Epiphany

For my independent study on British responses to the French Revolution, I am supposed to read Richard Price's "Discourse on the Love of Our Country" this week. Price's pro-revolutionary address, delivered in 1789, provoked a famous response from Edmund Burke, beginning the pamphlet war I will be studying.

To find the text, of course, I checked our library first. But it looked as if our only copy is on microfiche, and I did not want to bother with that. So I resorted to the trusty old information superhighway.

I quickly found a copy here. However, I then decided I wanted a slightly more authoritative source, so I tried Liberty Fund's Online Library of Liberty. But for some reason, I couldn't access the site. So I just printed out the Constitution Society version.

The next day, I tried Liberty Fund again. This time, I got through to its copy of Price's speech. And as I looked at that page, I made a discovery.

I already own a hard copy! Liberty Fund published the discourse in Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, which is sitting on one of my bookshelves right now.

I am not sure how to explain why this event had such significance for me. It represented vindication and hope.

First day of classes

This afternoon, I had my first graduate class ever. But it doesn't really count. It is just an undergraduate course with an option for graduate credit.

My first real graduate class begins in about an hour.

The most dangerous subtitle in America

Apparently, David Horowitz has a weblog dedicated to his recent book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. I stumbled across it in the course of doing other Internetish things, and the latest post caught my eye.

Now, I have refused outright to read this book on the basis of its subtitle alone. I consider that subtitle inherently pejorative and defamatory; it makes civil dialogue impossible from the beginning. Interestingly, Horowitz admits that this subtitle is misleading. He claims that "Most Dangerous Academics in America" was not his idea, and that he opposed it at first.

The academics [profiled in the book] were all ideologues of the left, which meant that their growing influence in the academy would undoubtedly influence, in a negative way, America's war on terror. The claim that these professors might be the "most dangerous," on the other hand, was hard to justify. Because my intention was not necessarily to show extremes, but to reveal a pattern of professorial behavior that affected a larger group than I had included, there were obscure academics such as Marc Becker of Truman State, and moderate leftists like Michael Berube and Todd Gitlin. The inclusion of these three (and a few others) under the rubric "most dangerous" was sure to raise eyebrows, and legitimately so. This was of particular concern to me because I knew that my critics would jump on the word "dangerous" to avoid engagement with the issues raised in the book and to charge that it was a "witch-hunt."

How perceptive of him. I think he was right; to include "moderate" professors among the "most dangerous academics in America" just might lead to confusion among some readers.

But of course, Horowitz thinks this confusion lies mostly in the minds of the book's disingenuous critics, who use the discrepancy to "avoid engagement with the issues raised in the book."

I opposed the addition. "If we give it this subtitle" I told the publisher, "academics will regard it as a witch-hunt and no one in the academy will read it." My publisher's reply was this: "Who in the academy is going to read it anyway? They'll hate this book no matter what you call it and only ten of them will buy it, whatever its title. We need to market it to a large audience, and this subtitle will do the trick, and that’s what we're going to do."

Journalists don't write the headlines of their articles, and most book authors don't have authority over their book-titles. The campaign to taint me with the McCarthy brush was already extensive. If two hundred tenured radicals at Harvard could censure its liberal president and force him to resign, why would I think they could not discredit me, while discouraging academics generally from reading my book? [...]

So I went along with the marketing strategy, which seemed to work. In its first six months of publication, The Professors sold forty thousand copies and stimulated a national dialogue on the issues it was attempting to raise. But the strategy also facilitated the predictable attacks.

Something was bothering me at this point, as I read his post. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. There was something amiss ....

Oh, yeah. The weblog I was reading. Its title is Dangerous Professors. And its address is http://dangerousprofessors.net/.

So let's get real. Horowitz is no victim of unreasoning vitriol, at least in this respect. He is basking in the warmth of the fire he started with that subtitle. He is deliberately inviting his readers -- for he preaches only to the conservative choir, his claims about "national dialogue" notwithstanding -- to view even "moderate leftists" in the academy as a national security threat.

And we know what happens to national security threats, don't we?

Lest readers think the unfortunate subtitle was out of Horowitz' control:

Even though this was not a claim actually made in the text of my book, I am willing to accept responsibility for a provocation appended to the title page and cover by its publisher.

So be it.

Correction

Fortunately, David Davisson managed to do what I could not when I tried: he tracked down the text of the Florida education bill mentioned here. The fact-checking was badly needed, as Davisson discovered:

It turns out that Zimmerman's characterization of the new Florida law is somewhat misleading. The actual law, as signed by Jeb Bush says this -- "American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence." The "revisionist or postmodernist" line was dropped before the bill reached Bush's desk.

The "as factual, not as constructed" phrase is still meaningless at best. But the rest of it could be worse. If I could, I would change "defined as" to "defined by" for the sake of accuracy and flexibility.

In fact, I'll quote more than that from the bill:

Members of the instructional staff of the public schools, subject to the rules of the State Board of Education and the district school board, shall teach efficiently and faithfully, using the books and materials required that meet the highest standards for professionalism and historic accuracy, following the prescribed courses of study, and employing approved methods of instruction, the following:

....

The history of the United States, including the period of discovery, early colonies, the War for Independence, the Civil War, the expansion of the United States to its present boundaries, the world wars, and the civil rights movement to the present. American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable, and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.

I think I am becoming a god

According to the LA Times (get a login here if you need it), the state of Florida has ordered American historians to be infallible and omniscient.

"The history of the United States shall be taught as genuine history and shall not follow the revisionist or postmodernist viewpoints of relative truth," declares Florida's Education Omnibus Bill, signed by Gov. Jeb Bush. "American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed."

Uh ... we'll get right on that. Just as soon as we figure out what the heck the "revisionist viewpoint" of history is.

Update: An important correction to the article is here.

Fear and snobbery

I am reading Julius Getman's In the Company of Scholars: The Struggle for the Soul of Higher Education (UT Press, 1992). Getman is a law professor, and the book reflects his professional experience, but many of his arguments apply to other disciplines as well.

One of the main themes of the book is the tension Getman sees between the elitist and egalitarian impulses of the academy. He is particularly critical of what he interprets as widespread pretense and arrogance on elite campuses. His complaints come from personal experience; Getman went on from a working-class childhood to get an education at Harvard Law.

Getman argues that the snobbery is a result of fear:

Academic life is frequently perceived to be a haven for the timid, and there is much to the stereotype. Many of the worst features of academic life -- the pedantry, jargon, obscurantism, and removal from reality -- have their roots in fear of discovery. Yet meaningful success requires a degree of boldness.

In later years, I realized that many students and young faculty members behave in self-defeating ways. [...] They do not believe that they have anything of value to contribute to a high-level academic debate. Often this feeling prevents people from publishing or teaching effectively and sometimes it makes them pedantic, overly abstract, or unnecessarily elegant in the presentation of their ideas. Sometimes I think that the great majority of young academics fall into two categories: the unnecessarily diffident and the infuriatingly arrogant. In more reflective moments, I realize that the two categories are essentially one. Underneath the arrogance so common among young academics, there is generally fear of being exposed as an intellectual charlatan. The feeling is almost universal. The fear reflects, among other things, that deep down almost all of us are aware of how little we know about the subjects we teach. (pp. 25-26)

This got me thinking. Assuming Getman is right (and I'm guessing he's not entirely wrong), I would add that I think similar fears lie behind a lot of the popular anti-intellectualism that some of us complain about. If many academics cloak their insecurities with arrogance, I think non-academics often do the same. At least, in my experience.

Many people speak proudly of their participation in "the real world" as if it were morally and even mentally superior to the sheltered and luxurious (ha!) life of the universities. Some openly disparage intellectuals as subversive and supercilious pantywaists (those probably aren't the terms they would use, but never mind that). I suspect such anti-intellectuals feel threatened by an educational system that obviously wields a great deal of power in society, but in which they are unlikely to be allowed a voice. Anti-intellectualism is itself often a form a snobbery prompted by fear and a sense of exclusion.

And it's true that the opinions of many segments of society are unlikely to be taken seriously by the academy. At best, the intellectuals smile indulgently and try to figure out how to liberate these people from their woeful ignorance. It's no wonder if they respond in kind.

I still think one of the best things we all could do to make everybody feel human again is to avoid politicization [edit: "polarization" might be a better term than "politicization"; the problem is not being opinionated but being antagonistic]. If we could overlook the accumulated partisan baggage of personalities, cultures, and ideologies, we might treat each other with more respect and become better thinkers, too. I'm not claiming to be good at that -- quite the contrary -- but I would like to improve.

My two cents

Please remember what would happen to a student caught in repeated plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification -- especially if that student showed absolutely no remorse for his or her behavior.

It would vary according to school, of course. But at Harvard or Yale, the average punishment for academic dishonesty is a two-semester suspension; at Washington and Lee University, plagiarism automatically results in permanent expulsion.* And at CU-Boulder, where students "frustrated with the lack of academic integrity on campus" asked for an honor code in 1998,* violations result in punishment ranging from a warning letter to permanent expulsion.*

Therefore, I have little sympathy with anyone insecure enough to think that Ward Churchill's offenses are somehow mitigated by his critics' political views. He should be fired. For the sake of the children.

Trouble in Purcellville

At Cliopatria, KC Johnson has drawn my attention to the fact that five professors recently resigned from Patrick Henry College. The conservative Christian institution has drawn a lot of attention over the last few years; these faculty resignations reveal internal debate over academic freedom and the role of Scripture in intellectual life.

The story, as reported in Leesburg Today (23 March and 12 May) and in the Chronicle of Higher Education (12 May), is as follows.

Continue reading "Trouble in Purcellville" below the fold . . .

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Finished

It is done! I am now a former LeTourneau University student, bearing a BA in history-political science and a BS in business administration.

Furthermore, my friends Rachel and Wheeler are married.

I am full of contradictory emotions. I may never see some of my friends again (and two of them are now united in a way that will take some getting used to), and I have left a place that had almost come to seem like home. But I am also free to start a new life in a new place. For the moment, I am back in rural Central Texas, hoping for a little peace and quiet. For the Wheelers, I wish a similarly peaceful summer and a marriage that will grow ever stronger.

Seven days to degree

And now I'm totally done with my undergraduate work. Just now, I completed my last business assignment (a team presentation to a local nonprofit organization). I've earned my degrees.

Eight days to degree

I just got out of the last class lecture of my undergraduate years.

Closing in

I have a Firefox extension to count down the remaining days to graduation:

Here's how the counter looked when I first installed it.

Unacceptable

I just pulled an all-nighter to write a report.

It's a report for a business class. A report on Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

The silly thing ran to 20 pages. And now I'm sitting here, quivering slightly, listening to the birds as they begin calling outside. I'm trying not to think about the assignment I have to turn in later today, the biblical studies assignment that might almost be fun if it weren't for not sleeping the night before.

Did I mention that I did this while suffering from nausea? And that I hate the course? I hate it because it's a business course; I hate it because I've already been accepted to two graduate programs in a totally unrelated field; I hate it because it's the only course that's really requiring me to do any work for the rest of the semester.

Now I have an hour and twenty minutes before I have to turn in my 20-page report on Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. What can a person do in an hour and twenty minutes?

I think I'll go watch the sunrise.

Keeping it real

Peter Wood, provost at The King's College, a Christian school in New York City, has closed TKC's school of education.

I wanted my little college to cease feeding the monster. Schools of education mis-prepare would-be teachers in many ways. They deprive those would-be teachers of the opportunity to learn more important, substantive things during their undergraduate years; they require students to take hugely time-consuming courses of dubious intellectual value; and they inculcate would-be teachers in the educrats' pernicious ideology. It's an ideology that insists that virtually all of America's social problems derive from institutionalized prejudices; that most knowledge is "socially constructed;" and that children are best taught by allowing their natural creativity to flourish, rather than by actually trying to teach the habits of self-discipline and mindfulness.

Via University Diaries.

Update: Ralph Luker points to Arthur Levine's recent defense of schools of education.

We blame the institution for all of the problems in its field and deem its inability to change willful.

That is what is happening today when critics hold education schools responsible for many of the problems of underprepared students who fail at the transition between school and college. But the expectations for education schools are misplaced: They are being asked to carry out activities that they were never intended to perform and that they lack the capacity to achieve.

Vita excolatur

I'll be spending the next few days visiting the University of Chicago. I'm excited by the opportunity, which presented itself quite unexpectedly at the end of last week.

In related news, I find myself reading this comic fairly often. Call it morbid curiosity.

Resolution

If I ever assign true/false questions to my students, I hope I may die the death of a thousand tiny paper cuts.

CFP: Interdisciplinary

I am posting this for the same reason I posted the UT Tyler call for papers -- it represents an opportunity for LETU undergrads.

"DaVinci to Derrida: Breaking Codes Across Disciplines"
***Open to faculty, graduates, and undergraduates***
EGAD (English Graduates for Academic Development)
15th Annual Interdisciplinary Symposium
Texas A&M University-Commerce
March 31, 2006

Now accepting proposals for papers and panels dealing with contemporary issues in academia. We welcome submissions from all areas of academic discourse including, but not limited to: English, History, Journalism, Political Science, Education, Psychology, and Sociology. Suggestions of possible areas of interest:

Critical Theory
Academia/Professional Issues
Pedagogy
Graduate Student Issues
Technology in the Classroom
Foreign Language Studies
Composition & Rhetoric
Pop Culture
Creative Writing
Film Studies
Science Fiction
Linguistics/ESL
Writing Center Theory & Practice
Literary Studies

Deadline for Submission of 250-Word Abstract: March 18th, 2006
Electronic Submissions Encouraged
Panel Proposals and Workshops Welcome

Notification of acceptance and conference registration materials will be mailed electronically by March 20, 2006

Please send inquiries and abstracts to:

EGAD
c/o Josue Aristides Diaz
Department of Literature and Languages
PO Box 3011
Texas A&M University-Commerce
Commerce, TX 75429-3011
EGAD2006 at aol.com

CFP: Classical, medieval, Renaissance

I ran across this call for papers on the H-HistMajor list. I figure some of my fellow LETU students may want to submit abstracts, if they have anything relevant.

Plenary Speakers: David Bevington (University of Chicago)
Gordon Kipling (University of California, Los Angeles)
Paul Woodruff (University of Texas at Austin)

The 2nd College of Arts and Sciences Conference on Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies will take place on Friday and Saturday, April 7th and 8th 2006 at The University of Texas at Tyler. The conference is intended to bring together students, faculty, and the local community to discuss a range of issues concerning the Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance periods as well as their continuing importance for us today. It will provide a wonderful venue for those interested in earlier cultural traditions to interact and gain greater exposure to the richness and diversity of these periods through panels, presentations, roundtables, displays, demonstrations, and musical and dramatic performances.

Abstracts from undergraduate, graduate students, faculty, and interested members of the community are encouraged on all topics concerning classical antiquity through the Renaissance. Papers or sessions on drama are particularly encouraged, as are comparative studies addressing the later influence of the classical, medieval, and renaissance periods on more recent aspects of British, American, or World Literature.

ANTHROPOLOGY - ARCHAEOLOGY - ART HISTORY - CLASSICAL STUDIES - COMPARATIVE LITERATURE - HISTORY - HISTORY OF SCIENCE - LITERARY STUDIES - MUSICOLOGY - PHILOSOPHY - POLITICAL SCIENCE - RELIGIOUS STUDIES - THEATER HISTORY & INTERPRETATION - WOMEN'S & GENDER STUDIES

Abstracts of 150-250 words for a 15-20 minute paper should be e-mailed (strongly preferred) to Victor Scherb at vscherb at mail.uttyl.edu or Edward Tabri at etabri at mail.uttyl.edu.

In addition to the abstract, please include a brief personal statement or Curriculum Vitae of less than one page, with full contact information and a tentative assessment of any audiovisual equipment required for your presentation. The deadline for abstract submission is Friday, February 17th, 2006. A faculty/student committee will review submissions and respond by e-mail by the end of February. Abstracts of accepted papers will be made available on the conference web site.

Looking forward

I submitted my graduation application today. In 101 days, barring any unexpected flunking, I will receive a BA in "history and political science" and a BS in business administration, with an English minor on the side.

I'm not sure when our "department of history/political science" (the name of the department when I entered) became the "department of history and political science." A couple of years ago, I heard rumors that such a change was being contemplated. I recall advising unofficially against it, pointing out that it would make our single major look even more like a double major. I admit, of course, that the name looks cooler now -- but also less honest.

At some point, I'll have an exit interview with one or another administrator. I already have a general outline for my side of the conversation; I'll begin with the fact that the "history and political science" department currently has only one full-time professor on campus -- the other one is on sabbatical-- and neither has a degree in political science.

I would also like to write an op/ed for the student newspaper (on a different topic) before I graduate.

Finals week is over

This is a public service announcement for the benefit of those drained of all human sympathy by their final exams. Yes. I mean you.

And the weather is cold today

The paper is done. I made it most of the way down the 21st page early Wednesday morning, then -- as if it were the most natural thing in the world -- stopped. After reading through the paper later that day, I made a few repairs and expanded the ending paragraph. I printed out my final draft around four in the afternoon and stumbled through a short presentation on it an hour later.

Right now, I am finishing Philip Yancey's The Jesus I Never Knew so that I can turn in a short review in class (Life and Teachings of Christ) at noon. After that, I suppose I'll have to turn my attention to Financial Management work and studying, which I have neglected for the last couple of weeks. I'll also need to see about those graduate school applications. I keep saying I want to, like, go to graduate school, so I should probably avoid missing the December deadlines a few of my choices have in place.

Term paper progress

I have a very long way to go on my Tocqueville paper. It is due Wednesday everning and needs to be 20-25 pages long. I won't disclose my current length, but ... let's just say I started the actual writing sometime this afternoon.

On the positive side, I have an ironclad thesis. It falls into the disseverment school of Gordian-knot-untying; I choose between two opposing answers to a question by taking issue with the question. It looks mealy-mouthed and ridiculously complicated, but I've never been more proud of a thesis in my life.

I've just inserted my first block quotation, a bit I clawed out of the French myself (quite unnecessarily, since I also have a translation from someone who knew what he was doing):

I am not a believer (which I am far from saying in order to praise myself), but nonbeliever that I am, I have never been able to keep myself from profound emotion in reading the Gospel. Several of the most important doctrines contained there have always struck me as absolutely new, and the collection forms something entirely different from the body of philosophical ideas and moral laws that had previously governed human societies.

Right. Back to work, then.

Student literary conference

LETU had its own little student literary conference this morning. Although the conference was the idea, I believe, of Dr. Watson, who included it as part of this year's Literary Criticism syllabus, most of the actual planning was up to undergraduates. We had a student MC, student session chairs, and student presenters. I must congratulate all of the organizers and apologize for getting some of their credit; contrary to Dr. C's impression, I did nothing at all to make this happen. The event you planned was marvelous.

I presented a paper I wrote last spring, discussing Philip Larkin's poem "High Windows." The content of the poem raises eyebrows at this conservative Christian school -- which was precisely, I explained to my audience, the point. Fortunately, my session had no siblings or parents present -- unlike that of the unlucky Jared Wheeler, who presented a paper on Lolita to an audience that included some uncomfortable-looking families.

Regrettably, I'm not in any English courses this semester, so I won't get class credit for attending or presenting. Nevertheless, I relished the event for its own sake. I saw several excellent presentations from other students, including some whose work I had never been able to see before, and I am grateful that I was allowed to make my own contribution. I wish this sort of thing were not so very rare on this campus.

Call for undergraduate papers

The Interlocutor: The Sewanee Undergraduate Philosophical Review is calling for essay submissions:

We seek to publish essays that defend a specific substantive thesis on the correctness or incorrectness of some significant philosophical view and that show all of the virtues of a successful dialogue: close reading of texts along with clarification of key claims under inspection, entertainment of possible criticisms along with development of responses to criticisms. Even though we believe that the essays published in earlier volumes mostly satisfy these criteria, on occasion we have decided to publish essays that defend a substantive thesis, but which show rigor, independence of thought, creativity and imagination. In no case have we published essays that simply offer a reading of a philosophical text or a summary of schools of thought.

The deadline is 1 March 2006.

Graduate Record Examinations

I took the GRE today. I went into the exam sick, exhausted, and scared to death. I came out sick, exhausted, and pleasantly astounded by my math score. I'm still a little shaky on my feet; it's been a hard day.

Update: History Carnival XIX is up at (a)musings of a grad student. I would link a few of the entries as usual, but I'm pretending to study for the Financial Management exam I have in the morning. I dislike that class. Remember, kids: friends don't let friends become business majors.

Pedagogical atmospherics

A few education-related links for your enjoyment and edification.

Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker review of Jerome Karabel's The Chosen highlights the social aspects of Ivy-League admission:

When the Office of Civil Rights at the federal education department investigated Harvard in the nineteen-eighties, they found handwritten notes scribbled in the margins of various candidates’ files. "This young woman could be one of the brightest applicants in the pool but there are several references to shyness," read one. Another comment reads, "Seems a tad frothy." One application -- and at this point you can almost hear it going to the bottom of the pile -- was notated, "Short with big ears."

In Orion, Lowell Monke argues that classroom computers are "Faustian bargain."

In Common-place, Thomas Augst reflects on the implications of an online resuscitation of P. T. Barnum's American Museum.

In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Henry Farrell argues that "the blogosphere represents the closest equivalent to the Republic of Letters that we have today" -- an opportunity for academics to rekindle the romance.

Via A&LD and Ralph Luker.

Mumblesome

Henry Adams, The Education of, ch. 5:

The German students [at the University of Berlin] were strange animals, but their professors were beyond pay. The mental attitude of the university was not of an American world. What sort of instruction prevailed in other branches, or in science, Adams had no occasion to ask, but in the Civil Law he found only the lecture system in its deadliest form as it flourished in the thirteenth century. The professor mumbled his comments; the students made, or seemed to make, notes; they could have learned from books or discussion in a day more than they could learn from him in a month, but they must pay his fees, follow his course, and be his scholars, if they wanted a degree.

So, how is this different from the American system?

Taking notes

I'm trying out a new toy. My senior research seminar, I decided, calls for a slightly more advanced research management system. The usual Windows folder of text files just isn't going to cut it this time.

So I skipped over to the Center for History and New Media to download Scribe 2.5.

I tried using Scribe once before, actually -- a year or two ago. That time, I found the program confusing and abandoned it. This time, while I still wouldn't exactly call it user-friendly, Scribe seems to be behaving. I guess I now have enough experience with research (and computers) to understand Scribe's eldritch logic. I should reserve judgment, however, until I have used the program a little more.

It certainly looks more useful than Notepad.

Favorite sons

The September issue of Perspectives -- which inexplicably arrived in my box only today -- includes an article of immediate interest to me. In "Privileging History: Trends in the Undergraduate Origins of History PhDs," Robert B. Townshend examines data on the undergraduate careers of PhD recipients. His conclusion? The data "serve as an important reminder that the beginnings of an academic career can play an important role in the way it ends."

According to information collected from the federal Survey of Earned Doctorates and from the American Historical Association, a mere 25 undergraduate schools accounted for 26.5 percent of history PhD recipients in 2001-03. The top 200 feeder schools, in fact, accounted for about 70 percent of all PhDs. That is not encouraging for students in somewhat less prominent undergraduate programs.

The good news (maybe) is that the remaining 30 percent of PhD recipients come from a wider pool of institutions than in the past; 633 undergraduate schools sent students on to get history doctorates in the most recent cohort, compared with 530 schools in 1986-88. Perhaps we in the academic nosebleed section have a chance after all.

But according to the Digest of Education Statistics, the US has 1,298 institutions granting bachelor's degrees in social science or history (as of 2001-02). A lot of colleges and universities, it seems, are not sending many of their students on to higher work.

I'm not sure that any of this means much. It's actually kind of obvious that most PhD earners come from the undergrad programs that send the most students to get PhDs; this is a tautology. Furthermore, it is not only obvious but also good that the history doctorate is exclusive; for those of us who intend to get one, the exclusivity provides some hope of securing employment in a few years.

The article is merely a reminder that we undergrads need to work hard and motivate ourselves if we want success in the future -- especially if we are at less demanding schools. This university, frankly, is not going to require me to do what I need to do to prepare for graduate work. It's up to me.

Good practice

Yesterday, I received word that De la démocratie en Amérique (that is, Tocqueville's Democracy in America), which I ordered some time ago, had finally arrived at the library. I picked it up and started browsing that evening.

Since my friends keep asking, here's why I wanted to have the French version on hand:

There are some countries where an authority, in some way exterior to the social body, acts on it and forces it to march in a certain way.

There are others where the force is divided, being at once placed inside the society and outside of it. Nothing similar is seen in the United States; there, society acts of itself and on itself. Only within it does power exist; one meets nearly no one who dares conceive or above all express the idea of looking for it elsewhere. The people participate in the laws' composition by the choosing of legislators, in their application by the election of the agents of the executive power; one can say that they govern themselves: as long as the role left to the administration is weak and restrained, it shows the effects of its popular origin and obeys the power from which it emanates. The people rule over the American political world as God rules over the universe. They are the beginning and end of all things; everything comes out of them and everything is concerned with them.

Compare:

There are countries in which some authority, in a sense outside the body social, influences it and forces it to progress in a certain direction.

There are others in which power is divided, being at the same time within the society and outside it. Nothing like that is to be seen in the United States; there society acts by and for itself. There are no authorities except within itself; one can hardly meet anybody who would dare to conceive, much less to suggest, seeking power elsewhere. The people take part in the making of the laws by choosing the lawgivers, and they share in their application by electing the agents of the executive power; one might say that they govern themselves, so feeble and restricted is the part left to the administration, so vividly is that administration aware of its popular origin, and so obedient is it to the fount of power. The people rule over the American political world as God rules over the universe. It is the cause and the end of all things; everything rises out of it and is absorbed back into it.

The first block is my initial rough translation; the second is George Lawrence's translation (1966). The passage comes from the end of part one, chapter four.

I'm fairly pleased with myself, actually.

In search of reform

So, why was I on on the LETU campus recently, before the end of summer? I drove up for a meeting with the vice president and the assistant VP for academic affairs. Why did we have a meeting? Wheeler, another history major, arranged it a couple of weeks ago. Our main discussion topic was staffing in the department of history/political science.

Right now, my department has just two full-time faculty members. One of these is leaving on sabbatical in the spring; we have been told that his courses are going to be picked up by adjuncts (soon to be hired). Wheeler and I are not happy about this.

I have been taught by one or two excellent adjuncts in other fields, but I have my doubts about adjuncts' ability to build up our department, which is already stunted. We need another full-time professor, not just to teach the current courses but also to develop new courses, be available for advising, and add to the areas covered by our department.

It would be nice to have someone on staff who could teach some premodern or non-Western history. It would also be nice to have someone to teach political science, given the fact that "political science" is on the name of the degree along with "history." At this point, our political science courses are just taught by our history professors, or by a particular adjunct about whom I have qualitative concerns.

We brought up some other quality-control questions in this meeting as well. The enactment and enforcement of prerequisites have been a major concern to us. Most of our upper-level courses have no prerequisite except junior/senior standing, if that. Therefore, we often get students from other majors in our highest courses -- even when those students have never taken any college-level history or composition courses before. Besides, what prereqs we have often go unenforced. We figured that the office of academic affairs might be able to do something about this.

Wheeler and I spoke with the vice president about these concerns. He seemed very receptive. Of course, he could not have made any commitments to us, and hiring is an elaborate process. We have no expectations of any progress before we graduate; we only hope that our agitation will stimulate discussion and thought. I could be wrong, but I don't think undergrads usually volunteer this sort of advice. It is rather hubristic of us, of course, even if our professors have also been asking for another faculty member for a long time.

We have some ideas beyond those we brought up in the meeting. Offering a foreign language besides Spanish and Greek would be a good idea if we want to graduate real liberal arts majors. Also, we need to require a course in historiography, and also a senior research class. (Right now, a historiography course is only open to members of the honors program, and a research seminar is being offered this fall at student request; neither is required.) It has also occurred to us that since the major is called history/political science, we should probably be requiring everybody to take Intro to Political Science; currently, it is optional.

Of course, I also have the extremely unpopular idea that all political science majors should have to take an economics course.

I don't expect any visible progress at all this year. But maybe someday.

The saga continues

Here's an interesting possibility.

A new responsibility

Since this morning, I have become responsible for my university's celebration of Constitution Day next month. Naturally, I am all in favor of constitutions, and of the American one in particular. I must admit, however, that I'm not sure how valuable this congressionally mandated observance will be. Will anyone really learn anything this way? On the other hand, perhaps it is wise to mark the birthday of this document, merely for the sake of the mention. Certainly, it could be worse. If we were celebrating this the same way we celebrate many other holidays, the Constitution might not come up at all.

The gentleman's B

At Crooked Timber, Harry Brighouse is asking for solid evidence of grade inflation. Is intuition leading us astray? Fascinating discussion in the comments.

Finding my place

This afternoon I headed back to the American Historical Association's site. I was hoping to do two things: first, to confirm or call into question my top grad-school choices, and second, to find a few slightly less prestigious schools that still pertain to my interests.

Allow me to recommend a couple of features of the AHA's site, especially since some of my readers are undergraduates in history.

First, you can search graduate programs by field of specialization. Select "trans-Atlantic" from a pulldown menu, for example, and you will get just two results: UT Arlington and the University of Toledo. The individual records for these schools will give you a lot more information about their history departments.

An even cooler feature, however, is the directory of dissertations in progress. With this, you could retrieve the titles of 17 dissertations currently being written by students at UT Arlington (along with the names of the advisors). Alternatively, you could search all dissertations for "transatlantic"; that would show you 18 projects at 10 institutions -- again, UT Arlington figures prominently. You could even find all of the dissertations overseen by a particular advisor -- very helpful once your search gets that detailed.

In which Wilson and Wheeler annotate their lives by IM

Poor Wheeler. He has to take a class on the Cold War this summer. A class populated by people with ... interesting perspectives on international affairs.

In the following transcript, we begin by discussing the views of a particular class member, as expressed on an online message board specific to that course.

Yours truly: So ... Eisenhower could have prevented Indochina's independence from France by nuking it?

Wheeler: Yeah . . . kinda.

Wheeler: *nods*

Yours truly: I'm sure the French would have liked that.

Wheeler: although I took this as more of a Johnson administration action, from other things he's said

Yours truly: Ah. So he's just being a moron again.

Wheeler: like, at that point, nuke them rather then send in more troops

Wheeler: Yeah. Again.

Wheeler: BUT

Wheeler: THIS post, by someone else, get's dumbest of the week . . . and it was posts like this (a couple dozen of them) that got me REALLY in the mood to start sniping:

Wheeler: "It may not sound like much, but we won a stalemate t