Blog CXLVI (146): History vs. Applied History vs. Public History

I wrote an article for the AHA newsletter Perspectives on History that is out in the current issue.  I basically use it to push some reform recommendations on the AHA that will help the organization improve job opportunities for those who are looking for work.  A good deal of editing was involved to get the article down to the required word limit.  I dropped a couple of my recommendations and also eliminated a discussion of history vs. public history vs. applied history.  The purpose of this posting is to expand on that last point since very little of it got into the final version. 

The term “applied history” is not common.  I see “applied history” as disciplines that use existing historical knowledge to address practical problems in other fields and professions.  I wish I could claim it as my own, but the first time I heard it was in 2001 at a teaching workshop when Andrew J. Bacevich, a historian teaching in an international relations department, used it to describe the courses he taught.  It is a pretty good description of the courses that I teach at the Naval War College.  These classes are about two-thirds history (military and diplomatic) and about one-third political science (international relations and political theory).  We are using the history to develop analytical skills among our students so they can become strategists for the armed services (our students are military officers or civil servants working for various agencies of the U.S. government—State Department, Federal Bureau of Investigations, etc.).  Some of the questions we explore are historical in nature, while others are designed to test theories or answer ahistorical issues.

Applied history is also a good term for a number of other professions that study the past on a regular basis.  These career paths include historians teaching in other disciplines, archaeologists, social scientists, librarians, archivists, and editors.

History—and by that I mean the type of study that one regularly encounters in a department of history at a college or university—develops information to explain and understand phenomena, events, and trends of the past.  We can call this “history,” or  “academic history,” or “basic history” or “pure history.”

The real question then is how is “applied history” different from "public history”?  In some very real ways it is the same thing.  As I understand it, the term “public history” replaced “applied history” as a basic descriptor.  Needless to say, this term is a bit confusing.  Consider this comment from James McPherson, the Pulitzer Prize winning historian who served as president of the American Historical Association in 2003: “I cannot remember exactly when I first encountered the term 'public history.' It does not seem all that many years ago. And I am embarrassed to confess that I initially thought public history was the story of public events—the kind of history that most of us taught and wrote before the private lives of ordinary people in home and family became an important field of historical inquiry.”

While the term “public history” is one that many historians might recognized instead of “applied history,” it is incredibly vague.  It is often used to describe some very different activities that have little to do with the public sphere. The job duties of "applied historians" like myself and Bacevich are not that much different than what an academic historian at some place like...oh, say...the University of Kansas or Kansas State University might be doing.  In fact, Bacevich is an academic; he is a tenured faculty member at Boston University.  My job is also pretty much the same as some one at Kansas or Kansas State, I grade papers, run seminars, read books, and do service work for the college and my department.  There are many other people that use history to explore the issues relevant to their academic fields and they are often housed in different departments at a college or university.  They include people studying: economics, music, math, art, kinesiology, and business.  Most archaeologists, social scientists, librarians, editors of historical paper collections, and archivists are also academics.

Public historians, I would argue, are primarily those that are interfacing with a large audience comprised of the general, non-academic public. This description is not to say that doing intellectually irrelevant work or having little interchange with academics.  The big difference for them is that history is very often a consumable product for their audiences that might exist for educational purposes, but could also exist for entertainment or for issues specific to certain professional disciplines.  Teaching is usually not in their mission set.  People in these fields include historical preservationists, journalists, documentary filmmakers, professional writers, national historical park staffs, museum curators, staff historians of government agencies, and individuals working for research firms.  Public historians might have a Ph.D. in history, but many times it is something they earn along the way to bolster their other professional experiences and credentials. (In this sense, the Ph.D. is not a two way street; while it helps someone in these fields, the degree does not in and of itself make one qualified to do this type of work).

Much of this discussion got cut from the Perspectives article, which was appropriate.   It took the article off target.  I also wrote at great length about public history in Blog XLVI (46): The History Ph.D. as Public Historian.  It is a good essay and has been one of the more popular postings on this blog.  This discussion, though, explains a major thrust of that previous article.  There is a big, huge divide between historians working in academic history departments and those scholars working in applied or public history.  In Blog XLVI, I quoted Alexandra Lord, a historian for the U.S. Public Health Service, on this matter: “While researching about different careers and the many ways in which one can practice history, I was struck by the academic community’s failure to regard those outside academia as historians engaged in scholarly and valuable work.  Having embraced these foolish prejudices as a graduate student and then a professor, I have come now, as a nonacademic historian, to wonder why these prejudices are so pervasive. What does it say about our profession when we believe that historians who work with senators, reporters, policy analysts, and the general public should not be the among the best of our profession? What does it say when we dismiss the historian who uses his or her degree in a unique and innovative fashion that promotes the study of history?”

So, why is this relevant to an article about reforming the AHA in the hopes of improving the job market?

Glad you asked.  A basic problem the AHA faces—even if it don't know it—is it isolated.  Most AHA leaders have gone from undergrad status to graduate school to faculty positions, and have very little knowledge of other professional opportunities for historians.  The AHA needs to make efforts to reach out to other fields.  One way as I discuss in the article is to open up the AHA presidency to people in these other fields.  That recommendation is in the article. Another way—which got cut—is to create an "applied history" division within the AHA to reach out to scholars working in other disciplines and/or public history.  My hope is that the organization can sponsor conferences and sessions at the annual meeting, arrange for the publication of articles in Perspectives, and provide services like including "applied/public historians" in the annual directory of history departments in a noticeable way (maybe make it a directory of institutions rather than departments) or make advertising jobs in perspective cheap and affordable for other organizations.  The ultimate goal of all this broadening activity is to alert AHA members—be they mentors to young scholars or the job seekers themeselves—to the employment opportunities that exist beyond the history department. 

Blog CXLV (145): Success Stories

Today's posting represents the start of a new series for the In the Service of Clio blog.  This series "Success Stories" is an attempt to share what some new scholars have done to beat the odds and find steady employment.  This series will not dominate for a year, the way the "Eight Questions" series did and a number of other pieces will appear in between postings that are part of this undertaking.

The first contribution in this series comes from Heather Dichter.  She is an assistant professor in the Department of Sport Management and Media at Ithaca College.  She has previously taught at Franklin College Switzerland, York College of Pennsylvania, and the University of Toronto.  She received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto with a dissertation entitled "Sporting Democracy: The Western Allies’ Reconstruction of Germany Through Sport, 1944-1952," for which she received several research grants by organizations such as the Society for Historians for American Foreign Relations, the George Marshall Foundation, the International Society for Olympic Historians, and the Norway-America Association.  She has a forthcoming article in History of Education, has had her work appear in Stadion, and co-edited a special issue of Sport in Society on the Olympic Reform process in the aftermath of the Salt Lake City bidding scandal.  She is currently co-editing with Andrew Johns an anthology on sport and foreign relations after 1945, as well as working on a monograph on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the bidding process for the 1968 Olympic Games. Here is her essay:

The process by which I came to work in a pre-professional program at a comprehensive college with a history Ph.D. seems, at first glance, an strange fit – yet, the nature of my historical research and my extracurricular experiences outside of graduate school provided me with the qualities which my current department desired in its faculty. 

My interest in sport history began as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, almost always selecting a sport topic when I had a free choice for the research papers in my history classes.  I continued to pursue this aspect within my graduate studies, writing on sport in Germany during the occupation and Cold War.  While I was in graduate school, in addition to any teaching assistant or research assistant positions I held, I also continued to work in athletic media relations.  I had first worked in this field while a senior at the University of Michigan, volunteering in the Athletic Media Relations department.  When I moved to Chapel Hill to attend the University of North Carolina, I worked in their Athletic Communications office.  I took a year off between my M.A. and Ph.D., returning to Ann Arbor to work full-time as an intern in the Athletic Media Relations office – and also presenting two conference papers so as not to be completely away from academia.  It didn’t hurt being in a town with such great libraries, either.  With USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program also located in Ann Arbor, I was able to gain some experience working at an international sporting event.  During the course of my doctoral studies at the University of Toronto, I also spent two and a half seasons working with the American Hockey League teams in Toronto (first the Road Runners, then the Marlies). 

The project I chose for my dissertation not only used traditional archival materials, but I wanted to use sport organization records.  Unlike other scholars who have not been successful in gaining access to these types of files, my experiences working in sport enabled me to conduct research in the records of several national and international sport federations in Europe.  I also volunteered with the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Cologne, working in the evenings and weekends when the archives were closed. 

The University of Toronto had provided me with the opportunity to develop a course on Sport and Globalization, which I taught twice there and, later, at Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland.  However, I completed my Ph.D. in 2008, right as the prospects for academic history jobs became grim.  I realized, with my experience working in sport and my contacts across the U.S. as well as the globe, I could apply for jobs in both history departments as well as sport management departments. 

Sport management is a growing field which many universities and colleges are adding to their curriculum because they recognize the interest in sport among students as well as the size of the industry.  Because it is such a young field, there are few people who have received a Ph.D. in sport management.  Thus, these departments are largely staffed by people who have industry experience alongside advanced education: MBA, J.D., Ed.D., or Ph.D. in another area but with a focus on sport.  This aspect worked in my favor. 

The Department of Sport Management and Media at Ithaca College hired me in 2012 to teach courses in two of their three majors: sport media and sport studies.  This interdisciplinary department offers three majors: B.S. in sport management, B.S. in sport media, and B.A. in sport studies (a liberal arts combination of history, sociology, and philosophy).  During this first year I am teaching courses in the history of sport, the evolution of sport media (an historical examination of the intersection of sport and media), and an introductory course on sport media.  Whereas in a history department I might only have an opportunity to teach a course on sport once every few years, or include the occasional sport example in a course, teaching in a sport management department allows all of the courses I teach to be about the topic which I find most interesting: sport. 

Introductory courses in a pre-professional program provide an overview of the industry, introducing the various aspects of the industry and types of positions available within the field to the students.  Unlike teaching an introductory course such as western civilization, which many students often take only because it fulfills a general education requirement and do not have much interest in the course, my Introduction to Sport Media course has been an exciting adventure in terms of creating the course and opening students’ eyes to the many possibilities of working in sport – and that being a journalist or broadcaster are not the only opportunities in sport and media.  The course includes media theory, historical content, practical experiences, and writing assignments that provide opportunities to practice writing industry-specific pieces as well as critical thinking papers more in line with a liberal arts discipline. 

My contacts from having worked in sport, as well as the contacts I made throughout the course of my doctoral research, have provided excellent resources for my role as a faculty member in the Department of Sport Management and Media.  My students greatly enjoy the guest talks (often via skype) that these industry professionals have done with the class.  My industry contacts are also useful as I advise students and help them locate opportunities for the two internships required for the sport media major.  Advising is an important part of my position, and one reason why many students choose to enroll in the program at Ithaca College is because of the strong alumni network and the loyalty which the Department of Sport Management and Media alumni have for the program.  My contacts in Europe at the national and international sport federations have also been useful as I plan a short-term study abroad course for students to experience sport cultures that are different than the professional and college sports which dominate the American sport landscape.  My students will not only experience several other sport cultures, but also have an opportunity to work an international sport event. 

I spent four years on the job market, and while I am not in a history department, I am not far from my history roots.  Teaching in an interdisciplinary pre-professional program enables me to focus on the academic area that interests me the most – sport – as well work closely with students throughout their four years as they develop in both their intellectual and professional capacities.  When I first started graduate school I thought of my work in sport and my academic work as two separate parts of my life; as a faculty member in the Department of Sport Management and Media at Ithaca College, I am able to bring all of these experiences together. 

When others bemoaned the lack of job openings in their field of history, I did not share their sentiments because I was busy applying to history jobs as well as openings in other fields.  Many graduate students develop their research interests as an outgrowth of personal experiences and interests, and I encourage those students to think about ways in which these areas can work together in an academic capacity.  Look for other programs and departments which, on the surface might not appear to be a natural fit for someone with a Ph.D. in history but which coincide with aspects of one’s research and extracurricular activities. 

Blog CLXIV (144): "Reform Time"

The April issue of Perspectives on History, the newsletter of the American Historical Association, is out and it includes an article I wrote "Reform Time: Some Proposals to Help Solve the Job Crisis."  My arguments will not be new to the readers of this blog, but I wanted to alert readers to be on the lookout for this piece.  I will have several references to it in the next couple of weeks.

First, I want to note that Allen Mikaelian did an impressive job of editing the essay.  I am not sure if he bought my arguments or not, but in a good give and take, we cut the article down to 1,500 words without doing much damage.  I did remove a couple of items, but why I did that I will explain later. 

Second, the AHA staff reads this blog regularly.  This fact, I think, made them receptive to publishing my article, since they have known for a while that I have been trying to offer alternatives and ideas to solve professional issues, but they are looking for other voices.  Here is Mikaelian's assessment:

We who work on Perspectives on History and AHA social media find it all but impossible either to regard the public as a straw man or to please only ourselves, because our reading public—AHA members, nonmembers in the discipline, interested parties in other disciplines, reporters looking for a story—are always present. As creative, thoughtful people in the habit of writing and discussing, who are also plugged into social media, they let us know quickly and in many formats exactly what they think of the ideas presented in the latest issue or blog post... 

The articles in this issue by Johann Neem and Nicholas Sarantakes are exactly what we want to see. Neem responds to the Tuning project with a cautionary tale from the history of higher education, and Sarantakes reacts to the "Plan B" and "Plan C" articles offered in these pages by Anthony Grafton and James Grossman. When we receive more articles like these—thoughtfully critical of AHA projects, publications, or positions; well written; offered in the spirit of advancing the conversation—we will publish them. As editor, I'll even work to make their arguments sharper.

Much the same goes for comments and blog posts on other sites that concern things we've published. We want to link to them and promote them. They should be part of the conversation, but that can't happen if we don't know they exist.

The Tuning Project is an AHA exercise in studying and then defining what a student should be able to understand and do when they graduate with a history degree.

In the closing of the article, I said that my ideas were a constructive effort to help solve professional problems that historians are facing.  You might not like the ideas—and that is okay—but if you like my ideas or have better ones to solve employment issues—and that is the real issue, not praising or criticizing my article—I hope you will offer up your voice and let the AHA know in some form or fashion.

Blog CLXIII (143): Tuition and the Future of History

One of the impressions I have picked up over three years of writing this blog, is that most historians do not like economics.  Problem is it is a legitimate academic discipline and current economic issues suggest that earning a Ph.D. in history is going to become a lot more difficult.  

Over the last few weeks there has been some modest interest in policy circles about tuition increases at public colleges.  Last year average costs went up 8.3 percent, which according to The Wall Street Journal, is the highest single year on record.  Why?  The answer is fairly simple: state governments have been cutting appropriates to higher education, and the schools responded with tuition increases to make good the loses. 

These cuts have been so severe that supply and demand dynamics have not compensated.  Consider the case of Florida.  Funding for the State University System of Florida went down  more than $1 billion over the last six years, even as enrollment went up by more than 35,000 students.

Other schools have simply stopped or reduced certain functions. The worst example comes from the Golden State.  The California State University System declined to take most transfer students this past year.  Over the past three years the system has rejected about 20,000 students who otherwise qualified for admission.

Sandy Baum of the George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development, told The Wall Street Journal that tuition was a major problem facing higher education: "Unless we make public funding a higher priority, the funds are going to have to come from parents and students."

In a moment of bipartisan unity, both Republican and Democratic leaders have called for tuition reform.  "We can’t just keep subsidizing skyrocketing tuition; we’ll run out of money," President Barack Obama said in his 2012 State of the Union address.  "So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down.  Higher education can’t be a luxury--it is an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford."  Later in the year, Governor Rick Perry of Texas said, he wanted to impose a four year tax freeze on state funded colleges and universities.  "If you get out of the University of Texas with a $50,000 debt, I don't know if we've served you well," he explained. "We'll tell an incoming freshman, this is what the university will charge you for four years."

Easy words.  Cheap words. 

Don't get me wrong, there is no doubt that tuition has gone up over the past ten years.  After controlling for inflation, tuition and fees are now 26 percent higher at private four-year colleges, 47 percent at public two-year colleges, and 66 percent at public four-year colleges. Why?  Because they can. This is what the market will bear.  As this chart shows, student loans are the second-largest form of private debt in the United States:

The acronym HELOC stands for home equity line of credit.

Something worth pointing out--student debt has grown rapidly in comparison to other kinds of debt.  Some of this staying power is because consumers have lowered other forms of debt during the recession. Student debt, however, is different, because it represents an investment in a future career and earning power rather than consumption.  Another reason, many people see additional education as an alternative to trying to find a job in a down market. A college degree is an obvious necessity for increased earning power.  People who know and understand that fact and will pay nearly anything for a degree, and colleges know that they know, which is why they get away with fee and tuition increases that are well over the rate of inflation.

I would love it if the President's plan actually happened.  It would lead to a larger pool of students, which would lead to more faculty positions and more salary.  Sad to say, though, it ain't going to happen.  The reasons why are explained in a good article by Timothy Noah in the New Republic.

Still, that is a lot of debt.  What options does a student have?  Several, actually.  Undergraduates can enroll in cheap schools.  Americans at Canadian schools is a growing phenomenon.  Students can also graduate fast, taking heavy loads, doing summer school, graduating a semester or two early.  Another is to major in a field that promises a good rate of return on the investment, which is a fancy way of saying students are gravitating to the fields of study that have the potential for well-paying jobs following graduation.  There might be other options, but the real issue I want to raise is this: how does growing student debt affect the field of history? 

Will students majoring in history decline or increase?  Most of the attention on tuition costs has focused on undergraduates, but it will have an impact on graduate students.  What happens to a history department when funding goes down despite an increase in student numbers?  What will happen to teaching assistant positions as history enrollments decline?  How likely are students with $50,000 in debt to go to graduate school in history?  How likely is it that there will be new positions for these Ph.D.s when they finish their dissertation? 

I don't have the answer to all of those questions, but the general direction of the likely answers do not bode well for those wanting to earn a Ph.D.  In short, these issues suggest that it is going to be harder and more unwise to go to graduate school in history in the near future.

Blog CXLII (142): Eight Questions: Many Thank Yous

I want to take a moment and thank everyone that contributed to the “Eight Questions” series.  It was an eye opening experience for me.  I learned a lot about the diverse fields that make up history.  We can get a little balkanized in our areas of expertise and can be woefully ignorant of the issues facing others in the profession, even when they are down the hallway from us.  Case in point, a senior historian at a conference came up to me and said he was learning new things about different fields. 

This project, though, was far more difficult than it looks to the outside world and I need to thank a lot of people.  First, let me thank those that wrote some early essays in this series: Isaac Land of Indiana State University, Peter Messer of Mississippi State University, Angela Lahr at Finger Lakes Community College, Jonathan Winkler of Wright State University, Maureen Smith of Cal State Sacramento, Douglas Ford, then of the University of Salford now at the University of Birmingham, and Greg Smits of Pennsylvania State University for their essays.  I know all of them, some better than others.  Land and Messer taught with me at Texas A&M University—Commerce and Lahr replaced me when I went off on a series of fellowships that became a new job.  Smits was finishing his Ph.D. at USC when I was just starting.  Ford, Smith, and Winkler I know from the conference and summer workshop circuits.

The basic point is that I had some type of contact with those six and since they knew me, they did a favor for me in making their contribution.  That makes those that I want to thank next even more special.  Most of the people that wrote in this series do not know me and committed to this project believing in either its intellectual merit or out of a sense of service to the rest of the profession, or maybe both.  These type of thanks are pro forma in a lot of books, but two points are worth making: first, this series would not have existed without them; and two, a lot of people turned me down—some were rather rude about it, and others (including several people I know personally) never bothered to respond.   Either way that makes me extremely grateful for the contributions from John D. Hosler of Morgan State University and Chad Williams, then of Hamilton College and now the chair of the Department of African and Afro-American Studies at Brandeis University, wrote his essay at a difficult time in my personal life and I am grateful I had something to keep me preoccupied. I also am deeply grateful for the contributions from Denise Ho of the University of Kentucky and Nic Clarke of the Royal Military College of Canada and the University of Ottawa who also has the distinction of being the first foreign contributor to the series.  Jason Philips of Mississippi State, Timothy Stanley of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford, Susan Rensing of the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, and Lauren Kientz Anderson then of the University of Kentucky now of Luther College wrote thoughtful essays.  Anderson was at the time a regular contributor to the U.S. Intellectual History Blog run by the Society for U.S. Intellectual History.  She posted on that blog about the “Eight Question” series, which led to a lot of new visitors to In the Service of Clio.

Nine minutes after I sent Jim Giesen of Mississippi State an e-mail requesting that he contribute, he wrote back: "I've read your blog on a few occasions so I'm delighted by the invitation to participate."  The speed and positive nature of that response was stunning.

Tiffany Trimmer, then of Bowling Green State and now a faculty member at University of Wisconsin, La Crosse  wrote her essay as she was in the early stages of packing and preparing her move.  That might have been above and beyond the call of duty. Siobhan Talbott of the University of Manchester and Daniel Amsterdam of The Ohio State University contributed meaningful and useful essays.  Amerstadam also gave me some useful guidance on his field that I will end up using in my next book project.   

 

Eileen V. Wallis of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; Daniel L. Schwartz of Texas A&M University, and Edward Frantz of the University of Indianapolis wrote the next set of essays.  Frantz and I first made contact with one another through the book review process, when I was both trying find a reviewer for his book and asking him to review another title.  (If you have a new book hit the bookshelves, do not be surprised if you start getting requests to review books; a lot of book review editors do this.)  Frantz also went out and promoted his essay on Twitter, which once again led to a lot of new visitors to In the Service of Clio.
 

Margaret Peacock of the University of Alabama, Neilesh Bose of the University of North Texas, Robert Bender of Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell and Felice Batlan of the Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology were next.  Batlan then got me to write a book review for the History and Law Review. Steven Bunker of the University of Alabama, Will Hanley of Florida State University, Owen Stanwood of Boston College, Marla Miller of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Joy Rohde of Trinity University, Ruramisai Charumbira of the University of Texas, and Charlotte Brooks of Baruch College, City University of New York wrote the reviews that rounded out the series.

The voices of this series represent a wide, diverse range of experiences in addition to fields of expertise.  These 33 people attended 27 different schools for the Ph.D.  I think these experiences give the series some real authority.  Consider the wide rang of institutions:

• Harvard University
• London School of Economics
• Michigan State University
• New York University
• Northeastern University
• Northern Illinois University
• Northwestern University
• The Ohio State University
• Princeton University
• Rice University
• Rutgers University
• Texas Christian University
• Tufts University
• University of Arkansas
• University of Cambridge, Trinity College
• University of Delaware
• University of Georgia
• University of Michigan
• University of Minnesota
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• University of Ottawa
• University of Pennsylvania
• University of St. Andrews
• University of Southern California 
• University of Texas
• University of Utah
• University of Wisconsin
• Yale University

Several people helped me from behind the scenes. Knowing people in 33 different fields is a bit difficult.  I leaned on a number of people for introductions and recommendations.  They included Peter Messer, John Beeler of the University of Alabama, Galen Peras of the University of Ottawa. Michael Creswell of Florida State University, Mitch Lerner of The Ohio State University, and my departmental colleague George Satterfield of the U.S. Naval War College. Anne Marshall of Mississippi State University, Sana Aiyar of the University of Wisconsin, and John Dichtl, the executive director of the National Council on Public History, all turned me down when I asked them to write essays for the blog, but they went out of their way to recommend other possible contributors.  In each and every case, those individuals said yes.

While there is some good diversity in these scholarly experiences, the schools where they were educated, and where these scholars found employment, there are some shortcomings with the series and I am well aware of them. There were a couple of fields I wanted to include, and never did. There are two reasons. First, at the begining, I established the fields I would approach. I went for several overarching topics. Some of that follows a Americentric definition of history and might reflect the breakdown of teaching responsibilities in a big, research university like the one in which I earned my BA. Guilty as charged...sort of.  Yes, there were several subfields in U.S. history, but other national narratives were covered, and at some point I could not pursue a contribution from every small group. The American Historical Association requires that at least five people indentify themselves in a certain subfield for it to be included in its listings of specializations. I simply could not pursue someone to write a post on New Zealand enviromental history and Utah religious history. Second, I pursued entries representing some fairly big fields and faced constant rejection from specialists in these topics.  Such is life.  No one was under any obligation to contribute, but it really did make me feel particularly grateful towards those that contributed. 

This blog has a lot of readers outside the United States and that is particularly gratifying.  I tried to get foreign scholars to contribute to talk about what is happening in the history profession in other places.  I succeded in several instances.  While this list might still seem a little heavy on the American side, I would point out that several of the scholars that earned degrees from U.S. schools and work in the United States are citizens of other nations.  Long story made short, the list is a little more diverse than it looks at first glance.

To bring this essay to a conclusion, I am quite proud of the work that was done in creating this series.  It could have done more, but what it did was really quite good.  Most of that was not due to me, but others and I am extremely grateful to them. 

Blog CXLI (141): Eight Questions: Asian-American History

Today's posting represents the last entry in the "Eight Questions" series. This essay is from Charlotte Brooks, an associate professor of history at Baruch College, City University of New York. She earned her BA in Chinese history at Yale University and worked in China and Hong Kong after college. She received her MA and Ph.D. in U.S. history from Northwestern University and taught at the University at Albany-SUNY, before coming to Baruch College. Brooks is the author of Alien Neighbors, Foreign Friends: Asian Americans, Housing, and the Transformation of Urban California (2009), which received an honorable mention for the Organization of American Historians' Frederick Jackson Turner Award. Her articles have been published in the Journal of American History, the Pacific Historical Review, and the Journal of Urban History. In 2005 the Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association presented her with the Louis Knott Koontz Memorial Award for best article published in the Pacific Historical Review the previous year. In 2010 the History News Network-in its second rendition of the list-named her as one of the top 100 young historians under the age of 40.

She is currently finishing her second book, Between Mao and McCarthy: Chinese American Political Culture in the Cold War Years. Based on extensive research in both English and Chinese-language sources, it is a comparative study of Chinese American political activism in New York and San Francisco between the end of World War Two and the late 1960s. She has also begun research for a third book, The "Problem" of Overseas Chinese Education, the Back to China Movement, and the Creation of Chinese American Identity, 1900-1949. Here is her essay:

What is the greatest strength of your field? In the history profession?

Asian American history includes a wide array of communities and an impressive range of subjects, from immigration to religion to labor, just to name a few. It is also a relatively young discipline in which whole areas have received relatively little attention. That gives researchers, even graduate students, the chance to do really innovative and path breaking work, often with new or rarely used sources. In addition, although some historians outside the field think of Asian American history as an unimportant sidebar to "real" history, our field offers an intriguing lens through which to view some of the most complex issues in U.S. history: race, identity, immigration policy, and many others.

As for the greatest strength of the history profession, that is such a complicated question that it is difficult to give a short answer. However, one of our greatest strengths is the quality of work that scholars are producing right now. I just finished serving on the OAH's Frederick Jackson Turner Award committee (the award is for an author's "first scholarly book dealing with some aspect of American history"), and the quality of the many submissions we received just blew me away. And these were all first-time authors.

What is the biggest issue facing your field? The history profession?

I worry that Asian American history is becoming less important than it once was to the field of Asian American studies. In the last decade or so, other fields, especially English and comparative literature, have become more significant to Asian American studies. I do not doubt the importance of cultural studies, but I would like to see Asian American history remain central to Asian American studies as well.

As for the history profession as a whole, in addition to the simple lack of jobs in our field, I see the standardized testing craze and emphasis on data and measurable outcomes as a huge issue, especially for public universities. Either historians will be pushed to "teach to the test," which will diminish the quality of history education (and the liberal arts as a whole), or we will see administrators cut our resources and classes because the standardized tests do not include history. It is not a pleasant choice.

What is the most interesting work being done in your field? Why?

I really enjoy scholarship that uses Asian-language sources, such as Eiichiro Azuma's Between Two Empires, Richard S. Kim's Quest for Statehood, Xiaojian Zhao's Remaking Chinese America, and Madeline Y. Hsu's Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home, among others. In addition, the work of historians such as Ellen Wu, Judy Wu, Chiou-ling Yeh, and Meredith Oda on the post-World War Two era is helping us understand a largely unexplored period in Asian American history. Scholars like Mae Ngai and Moon-ho Jung, who look at Asian American history in a multiethnic and multiracial context or through the lens of labor history, are also doing exciting work.

How valuable is teaching in the professional development of a career?

I think teaching is tremendously valuable to professional development. To start with, teaching experience is absolutely a requirement on the job market these days, and many campus interviews include a teaching demonstration. If you have no teaching experience, you cannot really fake your way through such a performance! I also believe that putting together courses and lectures makes one a better researcher and writer. Teaching undergraduates forces professors to learn how to explain difficult ideas clearly and concisely; it also makes us think about how to illustrate our arguments effectively and use narrative and analysis together. Those are useful skills when we are writing books and articles.

What direction or type of publishing would you advise a new Ph.D. to conduct?

I would push new Ph.D.s to continue focusing on traditional types of publishing and, if possible, to have an article out in a peer-reviewed journal by the time they are on the market. Books and articles are still what hiring and tenure committees value, despite the availability of new opportunities in online journals and blogs. Scholars in other fields tend to view Asian American history with a bit of skepticism-some feel that it lacks importance or rigor-and so for career reasons people in our field need to succeed in traditional publishing. That is not to say, however, that other forums are not valuable or worthwhile. For example, many scholars now have a blog or website, and those can be good ways to interact with the public.

What issues affect most the development of a career: family, school resources, popularity of field, reputation of alma matter, etc.?

The most important issues usually vary by individual. However, popularity of field is a tremendously significant factor. Someone with a Ph.D. in 20th century American history is going to have more problems finding a job than someone in another field where fewer Ph.D.s are competing for jobs. The reputations of one's alma mater and one's thesis advisor do matter, but an excellent, innovative dissertation and some record of publication are more important. One's family can be a huge issue; many of us know at least a few couples where both people are academics and have been unable to find jobs at the same institution or even near each other. Such situations usually require some tough choices and sacrifices.

What advice would you give to an undergrad interested in working on a Ph.D. in history?

Don't do it! That's probably not a nice thing to say, but the job market is so bleak that I would not be able in good conscience to recommend a career in academia. At the very least, I would be brutally honest with the student, because he or she should know what the reality of the history job market is now. If the person was still determined to get a Ph.D., I would advise him or her to wait a year or two after college and not to go straight on to grad school. That would at least prevent the student from burning out within his or her first year or two of grad school. And the student might also find another interest or career path before committing to graduate school.

What advice would you give to a new Ph.D. unable to find employment in a history department?

Do not blame yourself and do not think of yourself as a failure. Also, I would tell the person to remember that historians tend to be excellent writers and researchers, with terrific analytical abilities, and none of these skills are liabilities in the larger job market.

Blog CXL (140): Eight Questions: African History

The next entry in the Eight Question series comes from Ruramisai Charumbira who is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin. She was previously an assistant professor at Denison University. Her teaching and research interests include: pre-1800 history of (Southern) Africa, Africa's colonial histories, particularly its impact on women's lives. She also does research and teaches on comparative women's and gender history; historical memory; ethno-archaeology; and Africa's 20th century intellectual life. She earned her Ph.D. from Yale University. Charumbira is the author of the forthcoming book: Strangled by the Ancestors: Memory in the Making of Zimbabwe. She has had articles and chapters appear in History in Africa, History Compass and the anthology Wither National Myths?. She is also a published poet and short story author.

What is the greatest strength of your field?  In the history profession? 

When students can say within two weeks of reading course material that they have learned more about Africa than their entire lives, I always think it is a win for the history profession. One of the greatest strengths of African history within the history profession is its default multidisciplinary sources and research methods – a practice, I am happy to say is now almost default in the profession in general.

What is the biggest issue facing your field?  The history profession?

The fact that students come to college/university with barely any African history background is very disturbing. It would be a huge improvement if high school teachers had some basic African history background that they could teach their students so transition to college is not so basic as to take up a third or so of the semester debunking infomercials about Africa’s poverty, etc., stories.

What is the most interesting work being done in your field?  Why?

The most interesting work that is currently being done in African history is through archaeology, I think. A former professor of mine, Roderick McIntosh at Yale University, is one of those that has changed the ways we think about African, if not international ancient urban history. People like him are historians at heart, and they involve local communities who participate in the reconstruction of their local areas’ pasts. By working through disciplinary boundaries, the new historiography is less interested in just insider talk, but engagement with a wider audience who in turn become invested in history for its own sake.
 

How valuable is teaching in the professional development of a career?

Teaching is invaluable because it feeds research questions that in turn produce scholarship to move the field and the profession forward – including pedagogy itself. More importantly, it is a terrific forum for reminding professional historians that historical knowledge is not just for other professional historians, but for a wider audience. Nothing takes the veil off the ivory tower better than teaching, especially undergraduate

What direction or type of publishing would you advise a new Ph.D. to conduct?

I would advise a student to ask themselves what she/he wants to do with that Ph.D., because that dictates the type of publishing they should pursue for their careers. In a word, it depends.

What issues affect most the development of a career: family, school resources, popularity of field, reputation of alma mater, etc.?

I would say all and none of the above. I say that as an immigrant who has had some and not all of the above; one who has also learned that the culture of the place where one works maybe a more determining factor than any other issue. Most importantly, personal integrity and “keeping one’s eyes on the prize” – to borrow a phrase – is what will carry one’s career successfully.

What advice would you give to an undergrad interested in working on a Ph.D. in history?

I would have to know the particularities of the student, but the most important would be passion for the subject she/he wants to study. There is no substitute for passion.

What advice would you give to a new Ph.D. unable to find employment in a history department?

I planted seeds in my garden once, thinking they were orange trees, and out came lemons. Make lemonade, as the saying goes. Remember some of most important ways people consume history is not through departments of history, but through public history at museums, or through historical fiction, and film, to name a few. You have a Ph.D. and most do not; the world is much smaller (so to speak) than it used to be by way of aviation and the internet. Step over the comfort zone and see what’s beyond the grove of lemon trees.