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
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