Hello. Hope everyone has
had a restful spring break. I did. I hardly did any homework. I meant to but
never got motivated enough. I had chores
and errands.
Anywho, sorry for reporting back on the Phi Alpha Theta regional
conference late, but here’s part one of my report. And truthfully, I was more excited about Dr. Kuryla’s
character profile than the conference, but let’s not get off topic. In case you’ve
forgotten, the PAT conference was on Saturday, February 23, 2013, in various classrooms
in Massey Business Center, so Debs (i.e. my presentation subject, Eugene V.
Debs,) and I weren’t the only event that day, but I think we should’ve been. LOL!
That day was a long one for me: I registered around 7:30a.m
and the conference didn’t conclude until 2:00pm. So sadly, I missed Saturday
morning cartoons. :(
Nevertheless, the conference was worth missing Saturday morning cartoons. After
all, I am an adult, and I am not dictated by watching television. There are numerous repeats and encore
airings.
Back to the conference, I originally thought the
conference was held in one room and all the presenters would go one by one. With
the conference being held in multiple rooms, that wasn’t the case. Simultaneous
sessions occurred after registration and breakfast at 7:30a.m.-8:30a.m. and
until the luncheon at 12:00p.m.-1:00pm. Moreover,
non-Belmont students and professors from such schools as Rhodes College, Union
University, Cumberland University, and the University of Tennessee also came
and presented, as well as friends and parents who watched.
Myriad interesting presentation
topics – such as religion, medieval times, the Middle-East, and Antebellum
America – abounded. Wished I could attend them all. With the two major
sessions, divided and categorized into panels of three presenters who shared similar
subjects and topics, however, I couldn’t. And then, it was time for the
luncheon. So instead, I attended Panel
2: “Civil War and Slavery in the United States” in
Massey 109 for Session I (8:30a.m.-10:00a.m.) and Panel 13: “The Progressive
Era in the United States” in Massey 413 for Session II (10:15a.m.-11:45a.m.).
Panel
2 consisted of John McFarland from Austin Peay State University and our very
own Ray Posada and Steve Gallo.
McFarland presented his The
Action and Inaction of George B. McClellan and told the audience of General
George McClellan’s story
as both a promising and disappointing military commander during the American Civil
War (1861-1865). Sure, McFarland’s topic
was interesting, but not his presentation.
As the panel chair and commentator Cumberland University’s Professor
Natalie Inman said, McFarland was a good narrator and guide through the world
of McClellan. For me, he lacked substance to wrap his paper up in a pretty bow
for the audience. Thus, McFarland’s mannerism, posture, and use of PowerPoint
did not impress me. I wonder if McFarland was nervous or something; he didn’t
seem nervous. Maybe, his failure to impress
me simply lies in his poor execution of his presentation.
As a side note, I wonder if there is
a relation between Prof. Inman and the namesake of the confusing Inman Health
Sciences Building right here at Belmont. Probably not. Probably just a
coincidence. But if you’re anything like Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs from
the television crime drama NCIS, you don’t believe in coincidences. LOL!
Anywho, back to the conference –
Posada presented next after McFarland and shared his John C. Calhoun,
Through the Eyes of History. I consider
Posada a friend, so my opinion of his presentation is biased. I thought Posada
was a better presenter than McFarland, probably because I am accustomed to
Posada’s mannerism from in class. I now name Posada’s main points:
Can Calhoun’s theories and
arguments be looked at separately from his support for slavery? Calhoun’s Disquisition
on Government[1]
has been criticized, but usually these criticisms are aimed at his support for
slavery. Calhoun did more than just write about slavery. Many of his
philosophies regarded his views on the Constitution and did not focus on
slavery. Where then could Calhoun be fairly criticized? He changed his mind on
support for the Union and did so for good reasons, said Posada. Calhoun changed
his mind because he felt that the Union had become economically tyrannical. Some
scholars and contemporaries suggest that Calhoun was the architect of the Civil
War because of his arguments for slavery, arguing that his support for slavery
was a simple- minded one. Rather, he supported slavery only because it was the
driving force of Southern economy.
Calhoun was much more than simply
a slavery-supporting, Civil War agitator. In fact, he argued for States’ rights,
warned against tyranny from the government, and believed that limited federal
government would be the best way for States to take care of their citizens. Posada
analogized arguing against Calhoun strictly because of the ugly history of
Slavery and the Civil War in the United States as arguing against Marx[2]
because Communist countries have showed corruption in recent decades.
Having taken Dr. Jackson’s HIS
3895 – Jacksonian America with Posada last semester, I concur with many of his
points. But since I’m the Debs expert and not
the Calhoun expert here, I’d rather
not list or name the points with which I
agree and disagree. Let’s move onto
Gallo.
My opinion of Gallo is also
biased; in addition to Dr. Kuryla’s current HIS 3895 – America Viewed From
Above, Gallo and I have had two other
classes together, both of which Dr. Jackson taught: HIS 3050 – Writing History
and HIS 3895 – Jacksonian America. As for his presentation itself, Gallo performed
well possibly because: 1) Gallo is English major and, presumably like me, has a
literary tendency or perspective in his history papers. 2) He probably has had practice
presenting. Indeed, I believe this explanation
to be the case. I recall he shared his
term paper with our Writing History class in a professional and excellent fashion.
Now onto his topic for the PAT
conference –if I remember correctly, Gallo didn’t present his Writing History
paper. Instead, he shared his Molding Morality: the Religious Defense of
Slavery in the Antebellum South. Personally,
I think Molding Morality evaluates a far more intriguing topic than his writing
History paper: the religious defense and justification of the peculiar institution
that was slavery. Gallo argued that in the mid-19th century, more
specifically the 1830s, the abolitionist movement built momentum. To combat
abolitionism, religious, slavery-supporting Southerners cited theological tenets
and Biblical scriptures as evidence for the divine righteousness of slavery –
such as the curse of Cain, the Flood, and the existence and use of slavery
during Biblical times were cited as God’s attempts to punish mankind for its
sins. According to the Bible, only support for slavery was provided; never was
there an explicit criticism of slavery. On the contrary, Mosaic laws criticized
slaves who fled from their masters and called for the runaway slaves’
punishment. Misinterpretation was central to the flaw in pro-slavery
Southerners’ theological application; they assumed Africans and Europeans were
Biblically cursed characters and claimed that slavery couldn’t be wrong because
Christ did not explicitly admonish it.
That’s it for Session I of the
conference.
[1]
John C. Calhoun’s 1843-1848 Disquisition
on Government is a document expressing and elaborating Calhoun’s ideas
concerning government. “John C. Calhoun,” Conservapedia,
3 March 2013. http://www.conservapedia.com/John_C._Calhoun.
[2]
Karl Marx – a German-born scholar and socialist whose major work is The Manifesto of the Communist Party.
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