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13 blog entries for 2013

I hope your last week has gone well. My children have returned from college for winter break, my family has visited several beaches, and my university is in the middle of its winter closure. So a little time for reflection, and here is the first part, a bit personal: my writing on this blog that […]

Historiographical analysis generally includes at least two types of analysis among the six shown here: the intellectual history of the literature, the specific arguments about time and place, memes common in secondary sources, deeper models of social behavior, the tone taken towards a subject, and the philosophy and ethics of writing history.

What is historiography?

In my talk earlier this month at the Australia and New Zealand History of Education Society, I wanted to make the different strands of my argument clear, and after I framed the broader question of the talk, I formalized the way I often talk about historiography (mostly with graduate students). Historiography is one of the few […]

American Studies Association chickens out on boycott resolution

For the past 12 days, I have been in Australia, drawn by an invitation to speak at the Australia and New Zealand History of Education Society meeting in Brisbane (whose pronunciation rhymes with “Fizzbin”). It’s been a marvelous opportunity to learn more about the history of another country, especially since I had friend and retired […]

Department chairs as middle managers

Today, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an article on department chairs. The gist of the piece is that department chairs work hard, their jobs have changed, and they’re often not supported in a new role. To which my response is, mmmn, yes. Yes, department chairs put some part of their academic life on hold; […]

Origins of the “Dropout Problem”: The NanoMovie (Behind the Lens post)

So, I did this overnight: (Original URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPw63j78NW8) Sordid details: I painstakingly worked for 40 hours to film myself drawing all of the images on the whiteboard we used, and then shrank it down by Hollywood magic. I want to especially thank Joss Whedon for helping with the script. The elephant-piloting-spacecraft scene had to be […]