Near East Ancient History - Where does it Belong?

[naan/steak-holding toll]

For the discussion from the previous thread. If a mod could move the relevant posts here, that'd be great.

[Auroni]

In world history because it's neither American nor European, or in "other history" if your tournament has a subdistribution for that.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

So, is your position that the distinction should be purely geographic?

For example, in the Great Game bonus that I submitted, I talked almost exclusively about European diplomacy, though I threw in Kabul to make the Afghanistan part "truly" easy for teams who don't know the 1979 Soviet invasion. However, the question primarily concerned European diplomatic relations, European imperialism, European terminology (Great Game), etc. even though it wasn't physically in Europe. How would you classify this question, Auroni?

And how about the reverse - say, the Persian Wars or various Ottoman adventures in the Balkans, when non-Europeans are screwing with stuff in Europe?

[Cheynem]

There's some gray area. Like you could write a British history question that is mostly about colonial activities, for sure. Usually as a history editor I just fill gaps when needed by using logic (sometimes I even use ancient history for world just to round out that category).

[Auroni]

That question could be a British history question or a world history question to suit the needs of your set, because it was important in both the histories of the British Empire and in the actual countries where the Great Game was played out. Nobody would object to it being slotted into either category.

[Lagotto Romagnolo]

Auroni is absolutely right. Just make sure that you don't write submit another question on Central Asia in the world history distribution, if you submit the Great Game bonus as a Euro history question. Likewise, if you want to put an ancient Egypt bonus under 'Classical history' that's probably fine, as long as your questions in the 'world history' distro are not on post-ancient Egypt.

[AKKOLADE]

I guess they belong in packets sometimes.

[Rufous-capped Thornbill]

You can write a tossup on West Germany for your American history distribution as last year ACF Nats did and you can write a tossup on Taiwan for American history as I did for Marshall's CO History. In the case of Thutmose III or a tossup on, say, Sargon the Great, that's World history. This is not hard.

[The Kirk Store Called]

Where Egypt "belongs" in the distribution is an interesting question. Classical Egypt had a tendency of being otherized/orientalized in a way that downplays the continuity it forms with other nearby classical culture areas (most notably Greece).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Eg ... magination

I'd personally put it in under European classical history, but in general, where we slot these things doesn't really matter (since it's only a question or two here or there), unless there's a very consistent bias in favor of a certain subject. Like if world history had the Anglo-Zulu War, European history had Harold Hadrade and Boadicea, and U.S history had the Lend-Lease act. But it's highly unlikely anyone would pull that. And people generally don't veer into the ridiculous (like making Roman Egypt World History).

Sometimes there are unfortunate misses though, like making the Hellenistic Ptolemy dynasty in Hellenistic Egypt world history (and keeping it separate from the rest of the Greek-speaking world) or the stubborn tendency to using the Anglo-Boer War to fulfill the world distribution. Obviously not a big problem, but it sometimes feels like people just want to check off the world history subdistribution with things are still very "European" (admitting here that's not a very useful social construct that is).

[Cheynem]

Come on, man. When you're editing tournaments, you put questions in to fill slots that are accessible and interesting. There is absolutely NO reason why Egypt cannot be world history (even Roman Egypt or GASP--the Hellenistic Ptolemy dynasty!) or the Anglo-Boer war world history. I guess if you want to put Egyptian history under European history, you can try that, but it seems bizarre to me that you berate the editors for following completely established principles of quizbowl instead of ideas that only you believe.

[AKKOLADE]

This is a dumb argument.

[Lagotto Romagnolo]

It seems exceedingly suspicious when the rule has been said to primarily exist because of antipathy towards one specific and often orientalized culture. It is more suspicious when this antipathy is based on perceived "shortcomings" with a culture whose perceived presence fails to trigger similar reactions for any other culture. "Some posts suck" is a red herring. The real argument seems to essentially be antipathy towards a specific culture.

Classical Egypt had a tendency of being otherized/orientalized in a way that downplays the continuity it forms with other nearby classical culture areas (most notably Greece).

Kirk, I can't tell you how or how not to post, but I will note that your argument, as you have presented it, smells almost like a political platform, and those never end well in quizbowl discussion threads. On the other hand, I will say that I agree with you on this:

in general, where we slot these things doesn't really matter (since it's only a question or two here or there), unless there's a very consistent bias in favor of a certain subject. Like if world history had the Anglo-Zulu War, European history had Harold Hadrade and Boadicea, and U.S history had the Lend-Lease act. But it's highly unlikely anyone would pull that.

I think this is something we can all get behind. We're better off focusing on distributional balance as a whole than nitpicking on where the cutoff line for 'Classical Europe' is.

[Galadedrid Damodred]

European, Canadian, and Australian history: 3/3 (out of these six questions, 1 should be on classical history, 1 on British history, and 3 on continental Europe from three different post-classical time periods. The remaining question can be another British history question, another continental Europe question, or a question on Canadian or Australian history. )

I wrote the Ptolemy question that seems to be getting a lot of attention. In our packet, I classified it as part of the 3/3 mentioned above, because the Ptolemaic dynasty was Hellenistic in origin; however, a topic like Thutmose III is clearly not European in nature. Similarly, the Seleucid dynasty is "classical" but a question on the Neo-Assyrians should fall under the 1/1 world history. Basically, there's a distinction between "classical" and "ancient" that people need to realize exists, with "classical" being the subset of "ancient" that falls under European history as defined for quizbowl.

As for the grey area where multiple areas of the world are involved, I think it should be left up to editor preference. Personally, I'd prefer that tournaments had more of these questions because they get to the core of what studying history is all about. People shouldn't be afraid of writing questions that don't appear to belong solely to one category (this applies to other subjects too), as long as they aren't gimmicky. Let's leave the Mixed_Impure_Academic to NAQT.

[DumbJaques]

Where Egypt "belongs" in the distribution is an interesting question. Classical Egypt had a tendency of being otherized/orientalized in a way that downplays the continuity it forms with other nearby classical culture areas (most notably Greece).

I almost don't want to legitimize this post by treating it as serious, but what in Edward Said's Beard are you talking about? You cannot orientalize something by putting it in a quizbowl distribution; throwing this term around makes you sound foolish. Basically this is because god, nobody cares. But if you really want to get into it, Orientalism is a process of engagement; writing a Thutmose question and then making it "World" to fill your distribution is not fucking Orientalism.

The worst part about all this is that somewhere in there is an essentially good point, but it has been obscured by your absurdity. "European" is probably a misnomer placed in quizbowl for no particular reason that really could stand some renovating. I'd personally suggest using a 2/2 "Mediterranean" distribution, which could encompass classical and near-east as well as "Middle Eastern" topics that play a clear role in Western history (Ottoman history, Byzantine-Arab stuff, Arab-Israeli stuff, colonial history, etc.). But again, this is about balancing your sub-distribution; the rest will probably take care of itself.


Anyway Kirk Jing, you've been tempbanned for substantively editing your posts in at least one SUBMIT thread. Sadly, you've NOT been banned for a litany of dumb posts, but if you wanted to take this as encouragement to stop doing that, I don't think anyone would object.

Hopefully this hands-on experience with the otherizing process will prove most illuminating.