User:Hmeelker

I have been assigned a task for one of my classes at Carleon Universtiy: Historical Representations. This task is actually a three step process losely based on Canada's Cold War experiance. The first step was to write a book review. In my case the book was Melanie McGrath's The Long Exile which was about the relocation of several Inuit families far north. Although there is undoutably validity to the connection between this relocation and the cold war, McGrath does not point to it. She does acknowledge the families were moved to substantiate Canada's claims to the north, but does not contextualize this with the cold war. This conclusion is based on my review, with all relevent citation and acknowledgement of the authors ideas therein.

The second step was a review on the Emergency Nuclear Shelter located in Carp, Ontario, aka the Diefenbunker. The Diefenbunker explicitly reflects Canada's Cold War experiance as well as being a historical representation, or historic site.

The third step is my purpose in writing this, here, on this site. It presents a platform to represent history publicily, subject to challenge, modification, analysis and critque. So far, the differences between academic historicism (or history in an academic mileux) and ways of representing history outside of this mileux have been vast and striking. Something every history student is told (nearly) is the unsuitability of wikipedia for citation. On the one hand this is an acknowledgement of popularity and potential benefits of wikipedia for generalized knowledge. On the other hand the inherent dangers of "unqualified authors" has yet to be overcome in most classrooms.

Historical Representations is one way of overcoming the problems of wikipedia, because wikipedia, whatever its flaws, is another way of representing history. Furthermore, it is rapidly gaining in attraction to those of us not entirely ensconsed in our "Ivory Tower." The merits and disadvantages of wikipedia (even this branck of wikiversity) are subsidary to my main purpose here.

I would like to contribute perhaps an essay, or some kind of original historical addition to this particular forum of representing history. I just need to find an appropriate topic...