Reframing History: A Response

Abstract

Reframing HistoryA Response Andrew Offenburger (bio) The numbers are grim, for sure. And the reality they represent, sketched by Jon Lauck in the previous issue of this journal, is equally bleak.1 Tenured and tenure-track positions in history are disappearing all across the Midwest, as with the nation. Yes, this is a pivotal moment for historians and for our colleagues in the humanities. It has been for some time, at least since I began my professional training eighteen years ago. Historians of my generation have never experienced a steady market, much less a resurgent one. We have grown accustomed to denied hiring requests to refill lines, to our chairs' powerless but sympathetic shrugs. It's difficult to fathom: was there really a time when it was different? The wizened ones speak of such a magical land, where a single tenure-track opening didn't fetch hundreds of applicants. Might it exist yet? Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? I first woke up to job market realities in 2010, when a friend and fellow Ph.D. candidate broke down in tears upon sharing great news: she had landed a job. I recall my confusion. Wasn't that what she wanted? How little I knew the stress and uncertainty that she, in a top-tier program, had endured in a collapsing job market. For the next several years, I shared the panic felt by friends, a number of whom struggled and could not land stable academic positions. When I finally went on the market, cognizant of the existential threat of not securing a job, I made a resolution. While I could not control the national economy and improve hiring numbers, I could do everything possible to win over skeptical hiring committees, working to distinguish my application from hundreds of other deserving ones. Beyond that, I would blow on the dice, roll 'em, and cross my fingers. Many readers my age and younger have experienced such precarity on the market, and I share this anecdote because I feel we historians— [End Page 187] and humanists more broadly—find ourselves in a similar situation as a profession today. The numbers published in last issue's introduction are astounding data points that confirm a larger declension narrative: history departments over the last decade, and then some, have been hollowed out to a shell of their former selves. Several scholars have commented on this decline, focused primarily on the job market, in the humanities. It especially pained me to learn of the gutting at Iowa State, where I once went as a twelve-year-old student, for History Day, to speak with a professor about George Washington Carver. Like weak-kneed applicants entering a rickety job market, though, we must understand what forces are beyond our immediate control. I fully support the idea that Lauck floated in his previous introduction. A requirement of six credit hours in history at public universities would be a boon to the profession and to society at large. But with talking heads and politicians intentionally distorting what we do, courtesy of buzz-words like "woke" and "CRT," I don't see this happening, much less in the places that need it most. I am equally skeptical of the chances we have with university administrations, because, as with politicians, they must answer to a public that no longer values humanistic study. Some readers might find the boogeyman among college and university administrators, who have followed the forces of supply and demand, making decisions based on business models rather than on departments' gaps in coverage. Historians throughout the nation often lament: "How can we serve our students' best interests when we don't even have a historian of [insert region here]?" The reply is predictable, and brutally true: "The numbers don't justify it." Ah, the classic Butts-In-Seats administrative model. But that's right. How can we justify new lines when the demand isn't there? The current crisis in history education, majors, and jobs has deeper, more pernicious roots. The crisis is a cultural one, and it will take generational change to reverse the trend. We are left to address this crisis ourselves—individually, together...