Say the line! "Faculty need to tell the truth about the academic job market." Unobjectionable in itself, this is a constant refrain in online and print performances of academic self-criticism. Why? One implication is that faculty members have been cornering unwary bystanders to share the Good News about tenure-track jobs. Another implication is that the … Continue reading The Illusion of a Future
academia
Discipline and Profession
The introduction to one of the textbooks I'm assigning for next term's "Early Modern Europe" history survey contains an interesting sentence: Overall, at least in the editors' judgment, the academy has emerged bruised but resilient: more conscious of its limitations, more tolerant of alternative pathways, more cautious about general conclusions, but otherwise in remarkably rude … Continue reading Discipline and Profession
The Winter of Our Discomfort: Speech, Debate, and Learning on Campus
November approaches, and with it thoughts of #snowflakes. I was called one not too long ago, for arguing that a history magazine should not have published a letter promoting a debunked myth and defaming one of its debunkers. The use of editorial discretion in such a venue, I was told, would be "censorship". As I've … Continue reading The Winter of Our Discomfort: Speech, Debate, and Learning on Campus
Don’t Make Graduate Students Freak Out about Publishing
Sometimes the title tells you all you really need to know. But I did write a little more on this than just the one line, and the piece -- a draft of which I tried out here -- is now in the Chronicle of Higher Education, in the Chronicle Review. I'd like to thank the Chronicle editors for vastly improving … Continue reading Don’t Make Graduate Students Freak Out about Publishing
Crisis and Elitism in Graduate Education
When I started this blog, late last March, I was just wrapping up a three-year term as Graduate Program Director in a middling-to-smallish history department at a large, urban, public university in Canada. Many of the problems associated with that kind of job, and with graduate training more generally, were fresh in my mind. Joining … Continue reading Crisis and Elitism in Graduate Education
Historians under Trump
We are witnessing -- more than that, experiencing -- events that seem certain to be remembered as a turning point in the history of the United States, part of a series that is changing the political horizons of much of the world. Our knowledge is partial and the future unwritten. But the collapse of a familiar (and flawed) order, the destabilization … Continue reading Historians under Trump
Shouting with a PhD
My first week of teaching -- as a teaching assistant, at Columbia -- was the week of September 11, 2001. I was 23, just starting the second year of my PhD, and I'd spent much of the summer frantically reading everything I could to prepare myself for being in the classroom. Then Tuesday morning happened. … Continue reading Shouting with a PhD
Branding Is Not An Academic Priority
Again: university branding is not an academic priority. And to the extent that the improvement or broadcasting of a university's reputation is pursued as a matter of promoting a brand rather than reflecting or substantive academic achievements, university reputation -- including institutional rankings -- is not an academic priority either. This is not to say universities have no need … Continue reading Branding Is Not An Academic Priority
Truth, Freedom, and Productivity: When PR usurps scholarship
No one wants ill-advised assessment regimes imported into higher education. No one wants to see a single-minded, narrow emphasis on quantifying value. No one desires deeply flawed metrics being used to compare institutions and individuals. Nevertheless...[1] Quoting the above out of context is a little unfair -- the authors are talking about the need for … Continue reading Truth, Freedom, and Productivity: When PR usurps scholarship
Is Our Historians Learning? Popular, Academic, and Political History
Last Thursday, PhD student and amateur historian Rebecca Rideal published a book about London in the very busy year of 1666.[1] Written for "the general reader", it's entitled 1666: Plague, War, and Hellfire. As is not unusual for authors of trade books to do -- when the chance presents itself -- she gave an interview in … Continue reading Is Our Historians Learning? Popular, Academic, and Political History
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