Nastasha Sartore Earlier this year, over forty people logged in to Zoom to attend a CHA webinar titled “Generative AI and the Practice of History.” Introduced as a “show and tell” for AI tools and strategies, the webinar included a panel of three expert historians who each presented on a distinct topic related to agentic AI, the tech that’s been… Read more »
Felicia Gabriele The expression, “May you live in interesting times,” seems on its face, pleasant enough. Resembling a well-wish, its sunny exterior deftly cloaks the dark, cavernous depths within. To live in interesting times, is quite simply, to be cursed. To teach American History in interesting times, is, well… akin to having a staring contest with the evilest of evil… Read more »
By Andrea Eidinger Roundup, noun: The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd edition, Online edition, 2005 The very first “roundup” appeared on Unwritten Histories on April 24, 2016. My original idea was that there was so much cool stuff being published online, and more people needed to know about it. The first one was 650 words long. Little did I imagine that… Read more »
By Stephanie Pettigrew When I first started my PhD in 2013, I left a very comfortable, established community of support in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, made up of friends I had known since middle school, of family. I had a general sense of knowing my community and being known by it. When I arrived in Fredericton, I found myself not… Read more »
This week marks the 10th anniversary of Unwritten Histories, a project created by Andrea Eidinger that has shaped how many of us think about the past—how it’s written, shared, and understood. In the coming weeks, the site will be taken offline. The material won’t be lost: Andrea is in the process of building a Pressbook to house the content, and the… Read more »
This week marks the 10th anniversary of Unwritten Histories, a project created by Andrea Eidinger that has shaped how many of us think about the past—how it’s written, shared, and understood. In the coming weeks, the site will be taken offline. The material won’t be lost: Andrea is in the process of building a Pressbook to house the content, and the… Read more »
![Photo of a typed passage. It reads "Anecdotes by Ruth Fadum. G[redacted], Ward 5A, a little girl was in a body cast. She had T.B. of the spine. She was in a crib with a cover on to keep her in it. When Governor General, The Rt. Hon. Mr. Massey visited, she quietly looked at him, with her mischievous eyes, and he said, "I'll bet you're a holy terror when I'm not here." This was so true because she found all kinds of ways to lower the side of her crib and get out. [Redacted] was sent down from..." The remainder of the text is cut off.](https://i0.wp.com/activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Provincial-Archives-of-Alberta-PR-1991-0443-21-redacted-1-scaled.jpg?resize=176%2C176&ssl=1)
As I reflect further on archives and western approaches to historical research, it is clear that institutions of colonial memory are consistently used against Indigenous Peoples as a weapon. This unjust weaponization comes from what is considered accurate information, who has access to its collection, management, and manipulation, and who has the right to challenge its validity. When it comes to representation of Indigenous Peoples in the archives, the responsibility of ‘the what’ and ‘the who’ has often rested solely within documentation obtained from colonial governments and their agents.
Mack Penner and Edward Dunsworth In his case for “steering a middle course” on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the history classroom, written partially as response to earlier pieces by each of us, Mark Humphries makes a number of points with which we agree. First among those points of agreement are the value of a historical education and… Read more »
By Mark Humphries In the last few months, there has been a growing debate about how historians should respond to AI. And that’s a good thing. I’ve argued that we need to engage with the technology or risk becoming irrelevant. Recent pieces in Active History by Mack Penner and Edward Dunsworth make the case for why we should approach AI… Read more »
Edward Dunsworth Two approaches dominate discussion about how professors should handle generative “artificial intelligence” in the classroom: give up or give in. Give up. Faced with a powerful new technology custom-cut for cheating, many professors are throwing up their hands in despair. This was the dominant mood of last month’s widely shared New York Magazine article. “Everyone is cheating their… Read more »
