Still More Noted Things

by Cliopatria

The AHA has set up a site at which the"Resolution on United States Government Practices Inimical to the Values of the Historical Profession" can be discussed online by members of the Association. The discussion takes place here between 15 and 28 February. To view or participate in it, you'll have to login with your AHA username and password. Voting on the resolution by the whole membership of the Association begins on 1 March.

Tim Burke,"Publishing Presentation on Academic Blogging," Easily Distracted, 15 February, is an outline of Tim's presentation on blogging to a conference of publishers.

Believing that Manan Ahmed's Polyglot Manifesto, Part I and Part II, is"one of the best articulations of what graduate students and young scholars should be doing," George Mason University's Paula Petrik had her graduate students read it. They are also bloggers and links to all their blogs are here. Paula invited Manan to participate in the resulting conversation. It takes place particularly at: Bill's"Waiting on Abdulhamid II," Through Hiker, 8 February; Jenny's"History Polyglot: How to Translate or Interpret in a Digital World," Jenny Reeder, 10 February; Misha's"I'd Love to Take a Public Beating," Histiarum, 12 February; Misha's"Thank you, Sepoy," Propaganda Redux, 12 February; and Laura's"Three Cheers for Digital History," veprek.com, 13 February.

Carlin Romano,"Who Took the ‘Judeo' out of ‘Judeo-Christian'?" CHE, 26 January. My impression was that many Jews objected to"Judeo-Christian" because they saw nothing recognizably Jewish in its usage. Romano discusses a recent conference on the Hebraic roots of western political thought.

Congratulations to Douglas L. Wilson who has won the Lincoln Prize for his book, Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words. Wilson previously won the prize in 1999 for Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln.

Raybin's"The Graveyard of Their Dreams, Part I," Progressive Historians, 5 February. Its moving prose and well-chosen detail about Grant's march to The Wilderness means that you just won't find better narrative history blogging than this.

Patricia Cohen,"In Old Files, Fading Hopes of Anne Frank's Family," NY Times, 15 February, introduces us to a recently opened trove of Otto Frank's correspondence that is on exhibit at Manhattan's YIVO Institute.

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Jonathan Dresner - 2/16/2007

The extra-constitutional aspect of this is that the AHA council is asking for a plebiscite after having approved it, when normally a vote is only held when the Council rejects a resolution passed at the business meeting.

And yes, electronic voting is much more likely to be representative at this point, though it's worth noting that the last election in the AHA involved something like 28% of the membership, which was a recent high....

Alan Allport - 2/16/2007

Is there a video?

"Wonks Gone Wild."

Oscar Chamberlain - 2/16/2007

"by wrestling with each other for control of a microphone"

Is there a video?

Ralph E. Luker - 2/16/2007

Well, I think that things are moving, albeit slowly, in this direction. I'd just remind you that there are historians of my generation who made their professional reputations by wrestling with each other for control of a microphone at an AHA business meeting. We are aging off the scene slowly, but your generation will be less colorful.

Alan Allport - 2/16/2007

Yes, but why can't resolutions of this kind all be dealt with by electronic plebiscite? The technology to do so is now freely available; and so are the forums by which motions can be debated beforehand. To burden AHA members with the expense and inconvenience of attending the business meetings in person is to effectively silence the majority for the sake of anachronistic practice. Moderate voices are, under this system, stilled.

Ralph E. Luker - 2/16/2007

Organizations have to be able to do business. You wouldn't want to adopt some rule of membership that requires that you go to a meeting and imposes consequences if you don't, would you? Going to the business meeting at an AHA convention isn't a particularly popular choice of activity. 100 people is constitutionally a quorum. If you want to obstruct the conduct of business, you can call the question of whether there is a quorum. Often, there's not -- but, in this case, there clearly was a quorum present -- however representative or unrepresentative it may have been.

Alan Allport - 2/16/2007

You know a lot more about the AHA rules than I do, Ralph. But even though I oppose this particular resolution, and will vote against it, I can understand the frustration of the HAW folks at the extraordinary treatment of their successful motion on what appears to be a technicality. What all this suggests to me is that the current model of the AHA Business Meeting, with its tiny turnout and dubious claims to quorum, is flawed. Would you agree?

Ralph E. Luker - 2/16/2007

I suspect that that's yet to be seen. By "ad hoc constitutionality," do you refer to the fact that, of the three resolutions considered in the business meeting, this was the only one that was not submitted in time to be circulated to the whole AHA membership? I suspect that it could have been challenged in the business meeting on those grounds -- but the business meeting was packed with its supporters and there probably would have been a riot had it been ruled out of order on those grounds. I think that, according to the constitution, the executive committee has the prerogative of rejecting any action taken by a majority vote in the business meeting. By accepting the resolution, but submitting it to a vote of the whole membership, I think among other things the executive committee seeks to compensate for the fact that this resolution was not submitted in time for the whole membership to have seen the text of it prior to the convention.

Alan Allport - 2/16/2007

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the resolution for a moment, I wonder if this affair (and its ad hoc constitutionality) will lead to the AHA changing the practices of its business meetings?