed how I saw the opportunities around me. 

New old dream

Now that I'm writing all the time, researching, and doing hands-on problem solving everyday, I find I’m using the skills I acquired in graduate school in a more hands-on way than I would have were I prepping to teach yet another semester of Western Civ. I'm also doing work more akin to what I had always wanted to do when I started college. I am a writer, and I am hopeful about the doors that will continue to open up while I pursue a childhood dream I once dismissed as impractical. Who would have thought a move to Birmingham, AL would open up these doors in the first place? 

A number of unexpected benefits came from switching lines of work. My dissertation research has proved personally beneficial and so much more than a project meant only for the ivory tower. Beyond that, I now appreciate what it means to set my own goals and priorities, rather than having a particular institution or career path set them for me. Each new endeavor requires a certain amount of sacrifice and adaptability. Now I see the importance of defining why I value a goal and choosing it deliberately, rather than hanging my hopes on a system that I hope might choose me.