Departments
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Week of 13 November 1998 |
Vol. II, No. 14 |
Feature
Article
Discontent with faddish political slant locates new Historical Society at BU
By Eric McHenry
When Craig Klafter learned that the American Historical Association had at the last minute relocated its annual meeting for a political reason, he threw away his membership card.
"They moved it to another city at considerable cost to the membership -- hundreds of thousands of dollars -- because they objected to a new Cincinnati ordinance concerning gays and lesbians," says Klafter. "Whether I support or don't support that particular ordinance is irrelevant. I didn't think it was appropriate for a historical society to be making that kind of stand, especially without consulting its membership."
Klafter later learned that he was one of some 3,000 people to resign from the organization in the wake of that event. Increasingly, he says, members of the AHA see it as centralized, unwieldy, and unresponsive to their concerns.
This, according to Klafter, mirrors a larger anxiety among some historians that the pursuit of inclusion has made their discipline exclusive. Objectivity and empiricism, they feel, have been made subordinate to "identity politics." Military, political, legal, and economic historians feel marginalized.
The Historical Society, a new national organization housed at BU, has come into existence in part to counteract such perceived trends. According to its literature, the society "embrace[s] people of every ideological and political tendency" and "reject[s] political proscription in any guise." In these ways it has a clear analogue in the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics, a society thick with BU scholars that was born out of similar reservations about the Modern Language Association and its apparent hegemony.
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Robert Dallek, CAS professor
of history, is BU's contribution to a search
committee that will recommend a candidate to join
the University's teaching faculty and serve as
national director of the Historical Society.
Photo by Fred Sway
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"I don't think anyone objects to the diversification of the discipline," says Robert Dallek, CAS professor of history and a member of the search committee for the society's national director. "It's a broadening that has made the history profession a more imaginative one. But the old cliché goes, Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Those more traditional subjects -- political, presidential, diplomatic history -- are still important.
"One hopes that this society will realize its intention to be truly catholic, with a small 'c'," Dallek says, "that it will be broad-based and wide-open to varieties of historical thinking at all levels."
The society is having no difficulty attracting members, in part because it has tapped a vein of disaffected scholars, and in part because many of those scholars are among the most respected in their fields. Over 800 professional historians and students from around the country have already signed on to the organization, despite the fact that it is only half a year old and has not yet begun to promote itself aggressively.
William Keylor, CAS professor and chairman of the department of history, says that seeing a list of society members that included some of the most distinguished names in his subspecialty -- the history of international relations -- made his decision to join an easy one. He adds that he is a 25-year member of the AHA and intends to remain active in that organization. But he believes the less centralized Historical Society, which encourages its regional constituents to plan activities according to their own needs and interests, will afford more and better opportunities for stimulating interaction among colleagues.
"The AHA is a gigantic organization, and it has become a very impersonal experience to attend its annual convention," says Keylor. "I think many people are attracted to the idea of a smaller organization that attempts to build participation at the grass roots." When speaking of his interest in the society, Keylor adds, he speaks only as a historian and not on behalf of his department.
The Historical Society was first proposed by Eugene Genovese, a prominent and somewhat controversial historian now retired from the Atlanta University Center, and Donald Kagan, a Yale University scholar. Several institutions, Klafter says, including Emory and New York universities, expressed early interest in being home to the society, but BU "made the most attractive offer." The University has provided office space at 656 Beacon St. and will help sponsor two journals the society plans to publish -- a general historical quarterly and a journal of full-length book reviews. A faculty position has also been created to accommodate the society's national director, who will teach part-time at the University. That appointment, Dallek and Klafter say, will depend upon the emergence of a candidate who suits both the administrative needs of the society and the academic needs of the department in which he or she will teach.
"The University saw recruiting the society as a way to strengthen our historical programs," says Klafter. "Housing the society here will provide opportunities for both undergraduates and graduate students to engage in internships, in research projects, and in editorial work. Giving students that sort of practical experience will be a great advantage for our department of history."
BU's will not be the only students of history to benefit from the society's endeavors, Klafter adds. "One of the major problems with the AHA has been its job search process, which is open only to members. Its annual convention is often referred to as a meat market. Students are interviewed in 15-minute slots nonstop from morning to night. I don't know of a single Ph.D. candidate who has found that experience to be beneficial.
"The society," he says, "is hoping to establish an online database of résumés of graduate students who are looking for employment, something chairmen of departments can search for particular specialties and so forth. In this and other ways the society is trying to develop some humane alternative to the meat market."
BU will host the Historical Society's first national meeting, from May 27 to 29, 1999. For more information, call 358-0260 or visit the society's Web site at http://home.nycap.rr.com/history.