Things Noted Here and There

by Cliopatria

The history department at Harvard is considering the possibility of abolishing its History 10a (antiquity through 1650 CE) requirement for a concentration in history and replacing it with"long ago" and"far away" selectives.

David W. Blight,"Desperate Measures," Washington Post, 5 March, reviews Bruce Levine, Confederate Emancipation; and Heather Cox Richardson,"A Dream Deferred," Washington Post, 5 March, reviews Eric Foner, Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction.

According to the BBC, the government of Kenya ordered a police raid on the Standard group newspaper office and its allied television station, KNT, on Thursday. Three journalists were arrested, an entire press run of the newspaper was destroyed, and the television station was off the air for hours. You can see videotape of the raid at BareKnucklePolitics. Tim Burke comments on it here. And, yes, it can happen here. Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the tip.

The National Book Critics Circle prizes were announced on Friday. The winners include: in nonfiction, Svetlana Alexievich for Voices from Chernobyl, an oral history of the 1986 disaster; in biography, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus, their long-awaited biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer; in autobiography, Francine du Plessix Gray for Them, a memoir about her"glamorous, but troubled" mother and step-father; and, in fiction, E. L. Doctorow for The March, his much-honored novel set in the Civil War.

GWB should not pick up a cricket bat when Sepoy is watching!

Sage at Ragesoss 2.02 pursues our search for a good historian joke. I think the search continues ...

Finally, many thanks to our colleague, Manan Ahmed, who has updated Cliopatria's History Blogroll with more than 35 additions, corrections, and deletions. Go over and have a look. In addition to hundreds of others, you'll find 26 military history blogs, 15 history blogs in languages other than English, and 12 history of science & technology blogs.

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Andre Mayer - 3/6/2006

The new requirement is to some extent a reversion to what existed when I was an undergraduate a generation (plus a bit) ago -- a requirement of coursework on a non-Western subject, and also pre-1485 (or some such date). English majors had to take English 10, but that's a narrower subject, and there really are things that all English majors should study.

Rebecca Anne Goetz - 3/5/2006

I'm sorry, KC, I've just read Laurel's column three times and I don't see where she says anything about teaching chronology being bad. I would have been surprised had she said anything of the sort, since I have taught with her and I've never known her to abandon chronology.

I think you might be referring to the part in her column where she says that the Harvard History Department, like most other history departments, no longer offers surveys couched in a narrative that would be familiar or welcome to NYT columnist John Tierney. (Her Crimson column was in response to Tierney's nasty column form last Saturday's NYT.) But that does not mean that the department doesn't offer surveys--just simply that the shape of surveys has changed, just as the narrative has changed.

Robert KC Johnson - 3/5/2006

Interesting. I was struck by the comment in Laurel Ulrich's Crimson op-ed this week that chronological sequencing courses (at least in US history) represent bad teaching; I hadn't heard this view expressed before. I've always worked under the assumption that most History Departments have a mix of chrono. surveys and thematic classes.

Rebecca Anne Goetz - 3/5/2006

I'm really not sure, KC. I suspect that some sort of survey will be offered occasionally, since some professors (Professor Kishlansky among them) really do like the idea of a basic Western Civ course.

But, the department could still vote to retain 10a as a requirement too. The faculty hasn't yet decided. The 10a elimination is part of a broader set of changes in departmental requirements (including the 97, 90, 98, and 99 sequences) that are designed to make it easier for history concentrators to study abroad, and to allow students more electives within the concentration. I suppose it is possible that some parts of the curriculum will remain while others are eliminated.

There was an undercurrent in the article (especially in the quote from Professor Hankins) that the non-Americanists in the department resent the influence and popularity of American history. I think the "long ago and far away" requirement is designed to counteract that, and to more effectively lead students into ancient, medieval, and early modern history. 10a doesn't act like that kind of gatekeeper course now.

Robert KC Johnson - 3/5/2006

The 10a requirement is a relatively new phenomenon: it didn't exist when I was an undergrad/grad (85-93), in large part because the HS-B tie-in didn't exist at the time.

Rebecca, is the course going to be eliminated entirely; or will it continue to be offered as an elective, pertaught by one prof?

Ralph E. Luker - 3/5/2006

Mr. Proyect, You had disgracefully attacked one of my other colleagues at Crooked Timber (neither KC Johnson nor me). I defended him and, for that, you followed me over here. You spend entirely too much of your time on-line peddling your Horowitzian leftism, when you are supposed to be working for the University. If guilt finally overcomes you, good for guilt. My colleagues on the left at Cliopatria and our readers on the left have never been censored. You have not been banned. I welcome your departure, however. Let's keep it that way.

Rebecca Anne Goetz - 3/5/2006

I think part of the reason for the change (which the Crimson article, characteristically, does not address) has to do with the pending change in the overall Harvard curriculum. Right now History 10a counts as a Historical Studies B course in the Core. Without the Core, 10a's enrollment will probably plummet from around 200 to around 40. Since 10a is team-taught, it seems a poor waste of resources to concentrate three professors teaching a 40-person class. There are many other great courses students can take to familiarize themselves with ancient and medieval history.

I am sad about it though, because I have taught 10a myself, once as the Head Teaching Fellow. When the professors are really dedicated to it, it is a great class.

Louis N Proyect - 3/5/2006

Ralph Luker (under the Colorado thread) wrote:

>>Our friend, louie, is a full-time employee of the uni -- neither a faculty member nor a graduate student -- but a staff member, a "computer programmer", who spends most of his working days promoting his particular form of moonbat doctrine on various sites.<<

Since Ralph has neither the brains nor the attention span to answer the political points I make here but would prefer to make veiled threats about how I do my job at Columbia University to intimidate or silence me, I am forced to withdraw from this forum. This is despite the fact that I only learned about Cliopatria from an attack that Luker had made against my participation on Crooked Timber, caling me a "troll". Again, that was in the context of another redbaiting attack on a Colorado teacher--Ward Churchill.

Frankly, I am convinced that Luker is not in control of his faculties and would not be above contacting my employer about how I spend my time. This has happened in the past with other people who have been unable to answer me politically.

What lesson can be drawn from this? Mainly, that despite all his blather about free speech, that Luker and his tag team partner KC, are simply interested in silencing the left. Okay, I will make my points elsewhere. History will certainly survive the petty McCarthyite tactics of these two just as it survived their mentor Tail-gunner Joe.

So long,

Louis

Jonathan Dresner - 3/5/2006

Eliminating specific course requirements and replacing them with distribution requirements -- "long ago and far away" is a great formula -- would make the undergrad curriculum more like the graduate curriculum: No common courses except methodological ones, but breadth and diversity of exposure.

I don't know if it's a good idea or not, though the difficulty of getting faculty willing to dredge through all that (what, just Western civ? No sweat!) seems to be a big issue at Harvard, where nobody gets hired to do that kind of educational service.