American Historical Association

In the April 2016 article listed within the laudable pages of Perspectives on History, the newsmagazine of the American Historical Association, James Grossman and Emily Swafford present the AHA's four-year reconsideration of the " purpose and content of history education in colleges and universities " in Graduate Education Reconsidered. The common sense " outcomes-based approach " to history education display foresight by the AHA in this commendable work. This sagacity is due, in part, to the AHA's History Tuning project that is evaluating what skill sets and curriculum are most valuable for students. This suggested pedagogical approach directs faculty and administration to encourage and prepare students to discover alternative historical careers after college, outside the field of academia. Grossman and Swafford suggest that a type of historical 'gate' exists for which only about " half of our PhDs " squeeze through to find the ardent, supple fields of " lifetime faculty tenure. " Quite simply, there is a disproportionate amount of us that can secure tenure-track appointments upon graduation. So in calibrating the AHA's current position on the purpose and content of history education, colleges, and universities, as the writers suggest, need an " outcomes-based approach " that requires " articulating purposes and goals " to provoke change. Part of the AHA's position change focuses on educational vicissitudes on the undergraduate level, where placing emphasis on the " role of the history major in liberal education " is needed. The other proposition the article presents is that there needs to be a replacement of the " broad rubric of 'critical thinking' with the more precise 'historical thinking' as our contribution to that education. " So what is this historical thinking they mention? How does it differ from the rubric of critical thinking? More importantly, why does it matter? According to the AHA article, it matters because it expands employment opportunities and career diversity. It also matters because, as Grossman and Swafford suggest, history " programs are still preparing students for jobs that most of our Ph.D. students will never occupy. Perhaps more important, we are squandering opportunities to increase the influence of historical thinking in contexts outside the professoriate. We are also squandering resources by ignoring those alumni who have not followed the route for which they were prepared. " British historian E. H. Carr indicated in What is History? that it is " not a single, well-defined narrative or bundle of facts that can be memorized, but a terrain of contestation between competing and evolving interpretations whose influence is as much shaped by time and place as by any given set of facts. " This statement seems to answer some portion of the original question. However, what about thinking?

The principle of ‘self-determination’ has infused modern western political thinking. But its intellectual underpinnings, and application, have been partisan and inconsistent. In this essay, Patrick Kirkwood illuminates the concept, its origins, and how it has been deployed in international politics across the twentieth century. Is it time that Western liberal democracies embraced the principle with more honesty?

"This book offers an excellent collection of translations of and commentaries on the work of varioushistorians and theorists of history from Nietzsche and Burckhardt to Bloch and Febvre. The volume waspreceded by Lições de história , vol. 1, with an introduction by the French historian François Dosse, thatoffers heavy coverage of nineteenth-century historical theory (although it starts with Voltaire and alsocontains some early twentieth-century material). Both volumes were edited by the Brazilian historianJurandir Malerba. We might think of these volumes as
Varieties of History from Voltaire to the Present  (ed. Fritz Stern) on steroids. In particular, there is much better coverage of non-historians, especially inthe new volume, which includes excerpts from and commentaries on such important thinkers abouthistory as Weber, Rickert, Simmel, Croce, and ollingwood"(From Allan Megill's profile).

"Esta antologia centra-se na chamada “crise do Historicismo”, entre o último quarto do século XIX e o primeiro do XX. Período conturbado, marcado pelo ápice da Europa na Era dos impérios, a chamada segunda industrialização, a Belle Époque e todas as contradições que impactaram aquela civilização, desembocando na Primeira Guerra Mundial, na Revolução Russa, na crise fi nanceira de 1929 e na ascensão do Fascismo e do Nazismo. Esses acontecimentos épicos deixavam claro aos historiado- res ocidentais que o tipo de narração histórica herdada do sécu- lo anterior, intimamente ajustado ao projeto de construção das nações-Estado, havia se tornado obsoleto. Falava-se, então, de um “mal-estar” da civilização europeia. No campo acadêmico, reclamava-se a reorientação de uma história de fundo cívico, cons- truída a partir da crítica meticulosa dos documentos, em direção a outras questões fi losófi cas, epistemológicas e metodológicas."

Our panel is entitled “State and Nation under Totalitarianism: Nazi and Fascist Comparisons from Above and Below.” It is scheduled on Sunday, January 5, 2020, from 3:30 PM-5:00 PM, in the New York Hilton’s Gramercy East (second floor).
*Chair*: Elissa Bemporad, City University of New York.
*Papers*:
1. “Totalitarianism from Above: Legal Paths of Fascist Self-Representation” - Ernesto De Cristofaro, University of Catania.
2. “Totalitarianism from Below: Spies' Court Trials in Nazi-Occupied Europe” - Benedetta Luciana Sara Carnaghi, Cornell University.
3. “Totalitarianism from Above: State Security and Criminal Law under Fascism and Democracy” - Stephen Skinner, University of Exeter.
4. “Totalitarianism from Below: Toward a History of Emotions of German Jews” - Jan Burzlaff, Harvard University.