Contemporary (1950 CE - Present)
Photograph of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese Activist
This photograph of a powerful woman, Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi, shows her use of national dress in a Southeast Asian political context. Aung San Suu Kyi was educated overseas and married to an Englishman. Yet she always wears Burmese national dress complete with a flower in her hair.
Painting of Imelda Marcos, Philippine First Lady
Politicians are astute experts on the symbols and meaning of dress as part of self-representation. For women, the politics of dress are highly significant.
Map of Ichan Qala
This type of image is known as a map. Represented on this paper is the old, walled city that forms a part of the larger, contemporary city of Khiva, Uzebekistan. This image covers one half of one side of the page of the map.
Apollo 11 Moonwalk
Look at this famous photograph of the July 1969 moon landing. When we look at an image like this, historians ask not only what the image shows us, but also how the image was used and how various audiences reacted to it. On the one hand, the photograph itself represented a triumph of technology.
Analyzing Oral Histories
The modules in Methods present case studies that demonstrate how scholars interpret different kinds of historical evidence in world history. This module is based on a series of oral history interviews conducted in the mid-1990s.
Interview with Sa’ida Jarallah
Read the excerpt on this page of an oral history interview taken by Professor Ellen Fleischmann. In it, Sa’ida Jarallah, one of the first Palestinian Muslim women to study abroad, discusses her life, especially the social and cultural aspects of growing up as a young woman in the 1930s.
Mabo Song
This is a written representation of the music from the dance mabo, BaAka music is complex. It is polyphonic (many voices) and polyrhythmic (many rhythms).
BaAka Women Dancing the Hunting Dance, Ndambo
This is an image of female BaAka dancers from the southwestern Central African Republic in the rainforest region dancing a hunting dance called Ndambo. Music and dance are important in BaAka culture.
Analyzing Music
The modules in Methods present case studies that demonstrate how scholars interpret different kinds of historical evidence in world history.
Mercator Projection, Eurasia Centered
The map is a Mercator projection that has been altered. Instead of placing North America in the center, the Eurasian land mass is in the middle. This map of the world suggests some of the ways the choices made by mapmakers have a significant impact on our understanding of the world.