New England Nat

Book 1 is Marc Bloc's the Historian's Craft. I suspect they're trying to inspire us with a martyr to the profession.

That was week two's readings for Princeton's infamous History 500: the Introduction to the Professional Study of History this year.

I was told that it happened ot me last year with one of the schools I withdrew before they could decide.

The question about how one goes about withdrawing an application (as opposed to declining an offer). You call the graduate coordinator in the department, be very polite, tell them what you would like to do and ask how they would prefer you go about doing it. One or two allowed me to do it just by phone, but several required a formal email, and at least one asked me the terms of the offer I planned on accepting. I didn't see harm in telling them that. Oh, and at least one program decided to formally reject me even after I withdrew my application. Always thought that was Madison's way of reasserting control in a break up. Kind of like how the US congress back dated their declaration of war with Spain so that it would appear that they did it first...

Well, I was hoping to meet you at Princeton's visiting weekend. Oh well... congradulations. I'm sure you'll have broken a few hearts here.

Don't they all offer history PhDs except Dartmouth? Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Cornell, Brown...

Clearly we know what Safferz's first choice was *amused*

Yeah, I guess my point about that particular book and why he's going to sell a lot and clearly doesn't realize it is that a bunch of doctors and a bunch of law firms will buy a copy.

As a graduate of two of the three schools with legitimate claims to the oldest state university in the country I can't help but find the "THE" Ohio State University business the silliest thing I've ever heard.

I will say that there is a professor in my department that just published a book and he's joking about how no one is going to read it/buy it. I totally understand, it's hardly his first book, but I also think he has no idea that this one is I think different... It's Hendrick Hartog's history of inheritance and old age btw.

I love Baseball, I'm also a fan of his series "The War". But it's maybe because those two aren't areas I know so much about. I've heard there are issues with the Civil War but I've never had that much contact with historians of the civil war.

See, I can understand the debate about what images he does and doesn't have. However, I absolutely think that the characterization of Native Americans as versus Spanards is a very different complaint. There are similar complaints from both western historians and environmental historians about his national parks documentary having to do with his treatement of wilderness and native american removal. That said, my adviser is an expect on the visual image so it's not surprising she comes down on the side of the archivist. She's also huge advocate of public history and she doesn't think that innacuracies in public history should be given a pass just because it's public history.

So the way my adviser puts it, Ken Burns lies.The pictures he often uses to illustrate stories often have no relation at all to the narration. In one case in his Western miniseries he uses pictures of some random family to illustrate a diary from the 1820s, so that the viewer is left feeling that they know the family involved. When in fact there are no pictures of the family. In a description of the pleblo revolt he uses paintings to show the spanish side of the story, fine so far, and than 1900 era pictures of native americans to illustrate that side several centuries earlier. THus native americans are timeless with no change in culture. I kind of see her point. At least with the aliens you know what you are buying when you watch that. We've lionized Ken Burns. Does that mean I still don't watch Ken Burns, of course not.

Don't feel that way. Everyone here knows that history is a field where there are regional and methodological specialties. Every department has their own special mix and the best places in the country in some subfields are certainly not the Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Michigan, Wisconsins of the world.

Totally not to defend either corporation but the History Channel is part of the A&E networks and the Discovery Channels are a different network. And speaking of, it has a limited appeal but the Military Channel (part of the Discovery Channels) is actually producing some fairly interesting historical series.

Do you hate Ken Burns as much as one of my professors?

I think I just died a little.* *It's not like there isn't a paper about Grey's Anatomy on my CV....

Does it need to be by a historian? Could it be an assistant professor's first book or does it have to be someone with standing? Could it be Penguin or Norton, or does it have to be by a university press?

When I told people in my masters program that the thesis was stressing me they'd say completely unhelpful things like "oh don't worry about that, you'll finish." like because I was going to get a PhD the thesis wasn't going to be scrutinized the way it would have been? I don't know. That just made me more angry. I went and spent two more weeks in an archive to prove them wrong.

I remember this weird couple of months where I knew where I was going but I still had this god damn masters thesis to finish writing.... I honestly tried to concentrate on that and not spend too much time thinking about the apps once I had a viable option.

Yeah, this is the case at both Harvard and Hopkins and one or two other places that are escaping me at the moment.

I know something about the Rutgers system (not a lot mind you) and they informed last year around this week or next.

So the option may still be open. Though she may have limited power in the situation. There is only so much even a field cohort in a department can do. A situation like "I want G to be admitted" often runs up against "Well we are admitting 25 students and your field already got A, B, C, D, E, and F."

Or maybe she's just interested in your work. I have contact with PoIs from places that both rejected with me and I turned down a year after the process. One of them may be an outside reader for me. Remember you are entering a profession and you will be seeing these people for the rest of your career.

I actually disagree, I think given the humanities PhD market it's perfectly acceptable to say. "I'm interested in your school but I have funded offers else where, and I can't go to your program without (or without significant) funding."