Thursday Notes

by Cliopatria

Tim Burke,"Research Libraries Group/OCLC Programs Talk," June, takes aim at the future of research and publication.

Nathanael Robinson recommends the current annual of Humboldt University's Dokumenten- und Publikationsserver which is entirely devoted to digital history: Geschichte im Netz: Praxis, Chancen, Visionen. If your German reading skills are limited, Michael Gervers and Michael Margolin's"New Methods for the Analysis of Digitized Medieval Latin Charters" appears there in English.

Mark Bauerlein,"History department at U of I flunks test of political diversity," Des Moines Register, 10 October, and Mark Moyar,"27-0 at the University of Iowa," National Review, 15 October, cite the lack of political diversity in Iowa's history department as a likely cause of its rejection of Moyar's candidacy. Moyar appears to have a legitimate grievance, because Iowa hired a historian with a much less accomplished record. Yet, conservative critics of the academy aren't agreed on political diversity as a necessary condition. Had, for example, Iowa hired a favorite current target of the academic left, our colleague, KC Johnson, into this position, it wouldn't have changed the department's political distribution one iota. Like some other conservative critics of academe, he's argued for intellectual diversity, rather than focus on political diversity, in history departments. A department of 27 Democrats can be very diverse intellectually. Hat tip.

Miriam Burstein,"Elizabeth: The Golden Age," Little Professor, 16 October, reviews the film.

Leon Neyfahk,"Poe's Mysterious Death: The Plot Thickens!" New York Observer, 16 October, points to new evidence about the death of Edgar Allen Poe.

Edward Rothstein,"A Century-Old Court Case That Still Resonates," NYT, 17 October, reviews"Alfred Dreyfus: The Fight for Justice," an exhibit currently at the Yeshiva University Museum.

Mia Fineman,"Say Cheese! A history of the American Snapshot," Slate, 17 October, is a slide show taste of"The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978," an exhibit at Washington's National Gallery of Art. Relatedly, if you haven't explored Shorpy, you should.

Cato Unbound's symposium,"Politics and Religion, Home and Abroad," continues. It began with Mark Lilla's"Coping with Political Theology" and continues with Damon Linker's"Political Theology in America," Philip Jenkins's"The Stillborn Modernization," Andrew Sullivan's"Religious Country/Secular Constitution," and Jonathan Rowe's"Cato's Symposium on Political Theology," Positive Liberty, 14 October.

comments powered by Disqus

More Comments:

Ralph E. Luker - 10/19/2007

Your point's well made, except that Moyar and the person Iowa hired publish in the *same* general field, so the new hire isn't operating at that disadvantage.

Jonathan Dresner - 10/19/2007

It's considerably easier to get a book contract in some historical fields than others. The absence of a monographic publication does not equal the absence of high-quality, peer-reviewed research products.

Ralph E. Luker - 10/18/2007

I imagine that's probably right, Rebecca. Still, it doesn't relieve all of my concerns. We've discussed the "collegiality" consideration before. One of my concerns is that I've seen situations in which "collegiality" was defined in terms of a willingness to "go along" with -- even become a lying spokesperson for -- a department's illegitimate -- maybe even illegal -- procedures. That is, a willingness to acquiesce in and defend what you believe is wrongful professional conduct. I also think Moyar's got a legitimate question about how a research university department could justify hiring *anyone* who is without a book eight years out of graduate school in preference to someone with two books from reputable presses in less time.

Rebecca Anne Goetz - 10/18/2007

Substitute "better fit" for "better colleague" and we might be closer to Iowa's reasoning. I have a hard time imagining Moyar as a good colleague.

Ralph E. Luker - 10/18/2007

I agree with you, essentially, Hiram. I doubt that Moyar is doing his candidacy *anywhere* any good with articles such as this. Still, I'm very leery about what departments can mean by "a better fit". I've seen a liberal department colleague hide his wish to age-discriminate and a more conservative one to hide his wish to gender-discriminate under that label. And I worry about "fit" meaning that one candidate conforms to our own intellectual predispositions better than another candidate does.

Hiram Hover - 10/18/2007

Ralph, you're spot on about the crucial distinction between intellectual and political diversity - the conflation of the two is characteristic of much of the right-wing critique of the academy.

Beyond that, it might be useful to remind readers that Moyar has a history of blaming liberal bias for his failures on the job market, and of demeaning the successful candidates. (Some of these prior complaints can be found by searching HNN for his name). Without knowing the advertised level of the search, the specialties sought, etc., it's impossible to conclude just from # of publications and degree granting institution who was the better fit--let alone who is the better scholar.

Moyar's article in particular is a nasty piece of work. It's riddled with unsupported assertions (how does he know the political affiliations of the faculty, or of the person who actually got the job?), and seems to imagine that affirmative action for Republicans is the solution to his job market woes. The kind of "balance" he wants would require departments not to ignore candidates' politics but to demand that candidates reveal them.