Presentism 
-
SOURCE: American Conservative
12/31/2022
The End of (Academic) History
by Sumantra Maitra
A former academic historian argues that the discipline has killed itself in the marketplace of ideas by broadening its subjects of study and should return to being an emotionally detached pursuit of nonprofessional elites unconcerned with the relationship of past and present.
-
SOURCE: Quillette
9/13/2022
James Sweet Shouldn't Have Apologized for the Truth
by Jeffrey Herf
"Those who repress inconvenient facts or produce fictitious evidence to nourish a politically convenient story are simply not historians—they are activists or propagandists."
-
SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
8/29/2022
Was the AHA President's Essay Just a Tempest in a Teapot?
Did James Sweet's essay unleash a storm of recrimination and anger? Sure. But maybe also useful scholarly self-reflection?
-
SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
8/24/2022
History is Always About Politics
by Joan W. Scott
The tradition of the discipline has cast politics as an object of study, but deliberately ignored the way that writing history is tangled up with who wields power and how.
-
SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
8/23/2022
Two Cheers for Presentism
by David A. Bell
Now that the dust has settled over the AHA President's controversial essay, it's time to consider more carefully how the present informs the work of historians, and how to do "presentism" right.
News
- Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham on the AP Af-Am Studies Controversy
- 600 African American Studies Faculty Sign Open Letter in Defense of AP African American Studies
- Organization of American Historians Statement on AP African American Studies
- Historians on DeSantis and the Fight Over Black History
- How the Right Got Waco Wrong