We are thrilled to share the ninth volume of Past Tense Graduate Review of History.
Volume 9 features two articles that raise thought-provoking questions about the connections between commerce, colonialism, and the marginalization of women and children. Ruby Guyot’s article examines a range of tourist guidebooks written for white American tourists travelling to Cuba in the Interwar years. Guyot’s thoughtful analysis of these guidebooks draws out the role of American imperialism in the 1920s in the construction of Cuba as the “brothel of the Caribbean.” Robert Olajos’ award-winning article follows the fascinating story of the “Indian day-school” on Bear Island as it adapted to the Teme-Augama Anishnabai’s seasonal way of life. Through an in-depth study of the Bear Island Day School archive, Olajos crafts a subtle and powerful argument about the “nomadic colonialism” of settler societies and colonial governments in northern Canada, and its role in the destruction of the seasonal mobility of the Anishnaabeg.
Volume 9 also includes a critical commentary by Ari Finnsson on the question of “normality” emergent in our two-year struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic, meditating on Walter Benjamin’s conception of temporality and the responsibilities of historians working in a moment of flux. We are also pleased to feature three excellent book reviews by Alexander James Collin, Aaron Molnar, and Connor Thompson.
These pieces draw on a diverse array of disciplines and methodologies, raising a number of thoughtful questions about the ways that we remember, construct, and litigate the past. We encourage you to engage critically with these questions, and welcome your thoughts and feedback on this issue of Past Tense.
Co-Editors Nastasha Sartore and Siddharth Sridhar would like to give special thanks to their team of editors, which includes associate editors Graeme Sutherland and Ben Holt, and layout editor Hannah Cooley. This issue would not be have been possible without their efforts and the contributions of our graduate peer reviewers, faculty reviewers, and copy editors.
Past Tense Graduate Review of History 