Some of the Footnote staff members have gone back through the archives to find some of our favorite articles from the past few years! Hopefully we will inspire you to take a journey back through the Footnote catalog and recall some of your favorites, too.
Rae Neville, Outreach Coordinator: “Romance and Nostalgia in the Coffeehouse” by Kathleen Walsh
Coffee is a huge part of my family’s culture. Pre-Covid, my family lived in Germany, and every winter we had an unofficial tradition of visiting the oldest cafe in whatever city we happened to be in. Alongside the napkins and coasters, I also collected memories of sitting in ancient booths, drinking the same beverage that had been served for centuries, and talking with my family. It’s no wonder that one of my favorite articles from the Footnote archive is “Romance and Nostalgia in the Coffeehouse” by Kathleen Walsh (MAGIC ‘22). Her article examines the history of coffeehouses in Europe, arguing that they serve as nostalgic “callback(s) to the Habsburg age.” Walsh illustrates how coffeehouses came to prominence in the fin-de-siècle, and later developed into a “functioning myth…as a cultural symbol, rather than a physical space.” Today, that mythic quality persists in the nostalgia associated with coffeehouses. Walsh ends with a call-to-action for a comparative history of coffeehouses.
As a historian interested in political dissent, the history of coffeehouses is particularly fascinating to me. In the past, I have researched the role of coffeehouses as meeting places that facilitated the spread of political ideas in the 19th century. Now, as I turn to a more modern history of activism and counterculture in 1968, I am considering looking back at coffeehouses to examine how they brought American G.I.s into contact with countercultural ideas. While both of those cases examine the physical space of the coffeehouse, there is still that lingering thread of the coffee house as a “functioning myth.” But in this case, the myth is of the radical counterculture and spread of political ideas rather than of the nostalgia of the Hapsburg Empire.
Read Walsh’s article in full here.
Rosie Click, Co Editor-in-Chief: “T. S. Eliot Told You So” by Alexandra Bowman
Like the author of (one of) my favorite Footnote articles, I enjoyed watching the widely-panned movie Cats. After the film became available via at home streaming, my friends and I grabbed some snacks and drinks and settled in for the nearly two-hour movie musical. We had already read and heard the overwhelmingly negative reviews, and I remember having seen trailers for the film that fell just on the wrong side of the uncanny valley. The movie was colorful, silly, funny, and fun… but also objectively, unquestionably bad.
In her 2021 Footnote article, “T. S. Eliot Told You So,” Alexandra Bowman (B.A. ‘22, M.A. English ‘23) uses T. S. Eliot’s other writings to explain why the Cats movie failed as an adaptation of both Eliot’s own book of poetry, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, the original Cats. Bowman shows how Cats (the movie) ignored the traditions created by its source material. The Cats movie strays too far from the sweet, playful, and childlike tone of Eliot’s poems with “distracting slapstick humor between–and sometimes in the middle of–beloved songs.” According to Bowman, “Cats the movie has, in Eliot’s words, ‘no structural emotion.’” So while my friends and I may have enjoyed moments of Cats, it wasn’t going to stick with us as a powerful emotional experience. In fact, I’d be hard pressed to describe any of the scenes or plot in detail now. Still, I look back on my Cats movie night with fondness–most likely because of the laughter and companionship of my viewing companions.
Read Bowman’s article in full here.
Mallory Page, Social Media Director: “We Said, They Sed: Accents and When We Spell Them Out” by Casey Donohue
In his 2021 Footnote article, Casey Donohue discusses the racist and classist implications of spelling out accents in writing. Despite everyone having an accent, some authors choose to indicate a character’s accent by spelling a word phonetically for some characters’ dialogues, while neglecting to do so for other characters’ speeches. He uses numerous examples from popular culture and literature, including iconic lines from the television series Schitt’s Creek, selected works by Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. While Schitt’s Creek’s Alexis’ whiny and nasal accent is fun to mimic (who among us has not dramatically screamed “EW Da-vid”?), other stereotypical accents are more hurtful and reveal prejudices. As someone who has taken multiple online accent quizzes with friends only for the quiz to identify me as a Pittsburgher, I loved this article. My accent has mainly been a fun party trick at a night out with friends (“say ‘downtown’ again, Mallory!”), I recognize that some accents are more respected than others. Donohue’s article reminds writers to be more conscientious about how they write dialogue and what stereotypes they may be perpetuating with their inclusion of accents.
Read Donohue’s article in full here.
Sareena Dubey, Co Editor-in-Chief: “On Sweaters and Military Incompetence: The Crimean War Through the Lens of Fall Fashion” by Joshua Downes
In light of the recent winter flurries, I have donned my warmest attire, which consists of thick scarves, bulky coats, and a recently purchased balaclava hood. The latter article of clothing reminds me of one of my favorite articles on the Footnote, written last fall by my former colleague Joshua Downes (MAGIC ‘23). In “On Sweaters and Military Incompetence: The Crimean War Through the Lens of Fall Fashion,” Downes links the origin of modern popular winter apparel to military wear, geography, and terminology used during the Crimean War. He outlines the context of the Crimean War while simultaneously demonstrating its relevance to modern fashion. A notable example Downes cites to illustrate this point is the Battle of Balaclava, which represented an important failure on the part of the British, who lost many people and resources during this attack from the Russian forces. He also points out the names of the generals involved, which included General James Brudenell, the seventh Earl of Cardigan who was known to wear a woolen waistcoat, and his superior General FitzRoy Somerset, the first Baron Raglan who “favored his namesake sleeve for his remaining arm.” Now, every time I wear my balaclava, I am mentally transported to a distant battleground marked by cardigans, balaclavas, and raglans. A reminder of how historical events have woven themselves into the fabric of contemporary fashion.
Read Joshua Downes’ article in full here.
Jenna Marcus, Co-Director of Digital Content: “In Defense of Political History: Thoughts and Tantrums from a PhD Student” by Victoria Saeki-Serna
In her 2023 Footnote article “In Defense of Political History,” PhD student Victoria Saeki-Serna responds to criticisms of the field of political history. As a fellow student of political history, this article resonated with me. Like Saeki-Serna, I agree that the way political history is conducted is often problematic, and that the growing scholarship on diverse fields of social history is long overdue. The shift towards interdisciplinary approaches within the discipline, too, is unequivocally a positive one. Yet, it would be a mistake to allow important criticisms of the field to obscure the value of studying political history. Political history allows us to understand the institutions and structures that have shaped the present and meaningfully impact our lives. Being able to contextualize current events, among other things, allows us to become more critical observers of our time and make more informed decisions, both in our political and personal lives.
Read Saeki-Serna’s article in full here.
Image: Nana Smirnova, Archives, 23 May 2020, sourced from https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-and-blue-wooden-cabinet-IEiAmhXehwE
You can find all of the bios for the Footnote staff here.
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