Every so often I get all worked up and want to be boorish about academic and public history. Then I realize I don’t want to be tiresome to you, and don’t have the time to write up something thoughtful, or interesting. I risk, then, putting up something more smartass than smart, because I tend to do that. So I’ll leave it to the experts.
Here are some good links to good essays and posts:
Alexandra Lord and Michelle McClellan in The Chronicle with “Changing History.”
Thomas Bender in the SSRC with “Historians in Public”
Both of these h/t John Fea
Kevin Levin on Civil War Memory
Since leaving public history to practice academic history, I’ve come to think that more divides the two disciplines than we like to think. I don’t think it’s an “artificial wall” as Lord and McClellan have it, but it can be overcome. It does worry me how quickly many, but not all, academics think they can slide on over and start doing public history. To my mind, it sounds like, “I can’t find a job in a hospital with my M.D. so I’ll just go practice at a veterinarian’s office because I know how bodies work.”
And while I’m at it, absolutely no academic in my internet circles have mentioned going to or being at the AASLH conference being held right now. (This is an observation, not a condemnation. Some are, but I can’t see them from my small circle.) If you want to do academic history, get excited about AHA. But if you want to do public history, you really ought to know what’s being discussed in Richmond.
See, I told you I’d get this way.
Anyhow, academics need better translators, to explain what they do. When that happens, we’ll have a better profile in the public space. Kevin Levin is real good at that. So is Vicki Bynum. John Fea is a master.
Better stop now before I become even more incoherent. In six months or so, this is going to be developed into a compelling argument for why you should hire me.
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