This week, ending in July 31st, 2014:
Today's thread is for open discussion of:
History in the academy
Historiographical disputes, debates and rivalries
Implications of historical theory both abstractly and in application
Philosophy of history
And so on
Regular participants in the Thursday threads should just keep doing what they've been doing; newcomers should take notice that this thread is meant for open discussion only of matters like those above, not just anything you like -- we'll have a thread on Friday for that, as usual.
I was reading Florence Gauthier's article about Olympe de Gouges, who has recently been portrayed as a feminist hero who was martyred by Robespierre and his dudebro Jacobins. She pointed out some of the misunderstandings there, how de Gouges wasn't actually an abolitionist, only wanted the vote for women with high incomes, and supported laws permitting price hikes on bread, which, considering their disastrous effect on many women's access to food, might tarnish her feminist halo a bit. Not to mention the fact that she wasn't executed for being a feminist, and Robespierre had nothing to do with it as far as anyone knows.
Olivier Blanc responds with an article calling Gauthier a stalinist and a Maratist, claims that the ACTUAL reason she doesn't like Oympe de Gouge is that the latter wasn't violent enough, and tells her to take her phrygian bonnet off before writing history... His actual arguments for why she should be celebrated are mostly based on stuff de Gouges and her faction didn't actually do, which Gauthier shows in her reply.