Transcripts For CSPAN3 Historians As Public Figures 20150220

Christoff which triggered a conversation. Many e wrote anhe wrote an article where he said many people rendered themselves unavailable or not asking questions that were relevant to the public and in some ways fostered a disconnect with the public that is necessary. He didnt say this is true of all intellectuals but he did argue theyre a dying breed. Others said theres many good, interesting voices out there. The point of todays panel is not so much to have a debate about whether he was right or wrong nor have a debate familiar at almost every oha conversation about the role of the public intellectual or should historians be tried to do this. I think most of us in the panel given what we do start and its a good thing for those that what to do it. It has a lot of value. What i wanted to do when i put this together was bring together people who have been doing interesting work and ask them about their lives and their career and experience and give a little autobiography about how this has worked for them and what we can learn about what the public intellectual is through their own experience. Im going to introduce everyone on the panel. I will begin. Well go about commentary and then q and a. When you ask the questions, it might be a trick for some people. If you can get to that mike to ask. Well figure it out. Dont worry. Ill start out. Im a professor of history in Public Affairs at princeton university. I write a weekly column for cnn and i also write for other outlets and appear on radio and television. I have a new book thats coming out this week with Penguin Press called the fierce urgency of now. Well turn to eric who is the dewitt professor at columbia. One of the most prominent and important figures in the history discipline. Hes written many classics. You can go to a book signing upstairs in the book exhibit. Hes also someone who appears in various places in the media, television, documentaries. Hes published opeds in newspapers and magazines. Hes become a regular congressmen commentator in the national press. Youll see him weighing in on issues in a serious and smart fashion. Then we vehave a good friend and a great historian who is a professor at georgetown university. Hes very well known. His pieces are important. Hes heard everywhere as well, television and radio. 2008 you have launched historians for obama. Hes been very involved politically and i think his work, his scholarship has become important to the american left in a way thats quite impressive. Look forward to his comments. Finally, to my right, we have claire potter. Im hoping she can talk more about the world of social media where shes had a tremendous impact. Shes a professor of history in the new school for social research. The author of war on crime bandits. Hes writing a book about antipornography campaigns. She has a popular blog called the ten year radical, which which was picked up. At the end well have questions. Let he start with some comments. In my opinion theres a great tradition in this discipline which was part of its attraction. I dont quite agree with christoff that its dead. Theres many examples of people who really contribute sporadically or regularly to what we call the Public Square broadly defined. I think theres a wide range now of places in which this happens from scholars and traditional popular outlets like the New York Times to those who are abusing social media to those who work with museums who are engaged in debates with policy makers. Theres no shortage of people. Theres more ways in some ways where you can find them. Its an old tradition. Was talking to a broader public and figures Charles Beard and my model for scholarship richard hoff hoffsteader was able part of this. The other part i found important is historiography. One of my formative moments came when i was trying to decide where to come to graduate school. One of the places was upenn to work with michael katz who passed away this year. His work is an example of how to reach a broader public. I got off the train and i was walking somewhere. I dont remember where it was to get to his office and there was a big rally of Civil Rights Activists not even near the campus. A copy of the undeserving poor. For a 21yearold kind of getting into this it was very impressive to see how this book by a scholar who i was learning about and thinking of studying had, at least in a little bit, had become part of what these act activists were doing. My time doing this has been mump longer than the 15 minutes i thought this thing would last. I started in the late 1990s. It was during the impeachment of president clinton. Its something ive tried to gain mastery over the year. They asked me to come into the morning news show. They squeezed me in between the weather and the sports. He liked me and started having me on once a month to talk politics. It was inconvenient and odd. They were dressed up in survivor outfits but i did it. I did it because i figured this was part of the way in which i could learn how to do this medium. It was very helpful. I met great editors early in my career who had a huge impact. Heefs always finding academics. She was a great editor. She was quite brilliant. What gave the drive. She thought me how to structure the argument and how to move things in directions i probably wouldnt for an academic piece. I had an editor who is also worked with some people here. Ive been working with him for many years now on a weekly basis. Hes done that same kind of mentorship. It i went to a sports bar on a monday night and there was a guy from the local espn doing his radio show live and he did it every month night before monday night football. We go on the air. Hes like what do you do. At first we talk about the jets. I know a lot about the jets. Hes like what do you do. Im like im a professor. He found this odd. That wasnt what he was expecting. He liked it. He had me on. He said can you come on next monday. He could have me on every monday night. It was like 15 minutes the professor took calls about the new york jets. I did it for two or three years. It was kind of, it wasnt obviously not what i write about but i always tell people, i said, ill learn something from this too. Ill take it seriously. I really learned a lot about radio. A second thing is ive allowed myself to be open to new developments in the media. I was never a guy who was going to be stuck with am i in the New York Times or not in the New York Times. Ive been fortunate to be there. Itsgoing to be 24 hours. Its going to be fast. They were going to try to make it snap. I had no idea what he was talking about. It was totally kind of a bizarre concept. I wrote for them. That became a ongoing relationship. Im glad i didnt just shut down. Also introduced me to writing to this new online journalism which is in many ways surpassed a lot of older outlets. Cnn was the same thing. My editor asked for an opinion page at cnn. I was like what are you talking about. Its a tv show. I didnt understand they were going to do a new long line page that had the kind of impact newspapers did. We have to have some of that especially for younger people that are just starting. It can have a big impact. Theres a lot of outputs for opinion. I know some are bad. Im talking about some of the beneficial things that ive learned. Finally, one of the things i have tried to do from the start is understanding the world of the academy and the broader world. I think the role of the public intellectual is to bridge the two worlds. If you read the books its such a big impact he is still ver versed in academic debates. Thats what i was trying to do. Back to the po larization with politico, thats been a theme ive written about in many ways and over and over trying to really explain what to we learn from Political Science . What do we learn from historians and how does that add to the conversation of the dysfunction in washington that were always talking about . I try to talk about what we learned. Theres no set definition of what a president is and how we evaluate the difference aspects of presidency but bring that to the public. My new book just landed in one of these debates with the movie selma. Its rewarding to take arguments that really grow out of academic concerns ive had about the treatment of president ial power and the relationship of the grass roots to congress and then try to connect them to debates that more people are interested in as a result of something of like a film. When you can do this its actually both useful and rewarding. There are some ways in which this happens. The Miller Center offers fellowships in u. S. History and require people to write an op ed and if they get it they write more. I think there needs to be oneonone mentorship. People say i want to be a public intellectual and its not like open that door and youre set. Its something that has to be learned. I hope the academy can do more about that. Overall for me its been a really wonderful experience in my career. I didnt fully expect it. I hope to continue bridging these two worlds. Thank you very much. [ applause ] which like many it seemed to be a bit premature. Today anybody with a smart phone and a twitter account can be a public intellectual and can post his or her views about history or anything else for anyone to see. Does this represent the democratization or is this another sign of the decline of everything . On the one hand we witness the proliferation in the public spe sphere of invocations of history. On the other hand there are noneacademic intellectuals. What does all this mean . That is involved Museum Exhibitions, writings from the New York Times to the magazine and appearing on tv. I think its been successful. Some have not. I think the Museum Exhibitions i have helped to curate from the civil warrer era, another one on reconstruction which traveled around the country and the National Park service new visitor center, i think all of those were quite successful and help to bring up to date views of the civil war era to a noneacademic audience. In other cases not so much. Was questioned at length by the judge in my testimony the reasons for the enactment of the 14th amendment. Sort of like taking my orals again. Not only the judge wrote came in one sentence. Professor eric phoner also testified. I signed on in the 90s to a brief before the Supreme Court which had to do with the interpretation of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Briefs alphabetically. It became known as the phoner brief. My name was the first one on the list. Before that i had sent a copy of my book on reconstruction to Justice Anthony kennedy. I was told he was one of the very few members of the Supreme Court who read books. He wrote the majority opinion which went the wrong way from our perspective. He said the position of the phoner brief seemed to differ from the account of this event in eric phoners book on reconstruction which it was not entirely wrong. Which was a warning against the temptation to use history to instrumentally instrumentally. We are all attempted by and ought to resist. Sometimes briefs play an important role. I am not satisfied with the end result of tv history documentaries of which ive been involved which seem unable to avoid the oversimplification of history. I just give up. I know not everybody has but i have. I think the think is one has to remain cognizant of what had youre wearing when writing. When i write for the nation magazine im writing with a different hat and a different style and in some ways a different genre. Trying to apply some information. This is important. It ought to be done but tricky also. Probably my nation piece most widely cited an edd and denounced. It drew on the history of the depression of Civil Liberties and wartime. I reminded people you know all this history from john adams to the whether lincoln suspension of habeas corpus. You can go onto argue that governments in times of war see Civil Liberties as an inconvenience if not an outright treason. This would have to be fought. This led to a lot of praise and a lot of criticism from people who thought i was a first cousin of bin laden or something. What should we try to achieve as historians who are public intellectuals. Im going to quote you a letter in the Financial Times. Very good newspaper. The letters are denouncing other letters. It goes on and on. This guy writes sir, john tip tiplers letter is so misguided so uninformed that revisionist historian comes to mind. This is a common term of public abuse. I would counter with oscar wilde who said the only do do we have to history is to rewrite it. Being a revisionist is what we do. Outside the Academy History is seen as a collection of fixed facts, fixed interpretations, new interpretations are seen as suspect if not downright subversive. Many you have are familiar with the quotation often used from the 19th century historian ernest. All nations are built on and promote. There are many people in public life politicians columnists, to whom the active reinterpretation itself is a kind of a threat. The first thing we have to do is tell people what is it that the study of history entails and why do historians disagree with each other and why do we think differently about History Today than people did in the past. Beyond planing what the study of history is, i think our job is to try to keep alive the role of the public intellectual is to try to keep alive something endangered in our society which is respect for the life of the mind. In the last generation the values of the market have come to permeate every aspect of our lives. The notion that public good can be measured other in economic terms have been abandoned. The philosopher Williams James once wrote that an hour spent communing with nature must be considered a worthless hour when measured by the usual standards of commercial value. The same can be said of an hour contemplating a work of hard or reading a work of history. As a result arguments for Higher Education today are almost, we have been pushed back into the position where the defense of history or Higher Education is couched in economic terms. Having more educated people is good for the economy or for the social advancement of individuals. Unfortunately, this outlook helps look out for the fact that literature, history, philosophy and the arts subjects that do not seem to increase economic productivity are on their way to becoming accept children at all levels of education. Many years ago Charles Frances adams in his president ial address noted that the historical point of view is an important point of view for only when approached historically can any issue be understood in manen manifold. The study of history and this is something we need to promote in our Public Discourses. The study of history instills the quality so lacking among policy makers and more broadly today. The value of critical inquiry, of subjecting all believes to the test of reason an experience and questioning dogmas whether political, religious or economic. The historical frame of mind may assist americans in candidly afacing up to some of the problems we face in our society. The historian does not have to step outside the ivory tower to have a lasting public impact. Scholarly works of history can be quite public. The periods which ive devoted much of my career after the civil war is an object lesson in how interpretation in this case, the old Dunning School can offer intellectual legitimacy to serious injustice. It became a powerful part of the political culture offering a powerful basis. If you dont believe me take a look at how often their works were cited down into the 1950s by the Supreme Court itself. Every writer i know interested in the american dilemma of slavery, jim crow has read eric phoners reconstruction. Every feminist has read linda gordon gordons history of birth control, womens body, womens right. Historians can through good history offer a usable path to those struggling to make this fairer, more equal an more just society. Thank you. [ applause ] my mom will see this. I have to give a shout out to jermaine joseph. My take on being a historian is deeply rooted in a specific experience as a native new yorker whos mother was a trade unionist. I was on my first picket line at eight years old in new york city. I became a scholar after being an activist in the city in new york. Scholarship has never been separate from politics, policy and social movements. When we think about historians, im not going to talk about the process of how do you get do msnbc or cnbc. Were engageing in the debate because peoples lives are at risk black people, poor people, lgbt, women. When you think about how do you become a historian we have to say what are we engaging in . Is it about us or or careers. Are we trying to transform policy and a Public Discourse unequal in the United States. Think about especially africanAmerican History historically theres always been black public intellectuals. Usually theyre not in the conversation. People who contributed not just to pragmatism but to american de democracy and citizenship. What we have seen have even know theres not a Dunning School in terms of civil rights in public commentary about the movement its been whitewashed. Its been so distorted that by the time we got the election of barack obama in 2008 people said that was the end of the Civil Rights Movement. It was rosa parks, Martin Luther king jr. As the reward for all of us was barack obama. Six years later with black lives matter and eric garner and ferguson and Michael Brown we see that wasnt a reward. The reason why historians have a vital role in terms of being the public intellectual is about democracy. What ive done throughout my career is try to talk about the way in which black radicalism has contributed to that ongoing debate. When we think about this idea of black radicalism i include Martin Luther king jr. In that. Its not just stokely carmichael. When we exclude people like king and ella baker from that conversation about what is both black radicalism, political radicalism and radical democracy in the 20th and 21st century we impoverrish the debate. The last six years ill spend the last five minutes talking about the last five years. Theyve been bookendsed by the election of barack obama in 2008 and the protest that we saw starting this past august, august of 2014 in the aftermath of Michael Brown shooting in ferguson. The grand jury decision three days before thanksgiving 170 different cities erupting in protest and eight days later the eric garner decision and the proestpro protests that surrounded that. For the first time millenials, born after 1992 they saw and witnessed first hand not just institutional racism but White Supremacy in our political process. Not just the 1950s but 1850s. How can we connect this social movement to policy . The most exciting part about historians as public intellectuals is we live in a society, in a country thats antihistorical. As soon as king comes out against the war, hes coming out against the war because its coming out against the war in 1966. We dont want to remember the Civil Rights Movement as a muscular prodemocracy movement that wasnt popular in its own time. We can remind the public of that. We can remind the public that even though 50 years later we have Martin Luther king jr. , a monument. We have a holiday. King was despised in his own lifetime. What does it say about our democracy when we say folks who are nonviolently protesting should sit sown and shut up and be quiet. Thats exactly what they did in the 1950s and 60s. Ill conclude by saying this, historians as public intellectuals the reason why our Voice Matters so much in this discourse is because theres so many people who are involved who are talking about issues related to feminism, immigration and foreign domestic policy related to africanamericans, related to a whole range of people who have no Historical Context for what theyre talking. Even some journalist who i respect who do great things theres a breatdth of knowledge they have but it lacks a context. Were here today not because we want our own Television Shows. Were here today because historians is how can we transform the discourse which leads to policy changes which leads to transformations, things like mass incarceration. What ice does to immigrants in this country undocumented citizens. There are thousands of missing black women in the United States that no one is searching for right now as we speak. All these things matter and what historians can do in this discourse is provide a historical analytical frame work to talk about not just the past but the way in which the past can inform the present and our Public Policy choices in the 21st century. Thank you. [ applause ] thanks to julian for pulling this together. If were a tough breed. When he asked me to take part, just like eric, i was thinking when i first heard the term public intellectual. Now they seem to be everywhere. All of us out there youve been thinking how come that wernlperson wasnt on the panel. Theres lot os people who could have taken our place. Our politics everybody leans decidedly to the left. What i want to do is a little like the some different point of view. Talk about my motivation for doing the kind of public intellectual work i did and why i write a lot of especiallyeds and book reviews. I coedit this small but hearty magazine of the left which has been around for 61 years. The same reasons i read the kind of books i write and why i teach my courses the way i do. I dont see a real contradiction between those parts of my professional life. The first is purely motivational. I want to understand the way things have developed as part of helping change of my country. Second motivation, the sense of i have a political responsibility as a historian. Second is pure ego. I wouldnt mind having my own Television Show. No one has asked me. Also my wife mentioned my father was a public intellectual. Shed say thats also motivation. I came of age as a political act activist durs the 1960s. I traveled to cuba when it was still quite illegal to do so. Sugar cane with castro cutting time with fidel castro beside me. I was a little afraid my machete might nick him, but it never did. And i wrote for a lot of underground newspapers. A few years later i enrolled in a ph. D. Program really in part because i couldnt figure out what to do with my life when the revolution wasnt happening. And i decided like a lot of other leftists i knew to write history. This was some of you my age or a little younger know about this. This was a way to engage in politics in a different way, to explain the ideas, the actions of the kind of americans that our movement of the left had for the most part neglected, for the most part, and sometimes driven them into a fury. I wrote primarily about the White Working Class and in san francisco. And if you know history of the 60s Building Trades were technically unhappy with the kind of things i and other people on the left were doing. In 1970, a few blocks from here, down on wall street a group for the Building Trades, a very strong union guys had beaten up friends of mine, antiwar demonstrators, and had been praise bid Richard Nixon for doing so. He put a hard hat on and made sure everyone knew that he was on the side of the hard hats. And every book ive written since then has been motivated by the same urge to explain something about the roots and development of some aspect of contemporary american politics whether its the language the ongoing significance of the civil war in the 1960s, the relationship of evangelical christianity and passion or what difference it has made in politics. Always trying to kent the present connect the past to the present in that way. What ive been trying to do, the media, we all know this but it mostly cares about history if it has some connection to whats going on now. Every oped i right about historical matters im always go to write about something happen and work back to the end by referring again to the reason why people who dont care about history should care about what i just wrote. There are a few exceptions. The civil war era i think is an exception to that. More recently slavery, helped by, of course 12 years a slave. And bit africanamerican study the and history which i think is so prominent in the academy and outside as well and more recently by the black freedom mom as well. But ive written a lot about the late 19th, 20th century, which most people dont really care about, gilded age . Whats that all about whats the novel, 1873. The gilded age was after that. But my one success, if youd call it that of getting that kind of history out to the public was, i was with james bryan and was amazed to get a note on white house san diegory from karl rove who said i liked your book very much you made a few factual errors about the weather in texas where bryan and his wife spent some time, trying to deal with her asthma. And he invited me to the white house to have lunch and it was a very strange experience. Because im not, i wasnt exactly a supporter of george w. Bush and his policies. But president bush and karl rove had this contest to read as many books as they could, especially political biographies. And they found time. They werent doing very much. And so we had a great discussion, actually, for about an hour, about brian, about history, about biography. And among other things rove showed what a great sense of humor he has. He spent a great time mimicking right wing supporters. I wish i was wearing a wire but anyway. Well, at the same time ive never really stopped being an activist at heart. Although, as ive gotten older i write more opeds and go to more meetings. I like to say its a perfect job for a social intellectual. Mostly work. Mostly creative, and absolutely no salary. Julian asked us to comment on how we balance responsibilities of being a public intellectual with being an academic. As i said before, i dont see any great contradiction between the two. When i teach class or write an article for an academic journal i make my own views clear. Im a radical thats raised from claires blog, which i think was actually invented by a conservative, if im not mistaken, to attack us. But also try to be empathetic, to explain why other people in the past who i would have disagreed with vehemently believed what they believe. I dont try to convert my students to my point of view. I always assign readings that take quite different positions than i do. And i encourage debate about ideological differences, and i require it. But if a student leaves class more along the lines that i do im not displeased. Whether i write a dissent, i try to tell what i think is the truth without fear or favor. But thats what we all try to do. The second motivation as i say is somewhat less honorable. I want to changt world, but i also like the fact that people know who i am and want to read what i write. And, you know, im going to quote one of the most uncomfortable sentences ive read. David brody was part of a forum about his book, the waves of whiteness, which many of you know. And in this commentary that david wrote about the book, he said, quote, the fate of most historians is to write history that nobody reads. And that caught me up. An overstatement to be sure, but not too much of one. For me, i believe, for most of us, writing is hard work. Not as hard work as work that many people do in the world, but nevertheless, hard work. Mentally hard, anyway. You finish breakfast you procrastinate a little bit. Theres always a lot of websites to read. Blogs. You write a few good paragraphs. Then you have lunch. Do it all over again in the afternoon if youre lucky enough to have the time. And then you do it all over the next day if youre lucky enough not to have to go to class or meetings. Now its gratifying to be an academic historian. Intellectual affinity groups have their merits and their pleasures. And of we could never write good history if we didnt read a lot of books and articles by pea who not that many people have read. But i get anxious if i dont feel like im part of a harmlarge conversation, a large debate, what have you about whats happened in the past and what relevance it might have to the present and the future. Everyone cant be a public intellectual. Everyone shouldnt try to be a public intellectual. Everyone cant write a good onedon oped. Sometimes it doesnt demonstrate your mittpolitical commitment to the world. It can sometimes oversimplify things and in a way become a car ak tour. Now i disagree fundamentally with the last major stand that hijens took, supporting the invasion of iraq. But he was quite capable of wisdom and expressed hill self in memorable ways. This is how in 2008 hitchens skrieshed the attributes of an intellectual. He need not be one who speaks truth to power. He said powerful people know what the truth is. That doesnt mean they want to go along with it. The attitude toward authority should probably be skeptical as should the attitude to yew taupe yeah, let alone heaven or hell the past with the perspective of the living and the culture and language of others with the equipment of internationalists. To put it another way, this is me, not hitchens. En the only talent one really needs to be a public interlecture is to have something important to say about the present as well as the past, and to say it well. Thank you. [ applause ] well im very fortunate to go after all these wonderful presentations, and i think youll find that what im going to say picks up on a number of themes, by chance we didnt plan this. Tenure gratical was launched and ive written 1,795 posts on topics as various as the humanities job markets Sexual Assault, books, writing and the bds movement. Although i began writing under a pseudonym, that only lasts for a few months since i was quickly outed by my students. Not only has blogging brought me a lot of opportunities in the old and new media world it also became a place where i can articulate my ideas and observations about Higher Education from the point of view of someone who has been in school in some fashion for half a century now. I received a call in 2010 asking me if i wanted to move tenured radical. I think our work actually changed the chronicle of Higher Education by making it aware that a younger academic public, faced with different challenges than even people in my generation had found much of the chronicle less than relevant. As a result, the chronicles newest nonfirewalled section which is called vee tie is bloggy rather than journalist particular. It favors younger authors most of them in pretenure or preemployment stages. Many are current and former bloggers. And the articles tend to favor horde tal advice giving confrontational language and radical views about academic success, some of which are complete bullshit. I would also argue that it launched the new genre of literature called quit wit where people are mad as hell and theyre not going to take it anymore. My jump to this larger audience which has led to other things occurred through a weird combination of luck and pluck. Shortly after i commenced publishing under my real name in the spring of 2007, i wrote a post about a new york city shock jocks racist commentary on the rutgers basketball team, all africanamerican women and all outstanding students. I noted in passing that a group of white male athletes at duke had acquired a robust and Proactive Group of defenders despite a rather long history of poor academic behavior, violent behavior culminating in rape and Assault Charges against a black stripper they hired for a party. The charges were later dropped for lack of evidence. I posted the piece at 4 00. By 9 00 the next morning when i walked into my office i had over 100 comments. I was used to six or seven. Many of which threatened me with Sexual Assault of various kinds and an in box full of equally nasty emails from people who were making it their business, they said to get me fired. The message light on my telephone was blinking wildly. I had messages from the president of the university, the chair of the board of trustees, the provost my dean, the University Council and the chair. All of which had received phone call the and emails, demanding my immediate termination. Now this can be the down side of being a public intellectual. Perhaps what was most surprising to me was that the attack had been led by a fellow historian, also a blogger, my first introduction to what is today commonplace social media experience for scholars and journalists. Being viciously attacked by colleagues and graduate students who you have never met. The moral of the story is that just because a scholar wants a wider public, it does not follow that she always gets the public she wants. This is the pluck part. My Comment Section can have all the charm of a 19th century Lower East Side used beer joint, and it makes venues like msnbc where the interviewer peppers with nonquestions that start with dont you really think, seem like models of real conversation. Controversy sells, if it doesnt get you fired. This is probably the place to say that every one of those telephone messages from the president of wesley anon down reassured me that my blog, which hardly anyone i worked with really understood or like, which is why it was such a switch phone call was covered by Academic Freedom. This experience was lucky, because i never sought it out. But my blog was noticed. And i suddenly realized i was actually going to be backed up by my university. Largely, because i became part of a bigger story, and in the process learned to write really fast. I acquired an audience of many thousands a week. Journalists use began to call my for quotes and opportunities in the Mainstream Media followed. Now theres a maxim in the blog owes fear that links blogging to nor conventional print productivity. What ann says is the more you write, the more you write. As it turns out the corollary to that is the more you are read, the more you are read. Its why a lot of people whose reputations have been made in the journalism fiction and nonfiction world if you want to write a nonscholarly world you often build a platform which is often a blog. So what do i bring to the table as a public intellectual . There are political and cultural narratives about Higher Education out there that are actually vital to all of our future, that are very difficult to interrupt whether it is the longawaited death of the humanities or the crisis of financing or the assumption that are currently lyly governing academic hiring. There are very few people who are not president s of places that are controlling. I speak to these in different ways people can understand. By speaking knowledgeably, i dont necessarily mean knowing everything, which i dont. But i do mean being curious about the interrelated parts of every discussion and the differences between and among conversations that are occurring simultaneously. I also mean listening and learning from people who join me in the Comment Section even perhaps especially, the commenters i do not like. And let me just pause here to say that in the middle of my horrible experience with the duke lacrosse people i talked to a political reporter from the st. Petersburg times who is a friend of the family, and said im never reading my comments again. And she said oh, you have to read your comments, because there are things people are trying to tell you anonymously that think would never tell you in person. A blog is a way to start a conversation if nothing else, and that conversation may finish somewhere else entirely in a journal, on tv on radio in a panel like this or in a book. I, and a number of other bloggers, bring feminism and Critical Race Theory to the table in a journalistic world where some version of a, whether beyonce is a feminist or b whether the United States is postracial seem to pretty much run the table. Although the social Justice Movement that began in ferguson seems to have put pay to b for the time being. Few people know how to or want to write and talk about race and gender the way academics do. Many bloggers aspire to the status of the publicly engaged scholarship of the late 20th century, whether done by the legal scholars, kathryn mckinnon, and Kimberly Crenshaw or intellectuals like sherry maraga who are associated with social Justice Movements. Outside of very few publications, it is really very difficult to have a serious conversation about race or feminism nowadays, not to mention about a queer politics that wont come to a dead stop with federally recognized marriage in all 50 states. Its even more difficult if you want to do that kind of writing and are that kind of person, a woman, a person of color queer to become visible to publications that will commit to editing and publishing your work. And i think this was an issue very much raised around the recent kerfuffle around the new republic and the mass resignation of its writers. Its really very difficult to be heard that actually women dont get to write for the new republic, by and large. People of color dont get to write for the new republic. And when i said what about queer people, everybody would say andrew sullivan. Hes a very conservative man with very debatable politics. Okay. So blogging creates a kind visibility that is very very difficult for some of us to get in the conventional print or conventional media world, and it can actually allow us to makena jump to bridge the gap onto radio and television and film. However, writing for a broader public bring the challenges with it challenges that include the fact that exposure to an undifferentiated audience, as opposed to an audience like you who are in fact chosen by the fact that we are all at this conference, brings unpredictable and sometimes unpleasant outcomes. People who read tenured radical know that i am a relentless advice giver. So id like to end with some other barriers otherwise intelligent people who happen to be academics face when trying to reach the public they want and probably deserve. First of all, most academics think that they write more excessively than they do. Or, or they fail to understand that the rhetoric that is impressive to journals and tenure committees cannot engage a general audience of nonspecialists. Dont get me wrong. There are many kinds of good writing, and there are many people who do different kinds of good writing. Some of the best historians, for example the ones sitting here with me write intelligently and accessibly across genres. But most people dont, and it is a learned skill. So is being on television or being in a documentary or even doing the preinterview that will get you into a massmedia production or on a Television Show in the first place. Nobody teaches this in graduate school, and if we really care about historians doing public intellectual work, we really should okay . Second, writing for spur of the moment short term deadlines is really fun as i think julians presentation sort of graphically underlined. Its clear how much fun hes had doing this. But you have to be willing to ditch other responsibilities to make it happen. For example, preparing for class [ laughter ] going to meetings grading papers. The things we are actually paid to do. If an editor wants something by 3 00 or by friday thats when they want it and they want it to be clean as well as under word count, which leads me to my next point. At least inchitially your ability to move from the kind of selfpublishing on blogs to commercial publishing to a broader audience will have a great deal to do with your tolerance for disappointment, for criticism, for rewrites and being managed by people who dont have ph. D. In fact, many of these people will probably be interns who just graduated from your college. Many academics cant help but see all criticism as very high stakes. So much so that several editors of really important publications, including the nation have told me that they often avoid working with us if they can. Writing for an edited general publication requires compromises. Were also not very good at making compromises when we think we know exactly the right way to make an argument. Compromises include word length, word choice, being fact checked relentlessly and perhaps even having a piece you have worked hard on rejected at the last minute because of a transportation accident. In fact, i once had a piece for cnn. Com fact checked for five days. It was an 800word piece. And they checked every single clause over and over again. Finally, do yourself a favor. Practice your writing by blogging. Even writing pitches to yourself before writing the post. But spend a lot of time reading the publications you want to be published by. Whether its the Huffington Post which probably is pretty much anybody or rareitan, nplus one, the nation. And understand that you may be rejected newly russ timesumerous times before getting a break. Try not to be paranoid about the grounds for rejection and keep on trying because actually its not perm at all. The reason intelligent outlets for ideas still exist in a very competitive publishing world is because they are well edited and gather an audience of a certain type and offer Something Special to it. You need to do that too. And if a piece is rejected, can you probably publish it at tenured radical. [ applause ] thank you very much. Those are great comes. Now we need to use our phds to figure out, we need the questions asked from the mics. Just get behind it if you have a question. We can line up a few people at a time. Please come to the mic and ask away. And if you can keep your questions on point, that would be great. Go ahead. Go. Hi my name is Sean Driscoll a graduate student in worchester, massachusetts. You touched on it a little bit on your discussion about film. I personally feel that film if doesnt right, can be one of the best openings for students. What is your feeling about public intellectuals being involved in crafting quality films, films that are educated and, b, have any of you ever had any experience within the Film Industry of, you know, being asked to advise or help do research. Thank you. I would just start by saying i think its an extremely tough issue. Theres many people here i know who have advised films. But films are made, meaning nondocumentary films i assume, with a very different approach than a documentary, that a piece of academic work, screenwriters are willing to play around with time. They are willing to create scenes that never happened to convey a point or to advance a drama. And they are comfortable with that. And ultimately will make the argument they are not historians, and they are not bound by what we are bound by and that is how we do it. And we can think of many films where this has become an issue. You know im fine with people doing that. Sometimes you cringe. I dont like when someone is portrayed as doing something that they fundamentally may believe in or didnt do. Im a little okay when chronology is used in a way i wouldnt use it, because i understand thats how you can tell a story. But i do think a historian ultimately wants to consul, hastconsult, as eric commented going into documentaries. What you say is only going to be a piece. Let me just add that historical fiction is a timeon ordered drama. Shakespeare didnt go on saying that Julius Caesar was accurate. Nobody really thinks thats how Julius Caesar really was. But today film makers want to play it both ways. They want to make things up but they also want the accuracy. They want to be able to claim this is real history. I dont mind if they get up and say, hey, this is fiction, folks. Im using this for historical fiction, go for it. But when they create fiction and claim its history, wait a minute. Historians are a killjoy. They say, no, it want like that. Nobody will go to a movie with me anymore. Ail do is complain. And theyre expensive. But ive sort of given up on, yes, the genre is powerful. Millions of people see these movies. With some exceptions, selma being one whatever everyone thinks of that movie. Most movies are based on one individual, i dont care whether its malcolm x or gandhi or you name other pictor kwal and by the way. All this seems to be men. Are there any movies about women . Amelia earhart. Queen victoria. Its usually great men and even when its not a biographical movie, theyre unable to get away from how history develops. Im at a little bit of a disagreement with eric. I think some of these historical film, even though theyre not accurate, can start really good discussions. Im thinking of a film that was completely inaccurate, that was olivers film kennedy, jfk. I think its the speculations he made there from one absurdity to another absurdity. Some of you remember if you are a certain age, there was a good debate about that film and it got people thinking about kennedy and who opposed kennedy a little bit about how everyone loves king. But at the time he was alive they didnt love king. They didnt love kennedy either. At the time he was alive. And my students are amazed at that. Why would anyone want to kill this saint . It depends on the film. Some films are just of if the production values are good, then a film could start a good discussion about history. And people want to know more. Id like to throw in a Little Something about the production piece of this because my first book, very strangely, is about, its the only scholarly treatment of the fbis warren crime. I dont know why thats true. I wrote it first as a dissertation because there was no scholarly treatment of the war on crime. Its used repeatedly by film makers. It was used by the people who did the Johnny Depp Dillen jer. It was used by the Clint Eastwood hoover people. So on a certain level, your work is done when youve written the book. What they choose to do with it or not is their business. The part i would caution everybody about is getting involved with hollywood film makers, because what they really want is a lot of help for free. And both with the johnny depp people and with the hoover people we would debt into this place where we would be two hours into the conversation, and i would go look, if you really want to know more you need to hire me as a consultant on the film. And theyd go oh and hang up. So both, its a lot of uncompensated labor. You will probably find out that theyre not, as many people are saying, they will not tell the story you want to tell. So, like the biggest trope about j. Edgar hoover is that he was a closet homosexual. I have been interviewed by multiple people on that production team, and told them a very different story. They dont care. If that, if thats the story that they bought, thats the story that they bought. So i actually dont think historians have that great an impact on a film once its gone into production. Let me just add one quick thing. If you think youre going to get rich by being involved with a movie, forget it. I sat down once with richard attenborough, he wanted to make a movie about tom payne. And he said i have your book on tom payne. Its great were really planning to use it. Surely you have to pay me something, buy the rights . No, no, no. Thats public domain, he said. So forget hollywood paying you anything. Very quickly there are some great films that are historically based. Im thinking about the one by raoul peck. Obviously, selma, 12 years, the butler. The historian can jump in after the movie comes out. The movie creates an opportunity for a conversation about subjects people are not usually talking about. So selma, now were talking about Voting Rights and how does the grassroots impact policymaking, like most people are just not focussed on this on a daily basis. And now theres a big debate. Historians write opeds, et cetera. And that creates space for discussions about serious issues that otherwise its low on on the agenda of most americans. Thank you. Okay. Id like to begin by appreciate appreciate what you said. You mentioned hoffsteter. I feel that you did not go far enough, because he was very very influenced by psychoanalysis. With regard to the professor, many years ago i corresponded with you and you wrote back to me. My names jock salute, by the way. And it had to do with psycho history. And you told me then that Columbia University was a very conservative school, yet at one time, the leading stories came from columbia. Also if you can get to the question, that would be great. Okay. Im almost there. Ill try to be as brief as youve been. Okay. So 50 years ago professor walter landgruff was a president of this association. And in his president ial address, he said this, even the best historians in the past were not that good, because where theyre convectional that is pop psychology. If historians want to do a good job, they have to go with psychoanalysis because that deals with young people and the conscience. Interesting. Anybody want to comement . Well, actually i would say that psychoanalysis helps everybody. I actually feel like i am a better historian because, because of psychoanalysis, but i would, i would also say that as public intellectuals, its wise, and i think the panel this morning on International Public intellectuals really made that point very graphically that when we put history out there, it has consequences. And it has consequences for nationalism. It has consequences for certain kinds of public debate. I think, you know if one of the things i was talking to my friend martha jones about this morning is what it would mean for some of us who are committed to antiracism in our historical practice to actually be proactive so were not always responding to things like ferguson but that were actually ready to go when they happen and assume that they will happen. And in answer to your question, i think in order to do that we really have to be rigorous rigorous researchers. Because what people dont want to hear is theory. And they dont want to hear our opinions of why people do what they do. They want actually Historical Context, as Ellen Fitzpatrick put it this morning did it ever happen before . Will it happen again . What does it mean . And that kind of evades the practice of psychoanalysis. Nelson . Just a simple question. Do you think the right broadly conceived is just sort of a parallel to the way the left in terms of public intellectuals function with the same, a different set of values but the same institutions and motivations et cetera, or is it sort of a, whats the asymmetrical, you know thats the phrase. And you know im thinking of the way some of the recent history that, you know, says the right and the left are not just mere images of each other. They have they function in different ways. They arent equally motivated social movements. They have different institutions. So i just throw that question out. Im sure we have different opinions about that. In some ways conservatives are in a better position to be public intellectuals, because they think we control the academy, especially historians. Thats not true for economics, but for humanists more people on the left than on the right are in history and philosophy. Compared to english, et cetera. In some ways efficiency they want to if they want to have an impact, they have to write for publications am i have some good friends on the right Christopher Caldwell who writes a column for the Financial Times and the weekly standard. Hes one of the most erue diet people i know. And he would never think about writing like an academic he continued on. And, you know, theres some journals like clairemont review which comes out of the university, but is written in you know a pretty spritely manner. So i hate to say it with in a panel like this, but we can learn a lot from conservative intellectuals, the way they write, not all of them, of course, but in terms of style, in terms of reaching a public you know, we we could do worse than not follow the politics physically, but learn from how they can really put forth a point of view very starkly, often very vividly as well. Well, i think in terms of that question theres a couple of things. The left theres many different lefts, to take on what claire was saying. Weve got many different segregated left public spheres that are africanamerican, that are queer that are sort of an old left, now an oldnew left, because theyre geriatric as well. So the left [ laughter ] well, no. No. No. Im not saying that as a criticism. As an empirical fact. Stokely, i just wrote a biography. Stokely was born in 1941. If he was alive today, hed be 73 years old. So heres thing. I think that whats interesting for all of us when we think about left versus right is what i think left public intellectuals and think tanks should do is really, really be antiracist and antisexist and antihomophobia, because what it does is you have all these think tanks, so youre going to have demos. Most of those are very monolithic and homogeneous. So youre going to have queer blogs. Youre going to have African American websites like the root the grio. Obviously hbcus which employ most black professors. That is its own public intellectual site. One of the worst things we have and i think both obamas election and ferguson brought this to the fore is how segregated political thought is in the United States, even in the 21st century, why its cnn, whether its, you know the Kennedy School wherever you go that, they may be progressive, right, but theyre progressives who are segregationists. They talk about the new jim crow. Its not just about mass incarceration, its also the way we teach our graduate students, the way we study, the histories that we study. Everyones talking about slavery and capitalism right now. Nobodys citing eric williams, dubois. Other folks dont. Youve got new people doing tremendous things, but theyre still segregating the scholarship. So we do it in the public as well. Thats why its so so important when we have public intellectuals, cornells new book, prophetic fire is oso important. Hes looking at ida b. Wells. Shes a thinker that we should all be reading right . Thats whole thing. I remember i started grad school when i was 20 years old, and one of the most surprising things to me about graduate school was the way in which white colleagues were not reading black political thought. They just wouldnt read it. People who are interested in democracy, they were interested in s. D. S. And tom hayden you say what about dubois black reconstruction, not interested, why not . Well, my professors havent told me to read this. So weve segregated this public. So we have a right wing left wing, but we dont want to acknowledge that the left is segregated, right . And we can do something about it as public intellectuals by calling people out that weve got to converge and actually have conversations with each other, right . And its not just the new republic. Its other forums too, that have never allowed queer people people of color to be part of that debate. I do think of back to mikes comment that, you know, and nelsons question you know the right did invest a lot of money in, in the creating outlets for public intellectuals. And i know theres a disconnect with the antiintellectualism in the conservative movement but they did that from feeling marginalized from the universities. Whatever the left is and parts of the left have tried to replicate that whether its the american prospect or center for American Progress or some of these institutions. I dont know if theyre caught up yet but it is a period thats probably interesting to study, and there were flaws and there were limits but i do think theres parts to take ideas very seriously, like south korea like uvall levin who people may not like but who is fierce in promoting his journal and the role of the intellectual in revitalizing and strengthening strengthening conservatism. I would also, just want to add, i think one motivation from parts of the panel is clearly an activist public intellectual. I would say theres also room and i probably put myself more in this, the commentators. Someone who wants to for me, its kind of like how washington works. Thats what drove me and the family teacher. I came from a family of rabbis, so im trying to teach everyone. Figure out ways to impart knowledge. And i do think that part of how historians or public intellectuals should also be thought of and nurtured and is really important. And there needs to be space for that. Because i think theres many scholars who have contributed in that way too. And its important to public debate. Its actually really important to add to what you get, which is usually very thin, from the media, not because theyre bad at all, because thats how, you know, much space they have. But i think thats another tradition that really but can you do both. You can definitely do both. You can do both. You talked about family of rabbis. Julian rabbi hoeshle. It can be integrated. I think some will be people will do it in a disconnect. But i think heshle is a great tradition. But i just hope theres different kinds of public intellectual activism that we have to think about. If i can just throw one thing in, i know weve got a big line here. We actually do have those institutions. The right had to build them but the left has them. And i remember years ago i was in a seminar with andre schiffrent. Schiff schiffren, and one of the things he talked about was that the future of publishing might be with the unions. They had the structure and the way to put things out there that nobody else would publish. And when you think of expanding that to the lesbian and gay task force, the hrc, the naacp, planned parent hoorksdd, emilys list. There are entities raising millions and millions. It doesnt cost that much for one or two scholarships a year and to get a book out to let Congress Know how conception happens. Very quickly, someone who coed coed coedits a magazine left wing people believe in funding activism. Its a real mistake but planned parent hood doesnt have a lot of historians, i dont think writing for them. They might have one, but Heritage Foundation and ai and cato have lots of people writing for them. And they get paid very well to write the kind of stuff that those foundations want them to write. I have a question for all of you on the panel. As public intellectuals, have any of you ever written anything that you regret . I did, actually. And it was probably the thing one of the things of mine that got circulated all over the place. Of this was, it was a piece that the washington post, i think asked me to write, about was george w. Bush the worst president in American History. And i think this is a bait that historians should resist, you know . Jumping a but somehow for maybe the reasons that michael pointed out and others, you know, i jumped at it and i wrote a column about why george w. Bush was the worst president in American History, and, you know, it had a historical fact here and there. I compared him to other bad president s, but, you know i think looking back it probably wasnt a very wellconsidered thing. And then a reporter for the, for usa today asked president bush about this. I read he said, you know this historian has said youre the worst president in American History. And bush gave the right answer, actually, he said well well let future historians judge that. This is not the time to make that judgment. And he was right about that. So of i, yes you do, when you write quickly, and i dont have a blog like this. Probably there are many things that you later on might say, hmm, im not so sure i really want to stick up for that in the, have that on my tombstone. I mean, as the person who has probably published more things that i regret than anyone else in the room, it is one of the costs of writing quickly. It is one of the costs of being responsive to current events. Is that i not, you know, i try to stick to writing about things that i know well enough to be able to you know, really be able to stand behind. But sometimes i write things either that im not as wellinformed about as i should be or that are so controversial that i actually wish i hadnt spent the energy on them that i had. And i think you know one of these is a series of posts i did about boycott divest sanction when the resolution was moving through the American Studies Association which caused me more trouble than the duke lacrosse case in the end. And i became the object of some really horrifying behavior. And i would not say that i am sorry about what i wrote, but if i had it to do over again i wouldnt do it because it wasnt worth it. And i think one of the things to really think about if youre putting your stuff out there is not just am i willing to stand behind these views but am i willing to suffer for them if i need to, and what kinds of suffering might really be in the interests of a larger public and what kinds of suffering simply are not in anyones interest. I second what claire said. I wrote one column criticizing the pds movement and i still hear about it. Socalled left winger who doesnt agree request with pds. I wrote a four or fivepart series on how great north korea was. [ laughter ] thats way before, that was the original kim, when the original kim was in power. [ laughter ] and, and, i should have suspected something because all the north korean source i was using called him the ironwilled commander in every sentence. But i thought id done something great, because i got an invitation to go to pyongyang, all expenses paid, and i said sure, why not, and they said please bring your wife. And i told them i wasnt married. Them they canceled out the invitation. I guess maybe they thought i was going to abscond with a north korean woman. I dont know what they thought. But the minute they found out i wasnt married, the invitation to tour this paradise of socialism was canceled. I remember this was a lesson in social media when joe wilson yelled out you lie, and i wrote a piece it wasnt really about that as much as how congress has historically been a raucous place. And i did a quick history, 100word history, other infamous moments when congress has done outrageous things and you know, stuff like joanne freemans talking about how they used to fight and have guns and just beat each other senseless. And that was base, it was a light story, but to put the context on the institution, but i learned people dont often read the column. And so this was right when the tea party was ramping up. Suddenly this became a column attacking joe wilson. That was how, and i had one thing that got so severe, the university contacted the fbi. The fbi investigated this guy who had written me, like im going to come, and im going to you know beat you senseless kind of thing. And this unfortunately is part of the new media because its very easy to get comments out to reach people when youre University Professor you cant hide, how to contact you. So i didnt regret writing the piece. I stand by it. And i want even actually making in some ways probably the opposite point of what the guy was mad about but i learned i remember like i wish i could just take this thing away, its not worth, its not worth that kind of heat. I get used to it, but its part of that new media world. Hi im jane carr, an acs public fellow. I want to share all the panelists and pekick up on a point hundred, to ask if the panelists overall would reflebts or share examples from or elaborate on how they mentor graduate students and junior scholars perhaps who show desire or initiative or have experience doing intellectual work and perhaps ways in which those grad students or junior colleagues may have mentored you. I think its very haphazard right now. I would like to call your attention to an article in perspectives a couple years ago in which a group of us put together a protocol for tweeting panels, for example. It was becoming clear that a lot of people were using twitter in the context of conventions like this one. And that there needed to be some agreement on what was an ethical use of twit ner that context. The vast majority of people still do not know these protocols. I think they should be part of the app that was distributed for this meeting. But they include things like asking permission if youre going to tweet which i always do, because there are people who would, who feel that they cant really speak freely if they are being turned into public inch lek actuals against their will. They think theyre in a ballroom at the hilton and actually theyre out in the world screaming through a megaphone. I would say another thing which i think the recent, whatever you want to call it, the withdrawal of the tenured offer to steven soleda should be a warning shot across our bow that if faculty and students do not begin to talk to each other about what were doing when we use social media, universities will begin to make policy for us and it will be very draconian. And there have been incidents of at least five scholars recently, some on the right, some on the left, some who just made a mistake. My colleague, eric loomis tweeted something about the nra that nearly did get him fired and also brought a lot of nasty criticism and Death Threats on him from nra supporters. So i think its something we have to talk about. We cant act as though our scholarly lives are separated from social media lives because actually, all the Young Scholars coming up are on social media now. And so i think it has to be part of the training, not just to think about the multiple venues that will help you get your work out, but what does it mean to actually be a responsible member of a social media community, and i would include facebook. I see things on facebook that i actually think are deeply and profoundly unwise, and i love facebook. So. Id say in terms of mentoring grad students or junior faculty i think the biggest thing has to be, one, to do the academic and scholarly work because i mean, were not being trained to become public intellectuals. So its just growing out of you being a professional, trained historian. If anything, i would recommend, if youre in grad school, to focus on your research, turning the dissertation into a book and really honestly not writing blog posts, because i think most of the time, thats taking up too much time. Everybody here is tenured, full professors, and theyre fine. Theyre set. [ laughter ] and some of them are more set than others, you know . So i would say the big training before any of that is getting your sklarship done. And whuns you have your sklar ship done and you have enough energy to work on the second project and to blog and do all this stuff id say yeah thats great. But bun anecdotal thing. Ive had Young Scholars whove asked me for media advice and ive given it to them contacts or whatever it is they need but these are folks who have published their first book and have tremendous amount of energy. I do agree with what claire was saying about, you know, theyre using twitter. We have to tell our young people that you cant use twitter and just be angry. Because theres some graduate students that do ive seen some twitter accounts that are just crazy. If people check this, you may not get a job. The thing is, the politics are left right, whatever, they are a just super angry and rude politics. So its like, the nra can go to and you cant write a twitter post that your mom would be fine with if you cant write something dhau proudthat you can proudly show your mother dont write it. A graduate student does want to write an oped based on their research. Ive done this ive done this Miller Center thing, but in general i generally dissuade people from doing it because they just now need to become scholars and get the job. Too, its so polarized out there. When you send this, you just dont know whats going to happen. And something that seems kind of mundane or interesting but not explosive can turn just that way and hurt you career wise. And i just had a, i have a graduate student, some of my graduate students are here, so theyve heard this from me. So ill help, but im also very kushs. And i had a graduate student its funny, who just started recently. I said you got to get off your twitter now. Because i looked it up. And it was fine, actually the twitter. There was just a lot of it, and i doesnt know. Its nervewracking because this stuff survives, and i dont know how its going to work with jobs and publishing. Who knows. And i dons know if that was the right thing to say, but that was my advice on it. A slight disagreement. I, of course, when youre writing deserization you shouldnt be spending time writing opeds. I think theres nothing wrong with picking a topic that you think will be more popular, will get you more into a public dialog of that various issue. A couple of my stunds one former one current one theyve heard me say good writing is good writing. My agent who is also erics agent gave me the best piece of advice about writing history. She said one cannot assume interest. [ laughter ] and a lot of historians assume interest. They narrow themselves down at the beginning. Now, look i, there are wonderful medieval historians out there. Theyre going to have a harder time writing opeds, clearly, but if you do the kind of history that most of us do and probably in the audience because youre interested in this kind of thick do, theres nothing wrong with thinking as youre finishing your dissertation how can i get this work better publicized, i do try to get my students to think about that. Not when theyre in the middle of orals or in the middle of doing research, but as theyre ending their dissertations, because after all, as i said before whats the point of writing something unless people read it. Im going to contradict myself. Hes right in that practically, like it or not, you have to find ways, certainly, in the u. S. History to have work to some appeal to a dying press. And i added a series at princeton u press. And theyre looking for books that wont have mass commercial value but that pitch that of would do for an op ed. And it matters if you want to get published. And i dont think you can taylorday tailor it just to that but its going to be a reality if publishing now. I would also say one thing about the pitch, which is a learned skill. Its not that different than the first paragraph out of your mouth when youre interviewing for a job. And its the kind of thing where we now use the wikipedia exercise for undergraduates. Its the kind of thing that teaches something about how to operate in another mode that is also very useful to your scholarship. I work on the emma goldman papers. And i consider emma goldman to have been one of the great public intellectuals of our time. I totally respect everybody on the panel, so this has been a real joy but i, i guess im very aware of the fact that to be a public intellectual you also have to have a certain am of privilege. And for example when i think of emma goldman, i think, well, she was an immigrant and her citizenship was sort of iffy, and if youre too eloquent and too out there, then youre more vulnerable. So one of the things i wanted to say is that almost all of the government records that i have on emma before her deportation and also clay carson before Martin Luther king got shot was all about their eloquence. And that that was something that was terrifying. To the powers that be. So i think its i just think that there is power in words, as you were saying. But i also think that theres an element in which you, i mean, you were saying that youre all faculty and everything, but i think you have to encourage people to speak, but you also have to protect other people who are in a more vulnerable position based on race. Country, citizenship to be able to speak as well and Pay Attention to that. I think thats true, candace. And now to return to a subject thats far more complex than we have time for, i actually cant think what more we could have done for steven soleda, and it didnt work. So its not just our privilege. Its the institutions that we work in. And it is being proactive about establishing our rights and our Academic Freedom within those institutions. I went to a panel yesterday on the 150th anniversary of the apartment au aaup, and it was very instructive in the ways in which Academic Freedom has not always been the Gold Standard for the aaup. So they stood for Academic Freedom in principle but not really in practice until the 1960s and 1970s. It gives us very little to act on and we did act, thousands of us, in relation to steven, and it didnt do anything. Which is why im saying i really think we need to turn to our institutions wesleyen yan protected me. Theyre not a state institution. They dont rely on taxpayers and legislators, but i think there are broader prns pls, and it is going to take a certain a activism on our part to make those issues public. I would follow up. The task again, julian called it activist public intellectual. I think historians as public intellectuals are activists, whether they intend to or not. But what we can do from the position of our ebony and ivory towers is utilize that bailiwick and bring in all these other voices. Thats what we do at tufts. And we bring people both go out to the Community Rocks bury, dorchester, people who have no formal connection to tufts weve brought them on to the campus, and i go out there and do free talks, free workshops, and its not just talking. Its listening as well in terms of how can we use all the resources that a place like tufts has to communities in and around boston that will never, a lot of them will never get a chance to be on that campus unless we invite them onto the campus. So theyre not necessarily prospective students. Theyre students who are at kifk. Young people, and some of them are community organizers, exconvicts trying to make a different way, a different path in their life. And when they come to campus they find it extraordinary. Some of them have never been to a university campus, and they find out what we do and the discussions that were having, and we kentconnect with what theyre interested in. Some of them are interested in gentry any cation. We can be not only public intellectuals and historians. Its important for those of us privileged enough to have gotten tenure. And for somebody like me, when im in the History Department but the whole field of africanamerican studies, coming out of the 1960s and certainly theres dubois and the institutionalization into the American Academy was a fraught. In the context of black lives matter now, people want to find out more because theres this social, in the 60s and 670s, these things came because people were protesting. Some people thought they were a bad thing. Like thats not an american tradition. Part of what were doing is trying to provide access to people who dont have access. [ inaudible ] as successful as you are in reaching other people, you can be sure that that is considered a danger. I see what youre saying. Big files. I see what youre saying. I want to read his file. [ laughter ] eloquence is much more powerful. We have a few more minutes. Lets try to get the final two questions. My name is glenda matthews, and i plead guilty to being a geriatric lefty. I want to, i want to just briefly say something, and then i have a substantive question. Just to give some historic perspective, i, my first publication was in the nation, 40 years ago, and it was called women of the boycott, and it was based on a coauthored work. And i got one letter. I was teaching at san jose state at the time, and i thought, ah, im a public intellectual, or i didnt think that, because i didnt have the terrellm, but thats general idea. And the letter, im pair fragsz, Delores Huerta turns me on and so do you, and then it went on to body parts. So you didnt have to have the internet or Electronic Media to get really weird responses. My substantive question is something that we havent talked about yet at all is the public that is school kids and high school kids. And i think its so important for academic historians to feel not just i mean writing textbooks is important, but what are the ways of engaging our young people . Because the right is absolutely determined to push back against you know we see whats going on in texas and in that one School District in colorado. So do you have any thoughts about that . Tv and sunday afternoon at 2 on American History tv on cspan3. Every weekend on cspan3 48 hours of American History. And this week, with the house and senate in recess all week for president s day, we are bringing you American History tv in primetime on cspan3. Tonight, two discussions from the american historical Associations Annual meeting. First, a look at the social upheaval of the 1970s. Then a conversation on historians being viewed as public intellectuals. Up next on American History tv on cspan3, a look at the social changes of the 1970s such as the aftermath of watergate, increasing divorce rates drug use and crime. From the american historical Associations Annual meeting last month in new york city this is two hours. Welcome, everybody, to todays panel on the crises of the 1970s. So we have a great panel today and i im going to just start out by talking a little bit about what we thought how we kind of framed this panel and what we are kind of hoping to accomplish. One of the things we have set this up as a round table intentionally. All of us were going to speak for maybe about ten minutes, so kind of making a few brief remarks about the literature on the 1970s and thinking you about the 1970s, what this unique time means to us today and then we would like to open it up and have a lot of time for conversation, both among both with each other and most importantly, with the audience. So we are going to be sticking to a pretty, you know pretty tight time and hopefully having a lot of time