When I was in junior high school, my idea of a tragedy was a bad hairdo or a failing grade on an algebra quiz. A triumph? That probably would have involved either a boy or a new pair of shoes. But the group of kids visiting UMR today share a much broader definition of those two words.

They're here for Region 8 History Day , presenting papers, exhibitions, documentaries, websites and performances that all address this year's theme Triumph and Tragedy in History. They'll look at things like The first lunar landing. Or the sinking of the Titanic. You know, important stuff.

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'Twas the day after Christmas and all across campus, not a creature was stirring -- at least not too many of them.

Campus is deserted today. Everyone must be hitting the after-Christmas sales. Wish I was.

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Tonight the streets will be crawling with ghosts and goblins, witches and monsters. I'll be curled up with a good scary book, or maybe I'll watch a horror film, hiding my eyes behind a pillow during the scary parts.

As long as I'm safely ensconsed on the couch, I love to be scared. I can feel my pulse quicken as the soon-to-be victim opens the door to investigate the strange noises coming from the back yard -- when everybody knows you shouldn't go look.

UMR English instructor Jack Morgan knows all about horror stories. In fact, he's an expert on the subject. In his book "The Biology of Horror: Gothic Literature and Film," Morgan says there is more to the element of horror in books and movies that the gross-out type found in films like Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street. It's the deeper, underlying rhythms of dread and anxiety that make us love to be scared. A perfect example is the original 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. There is no blood or guts, just people being slowly taken over. "It's the sense of disestablishment of order that gets to you," Morgan says.

BOO!

Posted by Mary Helen Stoltz at 03:41 PM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Back in April, the PBS show History Detectives called UMR historian Diana Ahmad to verify the authenticity of a purported Chinese opium scale found by a woman in Missoula, Mont. The program will air Monday, July 24.

Around here, you can tune in to KETC Channel 9 at 9 p.m.

Ahmad is something of an expert on opium. In fact, she's working on a manuscript about it called The Opium Debate and Chinese Exclusion Laws in the Nineteenth Century American West.

Read more about next week's episode here. If you happen to see the trailer, Ahmad's hands are playing with a ball of "opium."

Posted by Mary Helen Stoltz at 02:42 PM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Our resident English student abroad, Amy Edwards, sent us the following dispatch from Sweden.

Apparently I can’t get enough of Glimmingehus Castle, known as Scandinavia’s best-preserved medieval manor, because I’ve already managed to visit it twice.

The multiple outings weren’t intentional. Somehow, however, I went on two separate field trips to two different Swedish locales that squeezed in a Glimmingehus visit along the way. Built as a safety fortress in 1499, with the foundation laid by Danish knight Jens Holgersen Ulfstand, Glimmingehus has evolved from housing 17th century Danish nobles to hosting modern-day rearchers, interested in studying the archeological and building history of the former residence. Archeaological excavations have been conducted in the area since 1935, and many scholars kindly refer to Glimmingheus as "archeaologists’ favorite fortress."

Continue reading "More Glimmingehus, anyone?" »

Posted by Mary Helen Stoltz at 08:24 AM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

UMR historian Diana Ahmad is an expert on smoking opium. (I guess somebody's gotta be, right?) Apparently she's the nation's top expert on the subject, at least according to producers of the PBS show History Detectives, who flew her to Butte, Montana, this week to tape an episode on the drug.

Someone found what is purported to be a Chinese opium scale and Ahmad is going to help determine its authenticity. Ahmad, who is studying opium consumption for an upcoming book manuscript, Caves of Oblivion: Opium Dens and Exclusion Laws, 1850-1882, says the use of smoking opium -- as opposed to medicinal opium -- became so widespread in the late 19th century that it threatened the social structure of frontier communities and led to exclusionary attitudes toward Chinese immigrants who sought work in the West.

In the manuscript, Ahmad describes how smoking opium came to America along with Chinese immigrants who were looking for employment on railroad projects or hoped to find fortune in the gold fields.

Stay tuned for broadcast details.

Posted by Mary Helen Stoltz at 09:40 AM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

UMR's resident hot dog expert, Gerald Cohen, was quoted in this Sunday's Kansas City Star. The Star's J. Brady McCollough spent an afternoon with Cohen in March to get the scoop on the humble sausage's moniker for a feature in the sports section to kick off baseball season.

Continue reading "Hot dogs...get your hot dogs here!" »

Posted by Mary Helen Stoltz at 04:23 PM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)