Each week The Extraordinary Times catches up with good friends in the historical and cultural scene. This week it’s been our pleasure to catch up with Carla Pestana, formerly W.E. Smith Professor of History at Miami University. Carla is currently a Professor of History and the Joyce Appleby Endowed Chair of America in the World at UCLA, where she is also chair of her department. Her training (as a graduate student at UCLA) focused on early American history. She wrote a dissertation (later a book) on the Quakers and Baptists in Colonial Massachusetts. Since that time, she has written a host of other books, most recently The World of Plymouth Plantation, due out from Harvard University Press/ Belknap on October 6. Her online talk entitled “America's Refugee Origins: ‘Pilgrim’ Migration and the Making of a National Myth” will be hosted by Miami University’s Humanities Center at 7 PM on September 24, 2020 as part of the John W. Altman Program in the Humanities.
To register: https://t.e2ma.net/webview/dhiozd/a7c122dfb894a7cef0b30b7dfe38a132 * How have you and your family been getting along during these strange times? We have been sticking very close to home and trying to follow the most cautious guidelines. I work from home, I walk in my neighborhood, and I take yoga classes online. I have been working long hours on my laptop, watching my work responsibilities shift with the pandemic. I fortunately have a secure job that I can do from home, so we have not worried about our income as have a lot of people. I live only with my husband, since our children are grown and living elsewhere. I do worry about their livelihoods and job prospects. The hardest thing has been not being able to visit our parents, who live in facilities that have restrictions on visiting. * Can you compare life in California to living in Oxford, Ohio? I have a confession to make: I am originally from California. I was born in Burbank and lived 26 of my first 28 years in Southern California. For the other two years my husband and I lived in New England while I worked on my doctoral dissertation. So, when we moved to Ohio when I took my first academic job (in Columbus), I initially noticed the difference between Ohio and California with California as the base line. First I noticed that Ohio, compared to California, is flat. Compared to Ohio—where the highest point is 1000 feet—California has many mountain ranges, many with peaks over 10,000 feet. Some very high mountains are right around Los Angeles, too, and I feel most comfortable in a landscape with mountains. Oxford, to the extent that it had rolling hills, seemed more interesting topographically than a lot of the state. Being a native Californian, I also saw Ohio generally as far less diverse. California, especially Los Angeles where I was born and live now, draws people from all over the world. Oxford has far fewer languages and a much narrower range of cuisines—although Oxford is far more diverse than some of southwest Ohio. Living in Oxford was in many ways easier: less traffic, lots of friendly people, and less stress generally. Almost everything is cheaper too. Even uptown rentals pale in comparison to what my neighborhood or anything in Los Angeles costs. Life seems easier until your child comes home from school to announce they need black slacks and a white dress shirt for a choir performance the next night (and they forgot to tell you), and you find yourself rushing to Hamilton on a school night. That is a good reminder that the big city has its perquisites too. * Your online talk is entitled "America's Refugee Origins: 'Pilgrim' Migration and the Making of a National Myth." How do you define the role of myth in this context? Myth has a few different meanings, but at least one is appropriate to this case. Myth in this context refers to an origin story. Nations always have stories about their beginnings, and these tales are usually a mélange of fact and fiction, pulled together to make sense of what a society values. Origin stories pick up on certain aspects of the past and ignore others too. * How would you hope to see the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower landing commemorated? I would have liked to have seen it commemorated as many people in New England and Europe had planned to do, before the pandemic caused the cancellation of most of the planned events. Many events combined traditional celebrations of the settler story with events honoring the native people whose lives were transformed by the arrival of Europeans. Intermixing attention to the small group of new arrivals with consideration of the long-term consequences of all European colonization on the original inhabitants strikes a good balance. * Where is your research taking you next? I wish I knew. I am currently chair of my department which has distracted me from my research. The pandemic has not helped either, as it has increased my workload and reduced my access to research materials. I am vaguely considering something maritime. I have previously written about privateers, shipping, and the English navy, and I realized sailing ships and the history surrounding them still holds my interest. I would be able better to answer this question if we had not had a pandemic. My university library has been closed since mid-March which has meant I haven’t been able to get my hands on the books I would have read over the summer to think about my next project. I look forward to getting my research life back (along with my university library) so I can move on. This is the first time in decades I haven’t had a new book in the works, and I have to say it feels strange.
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AuthorMatthew Smith, PhD (History). Public Programs at Miami University Regionals. Historian of Appalachia, the Ohio Valley, & the early American republic. Archives
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