by Kate van Liere This past Easter season witnessed many tragic outbursts of sectarian hatred around the globe, from slaughter of Sri Lankan Christians on Easter Sunday to the Passover shooting at a San Diego synagogue by a Christian white supremacist two days later. In Ireland—where my husband Frans and I spent ten days of …
Continue reading Northern Ireland’s Fragile Peace
by Kate van Liere. This January the Calvin history department launched a new course, Public History, which we intend to continue as regular offering. If you wonder just what “public history” means, you’re not alone. It’s a confusing label for an important phenomenon. It generally denotes pursuits that fall outside of so-called “traditional” or “academic” …
Whether you are a student relaxing after exams, a professor done with grading, or just someone with time off for the holidays, the end of the year can be a great time for binge watching television. Here's some recommendations from the History Department for great shows to add to your streaming video queue: Will Katerberg: …
Continue reading What to binge watch over break
by Kate van Liere. This past January, the students in my History 294 class collaborated with the Grand Rapids Public Museum in its ongoing efforts to digitize its museum collection. It was a rewarding project for the Museum, for the students, and for me as a teacher. The GRPM’s digitization project reflects a worldwide trend …
Continue reading History 294 at the Grand Rapids Public Museum
by Kate van Liere. A few weeks ago a bumper sticker caught my eye on a pickup truck in a Best Buy parking lot. It read, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything that you have. –Thomas Jefferson.” I am no Jefferson scholar. …
Continue reading The Trouble with Quotes on the Internet
by Kate van Liere. Holy Week makes me nostalgic for Spain. While I was a college student contemplating a career as a Spanish historian, I had the privilege of spending four Easter seasons in Spain. I saw Holy Week celebrated in Seville, Cuenca, Zamora, and Salamanca. Few parts of the world have paschal celebrations to …
Continue reading Good Friday in Spain
Historical Horizons 