In addition to catching up with authors and discovering new research, the annual Organization of American Historians conference is a productive and inspiring time to check-in on the state of the field. This OAH in Providence, we had one burning question on our mind: What is one important word that all historians should have on their minds?
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At the 2015 Organization of American Historians conference in St. Louis, we interviewed OUP authors and journal editors to understand their views on the history discipline. Gathering at the OUP booth, scholars – working in fields ranging from women’s history to racial history, cultural history to immigration history – discussed topics both professional and personal.
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As our readers know, LEE & LOW BOOKS focuses on publishing books that are about everyone, for everyone. Our books feature a diverse range of characters and cultures, and we strive to work with and publish authors of color with our New Voices Award and New Visions Award.
This is why we’re very excited to announce a new partnership with Simmons College. We have teamed up with The Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College and established a scholarship to increase diversity in the world of children’s literature. The new Lee & Low and Friends Scholarship will provide opportunities for students of color to enroll in the most prestigious children’s literature graduate program in the United States.
The scholarship initiative is a partnership between two organizations committed to diversity in children’s literature. LEE & LOW BOOKS is the largest multicultural children’s book publisher in the country and a leader in the movement for more diversity in the publishing industry. The graduate programs in children’s literature at Simmons College are dedicated to bringing a wide range of voices into books for children and young adults, and to providing students access to careers that diversify the field of children’s literature.
“Lee & Low is excited to be partnering with Simmons College to provide a meaningful way to address one of the most challenging obstacles in bringing more equity to publishing: the pipeline problem,” says Jason Low, publisher of LEE & LOW BOOKS.
Unpaid internships and costly graduate programs, combined with low entry-level salaries, are significant barriers for many hoping to work in publishing. The Lee & Low and Friends Scholarship will support students for whom the traditional entrances to publishing remain closed, and thus create a pathway for diverse graduate students to positions in which they can influence what and how children’s literature is created.
The $100,000 scholarship fund was created through donations from LEE & LOW BOOKS and Simmons College alumni. The first recipients will be chosen for fall 2016. “Children’s Literature at Simmons welcomes this collaboration with Lee & Low as we team up to create venues of access that lead to lasting change,” says Cathryn M. Mercier, Director of the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons. For more information, contact [email protected].
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ABOUT THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AT SIMMONS COLLEGE: Established in 1977, the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature supports the advancement of the study of children’s and young adult literature through nationally recognized partnerships and graduate programs, including the nation’s
first Master of Arts in Children’s Literature and Master of Fine Arts: Writing for Children, as well as several innovative dual degree options. To learn more, visit simmons.edu/academics/graduate-programs/childrens-literature-ma.
ABOUT LEE & LOW BOOKS: Established in 1991, LEE & LOW BOOKS is the largest children’s book publisher in the United States specializing in diversity. Under several imprints, the company provides a comprehensive range of notable diverse books for beginning readers through young adults. Visit leeandlow.com to learn more.
Animation students anywhere in the world can apply for the scholarship.
The hunt is on for the next generation of animated storytellers.
By Paula A. Michaels
Writing on Saturday in The Age, popular historian Paul Ham launched a frontal assault on “academic history” produced by university-based historians primarily for consumption by their professional peers.
In his article, Ham muses on whether these writings ever “enlightened or defied anyone or just pinged the void of indifference” Lamenting its alleged inaccessibility and narrow audience, Ham asks with incredulity:
What is academic history for?
Ham’s is only the latest in a steady stream of attacks castigating historians and other scholars for their inability to engage the general public effectively. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof sent American academia into a collective apoplectic fit with a February column imploring academics to make a greater contribution to policy debates as public intellectuals.
Less convinced than Ham of the purposeful obscurantism of academic writing, Kristof nonetheless met with a sharp rebuke from the academy, which defended its track record for engagement and faulted Kristof for pointing only to the highest profile venues to judge scholars’ participation in debates beyond the Ivory Tower.
As political scientist Corey Robin observes:
there are a lot of gifted historians. And only so many slots for them at The New Yorker.
Scholar-turned-Buzzfeed-contributor Anne Helen Petersen notes that, in combination with a shortage of academic jobs, “the rise of digital publishing has ironically yielded an exquisite, flourishing community of public intellectuals”, as The Conversation itself attests.
But the opening up of a raft of new, online avenues for smart, serious commentary and analysis has no corollary in the book business. If Kristof’s cardinal sin is an elitist reluctance to look beyond the most venerable establishment periodicals, Ham’s central failure is a seemingly wilful blindness to the role market forces play in the publishing industry.
Academic historians fail to make their way into Amazon’s Top 100 list not because they are unable or, as Ham asserts, unwilling to write accessibly. I doubt there are many academic historians who, whether out of passion for their subject or sheer ambition, would turn down the opportunity to enjoy a moment in the limelight.
But the path of popular history is closed to most historians because of the very subjects of their investigation. No amount of finesse with the written word would have put my first book, on the history of medicine and public health in Soviet Kazakhstan, on the shelves of Dymock’s. The publishing of popular history is driven not by how scholars write, but by what readers are willing to buy.
Is there value to scholarship that falls outside the narrow parameters of what is financially feasible for a commercial press? Of course there is, not least because scholarly studies, though often narrowly conceived, nonetheless inform the work of those engaged in topics of broader interest.
Take, for example, the work of popular American presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. She investigates first-hand the relevant primary sources, but she also supports her analysis by drawing on works that delve deeply into the more slender crevices of history. The research of perhaps hundreds of historians informs her understanding of the world in which her protagonists operate.
No-one would expect every scientist to produce work that was at once highly sophisticated and accessible to the lay reader. There is a depth and detail of analysis that is only of interest to the specialist but necessary for the field’s advancement; we value American astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson’s ability to distill that vast, dense body of scholarship and present it to us with crystal clarity on the TV series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.
And when he turns to evolutionary biology, far from his own area of expertise, he leans entirely on the research of others. Similarly, Kearns Goodwin and her fellow popular historians rely on the solid, vetted works of academic historians to tell their more accessible stories for popular audiences. That act of translation does not render the original scholarship superfluous, but rather attests to its impact.
Publications are, of course, only one measure of public engagement. Through work in the classroom, academic historians translate and interpret scholarly writings for and alongside students.
They are also out in the community, sharing their expertise in public talks designed for general audiences at museums, at schools, at retirement communities, and elsewhere, such as at the Making Public Histories Seminar Series run by Monash University and the History Council of Victoria and held at the State Library of Victoria.
Not only are academic historians clearly far more engaged with the public than they appear at a first, blinkered glance, but there seems to be ample room for and value in a wide range of intellectual activity. Perhaps it’s time to set aside pot shots and straw men and recognise that the changing terrain of public engagement allows for a multiplicity of voices and forms of expression.
It’s not all about making the bestseller list.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Paula A. Michaels is Senior Lecturer of history and international studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and is the author of Curative Powers: Medicine and Empire in Stalin’s Central Asia and most recently Lamaze: An International History.
Disclosure statement: Paula Michaels does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
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The post What is academic history for? appeared first on OUPblog.
Indiana Landmarks, Indiana Division of Historic Preservation & Archaeology and Indiana Freedom Trails invite students in grades 7-12 to participate in the Indiana Preservation Youth Summit. Selected students travel to southern Indiana October 4-6, 2013, visiting Underground Railroad sites in New Albany, Jeffersonville and Madison while meeting with Underground Railroad experts, community leaders, and tourism and museum staff.
Students advise local communities on ways to engage youth in the study of preservation of local history and landmarks using Indiana’s Underground Railroad sites as the platform. Selected students also share their experiences during a town hall meeting October 31 at the National Trust for Historic Preservation Conference in Indianapolis.
Participants selected through a competitive application process receive a full scholarship for transportation, meals, lodging and materials. Four educators will also receive full scholarships.
Please share the attached flyer with students or go to http://www.indianafreedomtrails.org/youth_summit_application.pdf Application deadline is September 9.
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The University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies, Maryland’s iSchool, and the American Library Association Office of Government Relations have been awarded a grant through the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program. The grant award of $499,977 with a matching amount of $68,056 will fund 15 scholarships for master of library science (MLS) students with a specialization in e-government. This unique, cohort-based program prepares students for careers in librarianship and other information sciences as specialists in digital government information and e-government services. Students will begin the program in the fall of 2013 and graduate in the summer of 2015.
This grant-funded program strengthens the successful iSchool e-government MLS specialization that was funded by a previous IMLS-awarded Digital Government Librarian Scholarship grant. The program is set to graduate its first cohort in July 2012. John Carlo Bertot, co-director of the Information Policy and Access Center (iPAC) and director of the MLS program at the University of Maryland, said, “As governments continue the migration of their information and services to online formats, there is an increased need for librarians who understand the often complex government information networks and can help users satisfy their e-government needs.”
“Many members of the public face significant challenges to accessing and using e-government, due to limited technology access, limited digital literacy, or barriers within the design of e-government,” added iPAC co-director and e-government specialization coordinator Paul Jaeger. “Students who graduate from this program will be prepared to teach patrons how to overcome such challenges and become active users of e-government.”
The Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program (LB21) invests in the nation’s information infrastructure by funding projects that foster the development of a new generation of faculty, librarians and archivists preparing library leaders, and strengthening schools of library and information science. LB21 grants assist the library profession in preparing to meet the challenges of the 21st century by supporting programs that address the education and training needs of the professionals who help build, maintain and provide public access to the world’s wide-ranging information systems and sources.
More information can found at http://www.imls.gov/applicants/lb21_guidelines_2012.aspx
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0 Comments on Maryland’s iSchool Receives IMLS Grant to Fund E-Government Scholarship Program as of 1/1/1900
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Writers have an opportunity to bid on a featured spot on David L Harrison’s Blog. The highest bidder will be featured on an upcoming post and the money will go to the Writers Hall of Fame scholarship fund. For more than a decade this organization has recognized an outstanding writer each year and provided college scholarships for high school seniors who dream of pursuing their interests in becoming writers. 
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Hi Kathy,
Thank you very much for your support on this! I appreciate the wonderful extra push and hope to see new bids come in soon. Time is growing short.
All best,
David
David is always doing something good for writers! Bid people!