Expect the Unexpected - The History Job Market

Anyone who reads the Chronicle of Higher Education or is applying to grad school in the humanities these days knows that unless you are independently wealthy or about to come into a massive trust fund (with no danger of being disinherited due to making poor life decisions...  like going to grad school in the humanities), you should rethink your priorities rather than sinking the next five-to-ten years into the Ph.D. hole.  In fact, don't even apply.  Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not devote your life, ego, and meager savings in exchange for the diminishing hopes of a tenure-track academic job on the other side  (See Thomas H. Benton's article).  This post is for those of you for whom this warning is too late.  You've taken the plunge.  You're dissertating (or have defended said dissertation).  You're on the academic job market.  Again.  Or yet again.

My mantra for each of the cycles I spent on the job market before landing my job (and I earnestly hope will be of use to you, dear reader) was: "Expect the unexpected."  I expected that conference (traditionally, "first-round") interviews would be held with three-to-four professors from the hiring department.  The first conference interview I sat for was arranged after I arrived at the conference.  The interview took place in the conference's lovely (read: "dreaded") be-cubicled job center, where I could hear the interviews taking place next door.  Also, rather than the three members that comprised the department's full faculty complement, there were eight people squeezed into the cubicle; I met five (lovely AND professionally-behaved) of the undergraduates I would be teaching if I was hired.  I did not expect to be interviewed by prospective undergraduates and faculty colleagues at a conference.  I have not yet experienced any conference interviews where I was sitting on the hotel room bed next to a professor's unmentionables and other paraphernalia strewn hither-and-yon.  I have however been sandwiched into a corner while eight (or was it nine?) professors grilled me, also unexpected.  Telephone and Skype interviews are likely to go awry due to faulty connections, weather, jet-lag, etc.  According to academic job wikis, many departments are now pragmatically - for budgetary and competitive reasons - seeking to do their first-round and on-campus interviews BEFORE the big January conference, traditionally the site for first-round interviews.  By doing this, they can extend an offer to their first- (or even second-)choice candidate before said candidate can even attend the big conference.  It rather reminds me of "Early Decision" or "Early Action" options when I was applying to college, which can work nicely for the hiring department, but certainly limits the candidate's options.  Accept these likely issues, "keep calm and carry on."

In this brave new world.  Since you're taking out loans to survive the sixth-, seventh-, or eighth-year of grad school you weren't planning on five years ago, you might consider hiring a consultant to help you land that elusive tenure-track job.  Speaking of which, there is at least one former-tenured-professor-turned-academic-consultant out there that you might look up (Karen L. Kelsky, whose "shingle" I've shamelessly borrowed above).

Parting Shots

Now that I am part of a department that - thankfully - is looking to expand its tenure-line faculty ranks rather than barely treading water or actively contracting in the face of declining numbers of undergraduate majors, I want to (having seen some applications of late) leave you with a few tips, some food-for-thought:

1) Most obviously, if you are a grad student at a top-ranked university, most of the jobs you are applying to will be at teaching institutions.  Your advisor may only have taught (or "taught") at top-flight R1 universities, and may have little wisdom to impart to you about how to apply to (or life at) teaching-focused colleges.  They may even actively discourage you from applying to such schools in the first place.  In my experience, I have had to prove to sometimes rather skeptical prospective colleagues that I can survive and/or thrive in a teaching-only environment.  So, do what you already know how to do so superlatively: do your research on these schools, and demonstrate to the search committee (whether on the telephone, over Skype, or in person) that you understand what their school is about and enable the search committee to easily picture you fitting in as their new colleague.

2) Please actually tailor your application cover letters to the kind of institution you are applying.  Liberal-arts-colleges-are-not-research-universities-are-not-postdocs.  Frontloading your cover letter with your wonderful, paradigm-shifting research plans will not (positively) overwhelm liberal arts college search committees.  For more wisdom from a liberal arts college professor about applying to, see this blog post.

3) Last but by no means least: get teaching experience (particularly as the Primary Instructor).  If you also went to a private research university for grad school, your opportunities for designing and teaching your own courses were probably - or seemed - very limited.  Do whatever you can to attain those (hopefully well-remunerated) teaching fellowships to offer a course in the specialized subject area you already love.  Also, in this increasingly parlous humanities job market, make sure that 1) as an Americanist, you get some experience in teaching (or at least TAing) one or both halves of the US history survey; or 2) as a rest-of-the-worldist you gain teaching experience in World History.  Your elite grad school may scoff at the idea of offering such plebeian classes, but they are bread-and-butter to many history departments at teaching-focused institutions, and you can help make your case as a job candidate via your ability and interest in such classes (maybe even demonstrate how you found ways to innovate such classes to make them relevant to 21st-century collegians?  more interactive?  more tech-friendly?).

On My Honor

"On my honor, I will do my best.  To do my duty...."  Millions of male Americans could probably finish the statement I began.  It is the Scout Oath, recited by Boy Scouts for the past century, and by yours-truly from the age of thirteen until I reached legal adulthood and so "aged out" of Scouting into manhood.  Manhood, masculinity, and crises of masculinity are all fodder for future posts.  Similarly, the American Scouting movement - modeled after the paramilitary organization for youths founded by Lord (and General) Robert Baden-Powell in Britain to prepare scrawny and unmotivated urban boys for combat with anticipated Continental foes, can be dealt with in future.  Let me focus here on honor.

Half a lifetime ago, I discovered that I am related by name - if not by blood - with the clan that gifted Japan with her national legend - all the more powerful for being rooted in fact - of samurai honor, or bushido.  The story of the "Chushingura" - more familiarly known in the English-speaking world as "The Tale of the 47 Ronin" or "The Treasury of Loyal Retainers - established in the national consciousness the sense that a true warrior died upon his sword rather than give up (or wait two years to exact vengeance, and then fall upon one's sword... *spoiler alert*).  Without spoiling the story, the public disgrace of their lord led to his suicide and the attainting of the Asano Clan's lands, and dozens of now-masterless samurai (or ronin).  Many of the ronin vowed to take revenge rather than merely look for a new master (and steady employment).  They duly sought this bloody method of regaining their honor in 1703, knowing that even if they succeeded in slaying the aristocrat who destroyed their lord, their own lives would be forfeit.  Ironically - historians will appreciate this - this event took place in 1703, a century after one Japanese warlord used Western military technology to defeat his rivals, declared himself shogun,  expelled Western influences, and turned his conquered warlords and their samurai armies into glorified courtiers reminiscent of Louis XIV's Versailles.  The samurai remained armed-to-the-teeth, however, and if no longer able to engage in large wars under the shogun's hegemony, they turned to street duels.  More tragically, the loyalty-beyond-death of 47 masterless samurai of the Asano Clan infused Japanese soldiers in the 1930s and '40s with a contempt for surrender - their own or their enemy's - leading to horrific (and racialized) combat against soldiers and civilians in China and the Pacific Theater of World War II.  In twentieth-century Japan, films lauding the loyal samurai were made every few years.  Tomorrow, the United States experiences the first Hollywood-inflected version (complete with mythical Japanese creatures like oni and kappa and a woman-who-turns-into-a-dragon... oh yes, and Keanu Reeves).

Lest anyone think that I write this (already potentially narcissistic blog post) in a narcissistic attempt to advertise my aristocratic blood, the good news is that my illustrious 33-year-old ancestor-in-question's hot temper forced him to commit suicide (friends who are familiar with my temper - in my intemperate youth, that is - will appreciate this).  It is rather his loyal samurai-turned-ronin who are the heroes of the hour.  Indeed, if one visits their cemetery at Sengaku-ji in Tokyo, one finds the 47 samurai sharing the same "level" with their lord.

Honor is a "funny" thing.  As a historian of race and slavery, I learned early on in graduate school that to be a slave was to be "without honor."  Every year, every day, every moment that a slave breathed without rising up against the master to grasp liberty-or-death was proof of the slave's worthiness for slavery and not liberty, and complete lack of honor.  See historian Francois Furstenberg's work on this subject for American concepts of honor in the context of slavery and citizenship.  Yet slaves could - and did - rise up to grasp freedom.  Spartacus remains a shining ("white") example from Roman history.  Every American living today knows something about what happened on 9/11/2001.  But most have not heard about the events of September 11, 1851 in Christiana, Pennsylvania.  Near dawn on that day, over one hundred African Americans and white Quakers defied the Fugitive Slave Law when a Baltimore County planter named Edward Gorsuch (there is a Gorsuch Avenue in Baltimore today) and a federal marshall sought to recapture two of Gorsuch's self-emancipated slaves, leading to a confrontation and gunfire.  Gorsuch died in the exchange of bullets, and his son was mortally wounded.  As he rode a train towards Canada to escape Fugitive Slave Law "justice" (the infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court decision still six years away), one of the self-emancipated resistants was told by a fellow passenger: "All you colored people should look at [the shootout at Christiana] as we people look at our brave men, and do as we do.  You see [the fugitive slaves were] not fighting for a country, nor for praise.  [They were] fighting for freedom: [they] only wanted liberty, as other men do."  They certainly did, and they defended it with their lives, fortune, and sacred honor.  But in 1851 - six years before the highest court in the land declared that African Americans had no rights that white men were bound to respect - acts of honor must be followed by discretion and escape to Canada, unless one wanted to embrace the fate of the 47 ronin.

For those who have watched and enjoyed the film "300" about Leonidas' 300 Spartans who fought and died to a man to defend the pass of Thermopylae against "barbarian" Persian invaders, one might not know that one of the rites of passage to become a full-fledged Spartan citizen-warrior was to murder a slave.  The Spartan gained honor and standing in a society based upon slavery by ending the life of one utterly lacking in honor.  In the early twenty-first century, honor for a significant number of religious conservatives around the globe is tied up in the sexual purity of adolescent girls.  The shame of rape can be expunged by killing the victim, an "honor killing."  Honor - or honour - has a fraught history.  The public acclaim - and full rights of citizenship - that falls upon the hero is tingling to those who have demonstrated martial prowess, yet at what price?  What is honor when it is dependent upon the dishonor (or shaming) of others?  Could Achilles have been content with slaying the Trojan hero Hector without stooping to dishonor his body by dragging it behind his chariot in full view of Troy in the Illiad?  Can it be a positive quality without negative attendants?  What if anything is honorable to preserve about honor?  Or in the twenty-first century (at least for the cynical academic) is the only useful remnant of honor culture the negative sense of being able to shame "heroes" who act dishonorably?

Parting Shot

I will take a brief hiatus to enjoy the holidays.  But with New Years and the AHA Annual Meeting approaching, expect more academic job market material, soon.

Your obedient servant,

The History Major

Military Intelligence(?)

Military Intelligence(?)

Among students and aficionados of history, military historians and military officers are closely allied in their  interest in "applied history."  They seek "lessons" to be learned from faulty decisions and downright blunders that doomed battles and campaigns and entire wars.  Probably the most obvious "lesson" of military history from the past two centuries is: Do NOT invade Russia for any reason, whatsoever (learned by Napoleon in 1812 and re-learned by Hitler - to the benefit of the rest of the world - in 1941).  Fans of "Princess Bride" will also insist upon Southeast Asia as another region to avoid, at least in terms of land warfare.  If unfashionable among "real" historians, military history and its students are concerned at some level with applying (or at least comparing) the strategy and tactics of prior wars to the present, for providing "military intelligence" - whether of the academic or immediate-use variety.  [*Requisite caveat: military history as practiced by academics has thankfully progressed beyond an obsession with guns-and-generals*]    In other words, military intelligence - for armies at war or nations in time of peace preparing for a hypothetical future conflict - is based on scholarship, not simply espionage or scouting reports.  Of greater challenge to military historians seeking approval from their fellow doctorate-holders is the trite phrase: "Military intelligence?  What is that?"

(Carl von Clausewitz - by Karl Wilhelm Wach)

It does not help my case that the monarchs, aristocrats, and generals who commanded nations at war and armies in battle traditionally brought little in the way of intellectual thought or scholarly learning with them on campaign, at least prior to 1789.  Anti-intellectualism and aristocratic leadership rode side-by-side.  As historian Gordon A. Craig noted, Prussia's Frederick William I set the (low) educational tone for early modern European armies.  "A general was not regarded as uneducated, even though he could barely write his own name.  Whoever could do more was styled a pedant, inksplasher and scribbler."  Fortunately, ambitious officer cadets like Napoleon Bonaparte embraced the "middle class" educational principles of engineering and artillery - so looked down upon by aristocratic future cavalrymen - in their search of history for lessons that could be applied to decisive victory on the battlefield.  The United States, chary of militarism and a large standing army from its English roots (and the negative heritage of Parliamentary rule via military force after the English Civil War), nevertheless established fine military academies - with emphasis on engineering education - at the national (West Point, 1802) and state (Virginia Military Institute, 1839) levels in the first half of the nineteenth century.  Highly-motivated (read: intellectually engaged) cadets at these institutions looked back to Napoleon's campaigns as they dreamed of future battlefield commands.  The Napoleonic wars were studied as applied - and applicable - history.

("Clausewitz" at "War on Terror" briefing)

Although his works were not readily available in English translation to the professional officers of the Mexican-American and generals of the American Civil Wars, Carl von Clausewitz's Vom Kriege/On War - read assiduously by military historians and officers-in-training from the twentieth century onward - provides what I consider the single most important thesis about the ties between historical scholarship and military leadership.  Namely, politics is inseparable from warfare when conducted by democratic societies.  In other words, in such societies - such as the United States - warfare is deemed "too important to be left to the generals" operating without civilian oversight, particularly long wars involving millions of soldiers and billions of dollars of expenses.  Generals must justify their strategy - and sometimes, their tactics - to democratically-elected politicians (who in turn must answer to the voters) to ensure that the will of the people is consulted and secured rather than assumed.  Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt grasped this, as did generals like William Tecumseh Sherman and Douglas MacArthur.  Generals George B. McClellan and (most recently) Stanley A. McChrystal should have realized this.  Don't buy it?  Take a look at Thomas Ricks' new book about American military leadership since the Second World War (The Generals).  Yet "[l]ong wars are antithetical to democracy," notes West Point graduate, Vietnam veteran, and military historian Andrew Bacevich.  "Protracted conflict introduces toxins that inexorably corrode the values of popular government."  So the lessons of America's twentieth- and early twenty-first-century conflicts can be applied here: politicians and generals alike must be wary of engaging in wars with open-ended boundaries.  Any future military leaders, military historians, or history majors: bear witness to the importance of this form of "military intelligence."

Parting Shot

Tomorrow: Honor (Think 47 Ronin - spoiler alert)

Your obedient servant,

The History Major

First Barrage

The History Major

Greetings.  Let me preempt the expected comment that the title of this blog is "imperialistic" in claiming to be the eloquent ramblings - but hopefully not ravings - of THE History Major.  I considered long - but not too hard - selecting "a" instead of "the" - however my current academic-and-military rank lends itself to this (intended) pun of a title.  Secondly, the likely future topics of this blog include imperialism, war, religion, race,  and politics (and, horrors, the academic job market for humanities grad students), so a slightly imperialistic nom-de-plume (or, nom-de-guerre) seems fitting.

Divide and Conquer?  Or Divide-and-be-Conquered

(Napoleon's Marshals - by Ernest Meisonnier)

As a long-time aficionado of the artillerist Napoleon Bonaparte (and his many admirers among American Civil War generals such as John Gibbon, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, and John F. Reynolds), let me start off this preparatory barrage - or (for infantry fanatics) initial volley - with a comment on leadership and collegiality.  By leadership I mean particularly the "divide-and-conquer" variety favored by Napoleon I.  In cultivating the petty jealousies rather than pruning the martial talents of his marshals - the twenty-odd senior generals in his Grande Armee - Napoleon kept his most dangerous potential French rivals in check, yet also gave his European enemies the way to defeat him (post-1809) via bypassing the main French forces under the emperor's direct control in favor of crushing the smaller armies under his marshals.  Once his (generally less-talented) marshals were defeated, the Allies (Prussians, Russians, and British) could concentrate against the now-heavily-outnumbered main force under Napoleon.  This strategy worked most clearly in the campaign culminating at Leipzig in 1813.  How much longer might Napoleon's empire have lasted - and how many more millions have died in combat and of disease to sustain his glory - if he had cultivated a band of brothers among his marshalate?

As a member of numerous committees in college, graduate school, and now on the tenure-track, I have had plenty of opportunities to witness the demonstrable fact that trying to steer a committee of professors (or professors-in-training) can be analogous to attempting to herd cats, even while lamenting the "fall of the faculty" in favor of administrator-run universities.  (See political scientist Benjamin Ginsberg's book with the same title)   The students I now teach receive much of their instruction outside of the formal classroom, much of which emphasizes individual subordination in favor of the (hierarchical) whole - or, as humanities types are wont to say, "groupthink" - and instructing them provides me with new opportunities to consider what it is I do as a History Major.  Let me add the words of Americans that my readers on the left and right of the political spectrum will - perhaps not simultaneously - will find germane.  In his 1890 article "What Can We Do for the Working People?" Eugene V. Debs argued that America's workers "are in the majority.  They have the most votes.  In this God favored land, where the ballot is all powerful, peaceful revolutions can be achieved.  Wrongs can be crushed - sent to their native hell, and the right can be enthroned by workingmen acting together, pulling together."  More succinctly, Benjamin Franklin noted in the mid-1770s that once American patriots began a shooting war with their mother empire Great Britain, they must remain united in their revolutionary resolve or enjoy the hangman's noose or firing squad as traitors to their mother country.  "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately," Franklin noted at the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in July 1776.

Just as French emperors, American labor union leaders and revolutionaries reaped the benefits - and consequences - of pulling together or pushing apart, so historians teaching, writing, and thinking in the twenty-first century United States could benefit from consideration of collegiality and shared goals.  Even as many of us were drawn to academia in the first place due to its welcome opportunities for individual research and reflection and the writing of books (of which, Solomonically, "there is no end"), we - or at least those fortunate enough to be on the tenure-track - are nevertheless also paid to teach.  Some of us are even allowed - or required - to mentor young history majors.  This History Major thinks that the classroom - like love and war - is a battlefield.  And on the battlefield, it is best to have a comrade (or an entire legion or regiment of comrades) who will have your back, even as you defend theirs.  A strategy of "divide-and-conquer" may work in the short run, but when your entire discipline appears to be in simultaneous identity and hiring crises, the decisive moment has arrived for thinking in new ways, together.

Parting Shot

As a parting shot (pun intended), let me pose a question to you, dear reader: "What is the history major for?"  I do not intend to provoke a narcissistic conversation about the existential meaning of this blog - or  worse, your author - but rather to ask something along the lines of "Why study history as an undergraduate in the twenty-first century?"  Some academics in the humanities - particularly those comfortably tenured - shelter behind the barricade (or rampart) of: "The humanities are intrinsically worthwhile... make you a better person... teach critical thinking skills... steel you against being snookered in by the rhetoric of an imperialistic government," ad infinitum, ad nauseum.  However, these principles - or platitudes - do little to aid underemployed and increasingly demoralized eighth-year doctoral students attain the tenure-track dream.  In the still-parlous American economy, it seems less and less practical to major in history, or any other humanities field.  The hiring of full-time, tenure-track faculty in humanities departments at colleges and universities - outside of the "practical" study of China - is waning in favor of temporary appointments.  I am therefore interested in ways to make the discipline and study of history more "applied" or "practical" in light of the sense that the humanities must defend themselves in order to survive further adjunctification.  (See this website for a harrowing series of articles about the adjunctification of American academia)  More to follow.

Your obedient servant,

The History Major