More Noted Things
At"Tradition Patents," Rhine River, 18 March, Nathanael Robinson continues the discussion that began at John Quiggen's"The Traditionality of Modernity," Crooked Timber, 16 March.
John Tierney's op-ed,"The Faculty Club," NYTimes, 25 February, (Times Select); and, following it, Alonzo Hamby,"Great Dead White Man History," POTUS, 11 March, accuse Harvard's history department of failing to offer courses in the American Revolution and Constitution. The department's senior scholar in the period, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, replied to Tierney [and Hamby] in"The Revolution at Harvard," Harvard Crimson, 3 March. Thanks to Rebecca Goetz and Rob MacDougall for the tip.
Jerry Z. Muller,"Style is Not a Luxury Option: Reflections on the Prose of the Profs," Perspectives, March 2006, argues for better prose in works of history. It's such good advice, he should take it. Alas, say eb and slolernr, Professor Muller"massively transgresses" that staple of every manual of style: use the active voice. In his first 15 sentences, brother slo counts five in the active voice, five relying on the verb"to be" and five in the passive voice. At Oxblog, Patrick Porter has more on bad writing among us historians.
Finally, Karl M. Petruso,"Deconstructing Faculty Doors," Academe, Jan/Feb 2006, is a none-too-serious study of what faculty members post on their doors. It concludes that, except for the lone department wacko, historians aren't known for their sense of humor.