Posted on 06/15/2009 8:51:01 AM PDT by bs9021
Gray Lady Wakes Up
by: Malcolm A. Kline, June 15, 2009
The dearth of history courses in American colleges and universities has become so obvious that even the New York Times has noticed. “In 1975, for example, three-quarters of college history departments employed at least one diplomatic historian; in 2005 fewer than half did,” Patricia Cohen reported in an article that appeared in The New York Times on June 11, 2009. “The number of departments with an economic historian fell to 31.7 percent from 54.7 percent. By contrast the biggest gains were in women’s history, which now has a representative in four out of five history departments.”
And she’s not even tabulating courses in European or American history. “At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, out of the 45 history faculty members listed (many with overlapping interests), one includes diplomatic history as a specialty, one other lists American foreign policy; 13 name either gender, race or ethnicity,” Cohen writes. “Of the 12 American-history professors at Brown University, the single specialist in United States empire also lists political and cultural history as areas of interest.”
“The department’s professor of international studies focuses on victims of genocide.” Ohio University historian Alonzo Hamby gave Cohen an idea of how the transition from traditional and factual to experimental and vague works. “In his own department of about 30 faculty members, a military historian recently retired, triggering a vigorous debate over how to advertise for a replacement,” Cohen reveals. “(A handful of faculty members had the view that ‘military history is evil,’ Mr. Hamby said.)”...
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
The dearth of history courses in American colleges and universities has become so obvious that even the New York Times has noticed.Something like this has been posted, but here's another.
We need more USEFUL and MEANINGFUL courses, like Black Transgendered Womens History or Bisexuals and Breadmaking.
My neice is going off to college in the fall and she wants to be a history major. I told my brother, “Talk her out of it. It’s a waste of money. I was a history major and I can’t see any reason for someone to go that route.” But he won’t listen. He’s a moonbat, and his daughter is as well. I’ve asked my neice why she wants to study history or what parts of history she finds especially interesting. She really has no idea how to answer these questions. Sigh.
Quel surprise. More navel gazing than serious study of history. Yes, we’re doomed!
They’ve replaced our history departments with “Women’s Studies” or “Gender Studies” courses.. Let alone a long time ago many of these History departments became anti-American, Anti-Western Civilization, and Anti-Christianity, anyway..
If I was a rising academic I’d specialize in Minority-Women-Transgendered-Islamic studies. You’d be flooded with job offers. Puke.
If the Times wants to get back some of the young they need to give some talks about the basics...
I just obtained my MA in American History, hoping to teach when I retire from law enforcement. While getting my BA I noted the comparative lack of meaningful history courses to when I started college back in the 80’s. This is the result of deconstruction and revisionist history and really has its roots in the acceptance of anthropology and sociology as equals to empirical historical research. Sadly our children are paying for this now. Hopefully I can make a small difference in a classroom soon. My focus was on Constitutional History, the War Between the States and World War II. I declined the option in my MA course of studies to delve into African-American or Women’s Studies.
“Women’s Studies”
Hell, men have been studying women for thousands of years and no one understands them any better today than Noah did.
Diverting resources to “Queer Studies” no doubt.
Maybe it is best if the "history" departments just close.
We need even more useful courses like, “Teenager transgendered black vampire with militant homophobe tendencies discovery course” or “Vegan Historicsm for Marxist vegetarian feminists proactive with civil rights movements in banana republics” or “Queer Theory understood in Platonic Athens through socialism and cross-gendered fertilization with pollen, bee-here-now theory and Aristotelian ethics” or “Niccolo Machiavelli and Italian rollercoasters of the 16th Century through the lens of radical Marxist theory and Critical Theory to deconstruct the foundations of hegemonic Modernism”.
And yet there has been a veritable flood of excellent history books aimed at the general reading public. Terrific writers such as Tom Holland and Peter Heather, to name just two, are writing highly accessible narrative histories which seem to sell well. There’s a real audience for this kind of thing, which is being ignored by the academic world which prefers to focus on minutiae and the trendy.
quick, we must steer stimulus money into a shovel-ready jobs program for diplomatic historians!
Good luck and best wishes. We need more people like you, and more courses such as constitutional history.
It’s also very hard to get a degree in American Studies from any of the Ivy League schools.
I go to UPenn and you can get a degree in studies of about 10 other cultures, and the silly one, Gender Studies, but not one in American Studies. Instead, I am a history major. But at UPenn, Political Science is the largest major.
Thanks! (belated)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.