Mr. Dyke,
My resolutions for the New Year were not so much advice as elemental lessons drawn from last year's experience, lessons so elemental, it seems to me, that it is surprising that they even need be stated.
No one, including Professor Ellis, mistook his charade for "acting." I once had a department chairman who was known for doing an imitation of Queen Victoria in the department's required course in English history. He was a very large man. No one mistook his acting as a deception.
You seem inclined to think that the punishments meeted out to our colleagues in the history profession are simply a function of the political atmosphere rather than appropriate to the offense. Think again. Poulshock and Bellesiles faced the same consequence for similar levels of offense. It wasn't the degree of public controversy over the offense which dictated the punishment, because the Poulshock case happened with little public attention.
I do recommend that historians act less like snakes in the coming year. Kirstein's venom betrayed his pacifism. The reigning authority in Brooklyn College's history department betrays its commitment to professional standards of good teaching and scholarship.
by Ralph E. Luker on January 2, 2003 at 9:49 AM