Exactly. And the other aspect of those finances is: where are the jobs? It seems unusually obtuse for the president of the AHA--much less a man who works at a fine public institution that undoubtedly has as much difficulty placing its graduate students as anyone else (even Harvard places about 50% a year) to not know that training people for academic jobs in a field where opportunities are even narrower than in other fields would not see this as a practical decision. On the one hand we ask grad students to think through the consequences of their decision to go to grad school at all; on the other hand, we castigate as superficial if they don't choose a field that meets the standards Sweet sets.
I would also say that the column is a perhaps unintentional slap at folks like you and me for tryin gto reach a broader public.
It feels like some of these issues are connected. For example, it's cheaper to study early modern Europe, or the ancient Mediterranean world, than to study early modern West Africa (as you describe) or ancient South Asia, for many of the reasons you mention. But academia has, for good reasons, decided that history departments with the kinds of focus areas that prevailed 50 years ago are no longer acceptable, but without a concomitant increase in resources to make that possible without shifting more towards the present.
Exactly. And the other aspect of those finances is: where are the jobs? It seems unusually obtuse for the president of the AHA--much less a man who works at a fine public institution that undoubtedly has as much difficulty placing its graduate students as anyone else (even Harvard places about 50% a year) to not know that training people for academic jobs in a field where opportunities are even narrower than in other fields would not see this as a practical decision. On the one hand we ask grad students to think through the consequences of their decision to go to grad school at all; on the other hand, we castigate as superficial if they don't choose a field that meets the standards Sweet sets.
I would also say that the column is a perhaps unintentional slap at folks like you and me for tryin gto reach a broader public.
Preach. I’m pretty sure this applies to extended ethnographic work as well.
It feels like some of these issues are connected. For example, it's cheaper to study early modern Europe, or the ancient Mediterranean world, than to study early modern West Africa (as you describe) or ancient South Asia, for many of the reasons you mention. But academia has, for good reasons, decided that history departments with the kinds of focus areas that prevailed 50 years ago are no longer acceptable, but without a concomitant increase in resources to make that possible without shifting more towards the present.