tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post8696838968959861066..comments2024-03-28T02:46:03.227-04:00Comments on The Historical Society: “No More Plan B”—Apocalypse or Opportunity?Randallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16755286304057000048noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post-69527425759297109992011-10-16T15:17:05.088-04:002011-10-16T15:17:05.088-04:00Present company excluded, of course! You don't...Present company excluded, of course! You don't have to read too many of my entries under "class issues" or "academy as marketplace" to know that I haven't been sipping any Kool-Aid, whether it's of the ivory tower or the corporate variety. What William James invoked as a metaphor a hundred years ago -- the "cash value" of an idea -- has become literalized in today's corporatized university. <br /><br />I understand, and you understand, that "value" is about a great deal more than money. But can't we find a way to express this that isn't completely saturated with corporate boardroom connotations? It's absolutely true that scholars need to think about the ways in which what they do serves the greater good of society, and realize that we can do those things inside or outside the institutional structure of the academy. <br /><br />But somewhere beneath all the corporate thinking and business-speak I'm hearing at my own institution, in the media, etc. -- students as "customers," education as "product" -- there still remains, I have to believe, some dim and hoary institutional memory of a different way of understanding value. I would like to resurrect that language, but I don't even know what it is. <br /><br />Nevertheless, as long as the academy will have me, I am willing to stay on board, do what I can to chart a different course, and go down with the ship if I must.LDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09742066809468902814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post-55789980083869338362011-10-16T11:03:46.300-04:002011-10-16T11:03:46.300-04:00LD, I think academicians are making a mistake when...LD, I think academicians are making a mistake when they believe there's a category of human thought/behavior called the market, and then another (implicitly purer and nobler) category that they inhabit. What I'm gleefully embracing is the idea of direct responsibility, which suggests (at least ideally) that people who work hard at something and do something that's valuable to their fellow humans will have a chance at success. "Value-add" is not meant to imply it all relates to dollars and cents in the end, but that there should be a relationship between what we do (and what we base our claims for compensation and social recognition on) and some good -- some value -- added to society. I think for the most part, the academy has forgotten this; has assumed that it's so obvious, and that their values and point of view are just so RIGHT that any thinking person would agree. But this is, in my opinion, both intellectual ethnocentrism and the result of decades of not needing to be accountable to anyone who hasn't drunk the kool-aid.dan allossohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10733670017382794923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post-90921582447767761182011-10-16T08:30:43.489-04:002011-10-16T08:30:43.489-04:00I guess my biggest problem with the value add mode...I guess my biggest problem with the value add model is that it replicates / embraces / gleefully imports not only the jargon but also the mindset of the marketplace. We can't deny the hegemony of the market. But must we revel in it? (Have been reading Frank Donoghue's _The Last Professors_, so I am feeling curmudgeonly.)LDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09742066809468902814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post-86976335473994260422011-10-15T11:02:05.624-04:002011-10-15T11:02:05.624-04:00In an interview excerpted on Boing Boing, cyberpun...In an interview excerpted on Boing Boing, cyberpunk author William Gibson says: <br /><br />In my lifetime I’ve been able to watch completely different narratives of history emerge. The history now of what World War II was about and how it actually took place is radically different from the history I was taught in elementary school. If you read the Victorians writing about themselves, they’re describing something that never existed. The Victorians didn’t think of themselves as sexually repressed, and they didn’t think of themselves as racist. They didn’t think of themselves as colonialists. They thought of themselves as the crown of creation. (http://boingboing.net/2011/10/14/william-gibson-interview.html)<br /><br />I don't think that's the last word, of course. But it's interesting that a sic-fi writer is pondering these ideas. What will I do? Write. Probably teach somewhere, someday (in spite of nobody being able to say why it's important, everybody continues to include history in core requirements). Not join the AHA.dan allossohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10733670017382794923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post-78515135422531152962011-10-13T11:43:34.458-04:002011-10-13T11:43:34.458-04:00The problem with this "value add" model ...The problem with this "value add" model is that it really is apart from the history discipline. The market doesn't need historians. Look at any current debate on jobs, politics, deficit spending, or what have you and you'll see how little value there is in simply knowing the past. <br /><br />Alright, so you'll add value in other ways. Maybe you'll write. Well, look at the NY Times best sellers in history, and its relatively rare to actually find a historian there. So you'll distill evidence into a compelling narrative. Well, you should have gone to Jschool.<br /><br />All I'm saying is that the AHA has done little to protect and promote the discipline. That's why schools have a hard time placing historians. No one thinks they need them.Stephen Griffinhttp://www.cuttingedgehistory.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post-79862438854200799332011-10-10T19:56:47.926-04:002011-10-10T19:56:47.926-04:00Jumping off of some of your other posts on this, I...Jumping off of some of your other posts on this, I think that history departments need to think much more creatively about the placement of their grad students. Why does the trad route have to be the only one?Randallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16755286304057000048noreply@blogger.com