Week Ten

As someone else said, it was unclear whether we were supposed to blog this week since there were no readings, but given that we had class and had an interesting discussion about things we should all be thinking about, I'm going to assume we are.

Following the discussion from last Wednesday's class, I'm going to write about where I'm at concerning a topic for my thesis project (assuming I decide to go ahead with it).

When I first signed up for this class, I assumed my project would be something about post-WWII labor and economic history. I was interested in the shift from economic upsurge in the 50s and 60s to economic decline since the mid 70s, and particularly in the role that the move toward a more finance-dominated economy played in this change. In one sense, my topic has grown more specific: I've narrowed in on the 1970s as my period of interest given the immense significance of that decade as a transitional period in the US in many ways.

But in other ways I've just grown more uncertain. I've realized how difficult it is to find a way to make large-scale financial history an appropriate field for a 30-40 page research project without having more than a cursory familiarity with statistical economics. Maybe the solution is to focus on a specific institution, but how to choose one and how to relate it to my broader interests is equally unclear. Furthermore, I've become more and more interested in exploring the intersectionality between financial institutions and racial issues, for example the ways that financial domination of the economy has limited access to economic advancement for people of color, as well as the ways that financial tools like debt have been used to shape urban (and national) geographies along racial lines. But once again, sorting through all of this to find a workable thesis topic is daunting.

As a secondary choice for topic, I've considered doing something in labor history, specifically something in the southeast in the 70s. As Dr. Sacco mentioned during our last class, this was the period when industry began moving to the South (both the southern US and the global south) as part of the process of neoliberalization and union-busting, and this had huge significance for labor in both North and South. It would be much easier to find a workable topic along these lines, and even to include race or gender issues. And, given that I'm likely to have a career working in labor in the south, it seems a fitting topic. For some reason, though, the other topical area just seems more interesting to me...but maybe that's shortsightedness.

Week Nine

I intended to write about Che and last week's discussion, but thinking about it I found I just don't have that much to say that wouldn't be forced and redundant. I agree with some of the sentiments expressed in other folks' posts about it being disturbing and frustrating that these (finally unclassified) documents are still heavily censored with black marking and so on. I just don't think I can write a whole post about this.

What I've been thinking about more is the thesis project, graduate school, and next year's research, and so, following Kat, I want to talk about that.

First, graduate school. For a long time I've been moving back and forth on whether I want to go to graduate school and hopefully end up in academia. I've always seen a lot of pros and cons. On the plus side, a tenure-track position is relatively stable and relatively well-paying (especially after tenure). It would allow me a career exploring the things that interest me, and the idea of teaching college level courses is appealing to me. I enjoy reading and writing and so on and I think I'm at least fairly good at these things. But there are a lot of negatives too--tenure-track jobs are becoming increasingly hard to find; five or more years of graduate school does not sound at all appealing when I'm already totally burned out on school; I don't really like the idea of spending many years on a single topic and researching it exhaustively.

Recently, I think I've become fairly confident that I don't want to be a professional academic. The deciding factor in my mind at this point is simply that the life of academia no longer seems very appealing to me. I don't want to be sucked into a world that prioritizes professional standards and institutional correctness above social change and the freedom to explore life. I'm not necessarily saying that these things should not be prioritized in academia (actually, I guess I am, but I don't mean to imply that rigorous standards for research are not important), just that that life doesn't appeal to me. I want to be able to go where I want and do what I want, and have the flexibility to change my mind about how I live my life and make a living at any given time. I don't want to be stuck into a life-long path that is, in its basic structure, pre-determined.

I've always had artistic aspirations as a musician, and recently in film, that I might pursue, but realistically those things are not likely to blossom into a career. More likely I will end up doing rank and file work for a labor union, or staffing for a political organization.

But if I'm not going to graduate school, where does that leave me as far as this research project? I expect I'm not the only one in this class who intends to finish this project but not to enter academia as an historian, and I would like to hear thoughts from others in this camp about why we're doing it. Is it just for our own satisfaction? I think there's definitely some personal benefits to doing this research and finishing a fairly large-scale writing project, but are they great enough to cause us to spend a year of our time devoted to doing it? Or is the reason for doing it primarily to prove credentials--to add to a resume so to speak? I'm trying to figure out what situation this credential would be beneficial in outside of applications to graduate schools in the liberal arts and I'm sortof drawing a blank. Maybe the reason I'm doing it is just because I don't want to eliminate for myself the choice of applying to graduate school at a later time.

I'm not sure of the answers partly because I'm not sure exactly what kind of commitment this will be. I don't really have a clear idea of how many hours per week of my time this research will consume, how much stress it will add to my life. I'm already sacrificing a course I really want to take because it's taught at the same time as the class meeting time for the 407 class, and increasing the overall courseload I have to take next year by at least three credit hours, maybe six. It would be nice to be able to breeze through my last year of school without any major academic stresses, only taking the courses I want to be taking (which I would be able to do since the only requirements I have left to take are within my majors/minor). I've flirted with the idea of dropping the 407 courses, but shied away from it because it somehow seems like giving up or 'chickening out.' But if I can't figure out exactly why I need to write a 40 page research paper, is there anything wrong with not writing it? Maybe I just don't want to be an undistinguished UT graduate without anything special to show for my time as an undergraduate.

Week Eight

I'm really tempted to comment on the discussion that has already started about Che, but I think I'll wait til after the class where we discuss the readings on Che to do so in detail--unless I am confused about what was discussed in the last class. I wasn't there, but according to the syllabus the discussion should have been on the conquest of Mexico, correct? And this week should be Che? Also, is it this week and next that are being switched on the syllabus (making this the week off and next week the Che discussion)?

Anyway, I do want to comment on the idea of not taking sides during the Cold War and the association of Che's beliefs with the Soviet side of that 'war.' I think it's very misleading to think of the Cold War as an ideological battle between capitalism or democracy (or "freedom" if you're nauseatingly idealistic enough to phrase it that way) and communism. It was a struggle for hegemony between two world powers, neither of which was truly guided by an ideology that it thought was best for the common folk. Both the US and the USSR were imperialist powers motivated by the desire for more power. Much of the rhetoric of the Cold War, from both sides, was just propaganda intended for domestic political benefit. The US is as terrible an example of democracy as the USSR is of communism. We should view both as historically situated powers with a political agenda, not as proxies for contrasting political projects.

The contradictions here are particularly striking when you realize that the supposed justification for "battling communism," namely to preserve freedom and democracy, was the same justification for the struggles of Che and other Latin American revolutionaries. Arguably, the Cuban Revolutionaries were genuine about this project and the US military was not. Che and co. were not waging a revolutionary war to support the Soviet side of an international struggle, they were waging a war against oppression and imperialism and fighting for freedom and equality. The record of post-revolutionary Cuba is of course mixed, as is the record of every nation in the history of the world, but overall the revolution brought a dramatic increase in the standard of living as well as the level of freedom, equality, and democracy for Cubans. This improvement is especially staggering when you consider the massive efforts by the West to prevent the project from succeeding. To suddenly have what used to be your most important trading partner, and all of that partner's allies, suddenly cut off all relations, and still to effect dramatic improvements, is downright remarkable. Props to Fidel.

When Marx was writing in the mid and late nineteenth century, he was doing so in opposition to cruelty and oppression and with the aim of creating a better society in which workers--meaning, ideally, all people--would not be ruled over by a tyrannical few but would share power and resources more or less equally. The phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat" refers to the joint rule of the entire working class, not to a single dictator who is supposed to rule in lieu of said working class. Sad, then, that we now simply dismiss this alternative vision to capitalism by pointing to the Soviet Union--a political entity on the opposite end of the spectrum from most everything Marx stood for--and saying "look, that didn't work." Of course it didn't work, but it didn't work because the revolution was betrayed and turned into a corrupt authoritarian regime. That's a failure of tyranny, not of communism. The Cuban case is similar in that it resulted in the rule of a single leader, but unlike Stalin, Castro was repeatedly elected by overwhelming majorities and, also unlike Stalin, Castro's rule dramatically improved the conditions for the people of his country (excepting, of course, those people who had previously been the exploiters and who now live in luxury in the US and complain about the evils of the revolutionary regime in Cuba). We should be skeptical of all centralized power and not let revolutionaries off the hook for their fuck ups just because they wave the right flag, but that doesn't mean it makes sense to conflate any given revolutionary project with the Soviet Union just because the word "communism" has been applied to both. That's far from a fair treatment of independent historical subjects.

Week Seven

I was in the group reading the articles devoted to space. I found the Kohler, Wisconsin article interesting (especially as it is within my area of study) but I didn't find the exploration of the idea of space very convincing.

In the Kohler article, there were two basic ways in which the category of space is employed: first, as a means of exploring the geography of the city itself and the contested conceptual mappings of that geography by labor organizers and company spokespeople, and second, in terms of spacial solidarities constructed between worker-residents of Kohler and, depending on whether you ask the union or the company, respectively, workers in other areas and consumers of Kohler products. The first of these is somewhat trivial, the second not convincing. I agree with the author that homes are gendered female and workplaces male, and that this plays out in both company and union literature, but I don't think this insight is particularly new or profound. This should be obvious to anyone with a basic familiarity with contemporary feminism. The author does attempt to go beyond this basic insight in her exploration of the business district of the town, but her reading of that district and its gender politics seemed very forced and relied on only a snapshot of the evidence--there was nearly zero discussion of what women actually did in that area in terms of shopping or what they did in the American Club on the days it was open to them. Of course the area will appear gendered male if you ignore all the roles that women play in it. The idea of this area as a contested terrain was insufficiently explored.

As for solidarities, real or imagined, with workers and consumers, I think it's a bit of a stretch to explore this in terms of space. Obviously the category of space applies in the limited sense that these solidarities are felt with other people who are spatially separated, but beyond that trivial fact I don't see the application, and the author doesn't explain it. In her defense, she only indirectly claims to be exploring this relationship in terms of space, and my criticism would probably be different if I hadn't been assigned to read these articles through the lens of the category of space--something the author didn't necessarily intend to happen.

In the other article, the discussion of the way a change in urban geography was used to their own advantage by the powers that were is very interesting, but the category of space is not really theorized. Obviously space played a major role in the changes that occured after the fire, and one can productively think about the ingenious way that spatial changes were used to consolidate power without necessarily challenging the economic or diplomatic power of the targeted populations (which would likely have seemed much more obvious as a source of power). Unfortunately, despite the obvious relevance of the topics explored, there is little to no theorization or discussion of power and its relationship to geographical space.

Sixth Week (the official post)

Synchronic/Diachronic: This article is synchronic. The time period covered is over a century, but is presented as a single time period. Little or no qualitative distinction is made between the beginning and end of the period. Certainly the purpose of the article is not to contrast the two.

Emic/Etic: I'm a little confused about how to categorize the article here, but I would say emic since the purpose of the article is to get at contemporary attitudes of and toward orphan children in contrast to the way most of us today conceptualize "orphanhood."

Particularist/Nomothetic: Nomothetic. The article briefly discusses many different examples, and also uses records from the orphanages that apply to all or most cases in a given institution.

Personal Influence/Social Forces: A little of both (there is some discussion of individual nobles using personal influence to achieve their ends) but mostly social forces. The article discusses the way that economic developments in the Spanish colonial system caused the rise (or at least increase) of orphanages in Seville and the way the orphanages fit into a broader social system.

Quantitative/Qualitative: Qualitative. The article doesn't make use of statistics or calculations but rather of qualitative discussions of a number of cases to prove a point. It's not mathematical but, rather, inferential.

Ideationalist/Materialist: Materialist. Again, the discussion gives more attention to the economic causes and social consequences of orphanages than to ideological forces.

Conflict/Consensus: I'm not sure how to apply this dichotomy. I need to give it more thought...maybe I'll come back and edit this post later.

Determinist/Stochastic: Maybe a little of both. It's determinist in that the social/class position of the individual orphan, as well as the status of their living relatives, is thought to play a major role in the outcome of their application, but also stochastic in that each individual case might be different based on more specific circumstances (family connections, persuasiveness of written letters, etc.) I'm not sure if this really means it's stochastic or if it just means it's determinist on different factors.

Sixth Week - FIGHT THE BUDGET CUTS

This post isn't on the assigned topic but I wanted to post it anyway. The assigned post will come later.

I was annoyed by our discussion in class today about the lack of a student movement in Tennessee. It's absolutely true that there is no such movement despite the desperate need for one, but the reasons that folks (read: all of you in class today) give to explain this are alarming. All of the talk I heard about southerners being ignorant and reactionary and "living in a bubble" is not only offensive to me as a proud Appalachian, but is an obvious and shallow attempt to deflect blame. Yes, there are large reactionary elements in our society. There are always reactionary elements. But these elements at most make up a slim majority in this area, and more likely a fairly small minority.

It's not the fault of reactionaries that less than 100 UTK students are willing to come out to a protest on an issue that directly effects them. There are way, way more than 100 UTK students who are aware of the crisis in public education, who recognize that it's in their own material interests for these cuts not to happen, and who will verbally claim that they believe the cuts shouldn't happen. Shit, there are probably a good 10,000 or more students on this campus who would identify as at least moderately liberal in politics. It's THEIR FAULT that they aren't doing shit about anything, not the fault of right-wing reactionaries. And as far as I can tell almost everyone in our class falls into this category--y'all watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report, maybe you read Huffington Post or Daily Kos or something, and you come to class ready and willing to shit-talk conservatives and religious fundamentalists, but have any of you done a single thing to actually resist this (genuinely terrifying) political offensive from the right?

Some of us have been working our asses off to fight back against the cuts to our schools. We've got up early in the morning to stand outside in the cold for hours on end handing out literature about rallies and trying to initiate conversations; we've repeatedly posted flyers on every conceivable wall, doorway, and bulletin board; we've made numerous personal calls to every single person on union phone lists of around a thousand people; we've got up in front of classes presenting petitions and begging fellow students to make even some minimal commitment to sign something or stand outside for a rally; we've written articles and press releases and arranged interviews with every major media outlet in the city and many smaller ones; some folks have even gone around in the UC dining hall soliciting individuals. And yet for all the countless hours that our core group of around two dozen people have all put into this, the result is a turn out at any given event of maybe two or three people for everyone one of us doing this work.

Why? Why, when folks already preach these politics, and when the issue in question is one that directly effects us by costing us money, cutting classes and professors we badly need to graduate, and generally decreasing the value of our degrees, can less than a third of a percent of our student body forces themselves to put even a few minutes of their time into doing something about it? This astounds me.

Go and vote if you want. If the utterly disastrous first year of Obama's administration isn't enough to convince you that he is not, never will be, and never intended to be a progressive, go vote for him again and sit around twiddling your thumbs and waiting for the jolly old corporate Democrats to throw you a crumb once every few decades. But even if you're deluded into thinking substantial change will come from above without us forcing it, this issue is primarily a state and not federal one, and things in the state legislature are even grimmer. How can you fix a problem by voting when even the most progressive and education-friendly of the candidates can barely make the minimal commitment of trying to raise revenue by closing minor tax loopholes? There's zero discussion of raising real revenue by taxing wealthy individuals or corporations, zero discussion of diverting revenue from military and national guard spending, and near zero discussion of forcing cuts to take place at administrative rather than academic levels (or worse, through the elimination of low-wage workers). Some of the most reactionary members of the Tennessee legislature are Democrats (including the majority leader), and their Republican opponents are even worse. There's nobody to vote for when all of the candidates are openly opposed to everything progressives stand for. Democrats on the national level aren't any better, really, but they at least will tell you they are.

Please, please, just do something. If you're worried about academic cuts, about the imminent unemployment of janitorial and clerical workers who already make well below a living wage, about the dramatic increase in tuition likely to come within a few years once the Board of Regents gathers the courage to remove the tuition cap, then get involved and ORGANIZE. Grassroots organizations of concerned people are the only way that real change will come, so go be a part of one and make a difference.

Ugh. Nobody will read this anyway.

Week #5

(I got confused after the last class and was under the impression that we didn't need to write a blog post because of the assignment due, but I just realized today that said reprieve was only for this past week and not for the week of the 17th when I checked the website and saw that everyone else had posted blogs. Oops. So here is my super late blog post and my apology.)

I really loved Thompson's paper on the "moral economy" of English crowds. I already liked Thompson for other reasons (I like his theoretical writings on historical materialism and Marxism), but what I liked about this particular piece is that he started by politically problematizing a bit of terminology and building an historical thesis from that starting point. Usually, we think it should be the other way around: historical research is supposed to be all about scholarship and objectivity, and to freely admit that your agenda is political in nature is somewhat taboo. But I think this is exactly the kind of scholarship we need. Research should not be done for the sake of adding a few more entries into our cultural 'knowledge' database, but rather should serve some social purpose. Obviously not every historian begins their research project with such a purpose in mind, which is fine, but historical writing is that much more enjoyable (for me) to read when such a purpose is central and is clearly stated.

Of course, Thompson does not attack the work of other historians simply on the basis that it's upsetting to his politics. He uses as a starting point statements which appear politically problematic, and then explores the research and assumptions behind those statements to see if his intuitions are correct. I think he convincingly argues that they are. But it isn't really about uncovering the "truth" about history and seeing which political theory said truth best coheres with: all historical writing imposes a political narrative, consciously or not, on the history being told, and in a way Thompson's project is just to show that a very different kind of story can be told. Obviously, standards of historical scholarship should be just as important a criteria as politics in judging the story beind told, but I think we should be honest with ourselves and admit that politics are also important and that they will always influence our judgment whether we want them to or not and, hence, that we should clarify the relationship between scholarship and politics so that we can apply political criteria critically and not blindly. Thompson's article is a great example of what it looks like to do this. The rest of this process is that the article is valuable both to the professional historian and to the layperson, that it contains both an interesting story and a recognizable political moral. I wish there were more histories like this!