In the coming weeks Historically Speaking subscribers will receive the latest issue. In it we have essays on American political history and reform (John Frederick Martin and F. S.
The September issue also includes James M. Banner's fascinating essay "The Almost Nonexistent History of Academic Departments." Writes Banner: "Department histories are almost nowhere to be found." Why is that so? Says Banner:
The history of education has never found a strong place in history departments. Those aspiring historians seeking entry to graduate programs, even those with a nascent interest in the history of education, have not been without good sense in defining their interests to graduate program admissions committees as being, say, in the social history of ideas if they are interested in academic culture or, say, in the history of the social composition of academic faculties or student cohorts if they have a general interest in academic institutions. Those of their mentors who might wish it were otherwise, who would like to see students pursue the history of academic departments—and there are a few, even if very few, of these—have found it a losing game to try to attract their students to such subjects. It is thus a distinctive and hardy student who proposes to undertake a dissertation on the history of a university department in any discipline.
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