Guest Post: Working for the Library

Today’s post is by guest blogger, David J. Gary, who received his MLS from Queen’s College (CUNY) in 2011 and his PhD in History from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2013. He is currently an adjunct assistant professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at Queens College (CUNY). He blogs at Function Follows Forme.

I am grateful to The Junto for this chance to reflect on my experiences earning both a Master’s in Library Science and a PhD in American history and to advocate for others to consider joining me.  Continue reading

Plagiarism, Cheating, and Craigslist

Craigslist adBefore reading this post, take a moment to read this genuine, recent ad from Craigslist (click picture for full size). It is from a student in New York and the assignment(s) are due today, one of which is an early American history paper.

As I wrote last week, I am currently finishing up my coursework and in the fall will begin my first teaching assistantship. Because teaching has been on my mind anyway, the ad above struck me a bit harder than I imagine it would have done before. I’ve heard stories of cheating and plagiarism from my professors and my peers in my own program now in their teaching years, but the ad above really “takes the cake” for me. Continue reading

Democratizing Pedagogy: The Just Teach One Project

Last week when the Junto hosted the History Carnival we noted the creation of the “Just Teach One” project, co-sponsored by the American Antiquarian Society and Common-place. Today we’d like to take a closer look at what promises to be an exciting addition to thinking about how to teach early American studies (for both literary scholars and historians).

Continue reading

The Week in Early American History

TWEAHIn Rome, art restorers have uncovered what they say are American Indians in the background of a 1494 fresco in the Vatican’s Borgia Apartments. Some commentary on the imperial-religious context is available here.

“Unity,” writes Ilan Stavas, “is the great elusive dream of Latin America, and Bolívar is its Don Quixote.” A review of Marie Arana’s new biography of El Libertador reflects on his contradictory legacy in Latin American politics.

Continue reading

New Journal Launch: J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists

J19Though chronologically speaking only half of their content is relevant to The Junto, we are thrilled to welcome a new journal into the fray: J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. What originated as an email list and loosely-based organization emerged to host two fabulous (from what I hear) conferences, and now what promises to be a solid journal. Continue reading

Digging Out My Cannibal Girl Hat

Jane

A reconstruction of the skull of a 14-year-old girl that researchers have named “Jane.”

I have some initial thoughts on new reports of cannibalism at Jamestown, so I’ve cross-posted them from my personal blog.

So, funny story. When I first submitted my article on cannibalism and the Starving Time at Jamestown to the William and Mary Quarterly, the piece strongly argued against any occurrence of cannibalism. When I got my readers’ reports back, Editor Chris Grasso pointed out that I didn’t really have the evidence to convincingly make that claim. He said that he’d accept the article only if I agreed to temper the argument—which was really fine with me because the main point of the essay was to ask why the stories of cannibalism mattered, not to argue for or against the existence of cannibalism in colonial Virginia. Continue reading

New William and Mary Quarterly Special Issue: Centering Families in Atlantic History

wmq-cover1I planned on doing another “Articles of Note” post for today since it’s been a few months since the last one, and lots of new articles are indeed noteworthy, but I’m feeling lazy today. Plus, as a more legitimate excuse, the William and Mary Quarterly just put out an issue that is worth highlighting by itself. What originated as a conference sponsored by the OIEAHC and the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, “Centering Families in Atlantic History” addresses an important (and often neglected) issue in the vibrant, popular, yet often uneven field of study based around the Atlantic Ocean. In brief, two of the lessons that stood out the most to me were 1) the importance of family connectedness within an era usually dominated by an emphasis on empires and states, and 2) the much-needed diversification that encompasses much more than just Anglo-America (perhaps the biggest problem with the “Atlantic History” field.)

If you or your institution have a subscription to JSTOR, you can download the entire issue here. Hopefully we can have a more in-depth and substative review of some or all of the excellent articles in this issue, but for the time being I’ll just post the titles and abstracts here. Continue reading

History Carnival 121

hlogoThe Junto is excited to be this month’s host of the 121st History CarnivalFor those unfamiliar with History Carnival, it is guest-hosted by a different history blog on the 1st of each month and gathers up links to some of the best history blog-writing on the web. Think of it as The Junto‘s “The Week in Early American History” but for a whole month and not limited to early American history.

Let me begin by saying that the process of hosting History Carnival has been quite an enlightening experience. I realize now that I had little perception of just how much history blogging is going on outside of my own field and sub-fields, and, especially, how much high-quality history blogging is being done. Now on to the links…

Reading and Writing the Early American City described its taking part in the exciting new “Just Teach One” project, which gets faculty to agree to teach one of the project’s documents and keep a record of how they used it.

Digesting the Medical Past explored the Victorian obsession with digestion and stomachs, in particular.

Randall Stephen gave tips on turning a dissertation into a book at Religion in American History.

American Orchard tackled the relationship between apples and Puritans.

Over at Chronikos, Greg Rogers looked at the diary and story of Capt. William Rice in “Constraints on Projecting Imperial Power: The Ordeal of William Rice.”

At The Appendix, Carolyn Arena discussed a valuable priest’s diary for sources about women in “Bellette and Yarico: Working Women in the Colonial West Indies.”

Not Even Past has two entries in this month’s History Carnival. The first one looked at both a Muslim slave in North Carolina and the Constitution. The second is actually two itself . . . “Digital History: A Primer (Parts 1 & 2).”

At the VAHS, Jon Weier looks at how World War I affected the YMCA.

While, at Think Shop, Paul Doolan looks at the broader importance of a television interview by a Dutch soldier who fought in Indonesia in which he revealed Dutch atrocities.

The London Sound Survey examines the ties between “street noise” and “the taming of Victorian London.”

Discover Historical Travel does a great job bringing to life the nation’s “worst tornado disaster” in “The Great Tri-State Tornado of March 1925.”

By now, most American historians are familiar with the work of David Barton, a conservative activist who promotes the idea that the United States was founded by (more or less) evangelical Christians as a Christian nation. This month, Robert Tracy McKenzie, chair of the history department at Wheaton College, looked at Barton’s historiographic forebears, discussing Peter Marshall Jr.’s and David Manuel’s highly influential 1977 book, The Light and the Glory.

At In the Service of Clio, Nick Sarantakes expands on a recent Perspectives essay, proposing a clearer distinction between “public history” and “applied history” as forms of engagement with the concerns of people in various walks of life.

In “Globalizing the Nineteenth Century,” Joseph L. Yannielli discusses what “moral maps” reveal about Americans’ and Europeans’ understanding of themselves as part of the world.

Will the history of the Holocaust have to change as the last generation of survivors passes away? And how might that process illuminate the histories of other horrors? At Civil War Memory, Kevin Levin reflects on an editorial by Rabbi Hillel Goldberg, provoking a lively discussion in the comments.

In April, dozens of bloggers celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Old Bailey Proceedings Online, a landmark of digital history scholarship.

At Early Modern Notes, Sharon Howard reflects on some of the project’s useful, and unexpected, implications for scholars.

At medievalfragments, Erik Kwakkel discusses the business of bookselling in medieval Europe, which was more like the modern trade than one might expect.

We’d like to thank everyone who submitted nominations. Next month’s History Carnival will be hosted by Performing Humanity on June 1.

Coursework: How Much is Enough?

Following on from last week’s post by Michael Blaakman, in which he reflected on his experiences preparing for oral exams and their practical value, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on another aspect of graduate education. Today—two years, four semesters, twelve courses, a couple hundred books, two research papers, and a dissertation prospectus draft later—I am attending the last seminar session of my coursework. Now, it’s nowhere near the equivalent of reaching ABD, but it is something of a milestone, for me at least. I was a non-traditional student who began my undergraduate work at the age of 32 and went straight from undergrad to a PhD program. So today marks the end of what was effectively six years of coursework.

Continue reading

Twitter as an Agent of Change

The Junto (thejuntoblog) on Twitter“It’s only about what people eat for breakfast.”

“It caused the Arab Spring, you know.”

“It’s nothing but Justin Bieber fans writing gobbledygook.”

“I saw someone do a wonderful live-tweet of a conference last week.”

“I hate when people livetweet conferences.”

What good is Twitter, anyway? And why should you use it? Inspired by the defense of academic blogging offered in this space last month by Ken Owen, I want to offer a few thoughts on using Twitter as a professional historian. Over the past few months, I’ve had several discussions, both in-person and online, in which I’ve been called on to defend Twitter (it seems that others see me as either an effective or at least irrepressible user). After over three years on the service (@jmadelman, if you’re curious), I’ve certainly developed a theory of Twitter for myself. I would not offer it as universal, but I do think it’s important to highlight what’s good about it, and perhaps one or two things that I don’t like.

Continue reading