I never tried to sell myself as an alcohol/temperance historian but instead
as a social historian or more precisely as a historian of social policies.
Nobody ever seem to be concerned about the match or lack of it between my
research and my teaching. Nobody complained even when a good deal of my
research shifted geographically from British to American and other
histories. Only once did I try to teach a course on alcohol and temperance
history (as a senior seminar). It was a disappointment. This current term
I required students in an honors section of modern world history to read
David Courtwright's book on drugs. When I also asked students to do group
presentations about a commodity, most of the students chose a drug topic (in
Courtwright's definition of drugs). By the way, the students like the book.
On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 12:21 PM, Cheryl Warsh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Michael:
>
> As a fellow historian I agree with David. There is a great deal of student
> interest in history, media studies, etc. on courses in popular culture, and
> alcohol is certainly part of it. A common worry for recent grads on the job
> market is that their topic is not 'relevant' or 'saleable' and trying to
> anticipate course interest is like trying to anticipate the stock market. If
> you're passionate about a subject, it will show in your teaching and
> writing. Of course you have to do the 'service' courses, in my case - the
> Canadian survey - but there are bonuses to that as well. The broader your
> teaching base, the broader the connections you can make in your own
> research. Furthermore, you get to enrich the standard political histories
> with your insights about everyday lives and habits.
>
> Cheryl Krasnick Warsh, PhD
> Professor of History & Editor-in-Chief
> Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin canadien d'histoire de la
> médecine
> Vancouver Island University
> 900 Fifth Street, Nanaimo, B.C. V9R 5S5
> Phone: 250-753-3245 x. 2113 (office)
> x. 2016 (journal)
> Fax: 250-740-6459
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> note: new email address
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Courtwright, David [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 10:47 AM
> Subject: Alcohol / drug stigma and the job market
>
> Michael:
>
> I agree with Ernie. The history of illicit drugs and drug addiction is as
> suspect than the history of alcohol and alcoholism. Probably more so. Yet I
> can't say that my research in the field has been a career handicap. There's
> a large difference between research and teaching. Publishers and funding
> sources are interested in the addiction area because it touches a policy
> nerve. Academic departments aren't much interested, at least not in the way
> they're interested in minority studies. But that shouldn't matter if you can
> offer their bread-and-butter courses. (I've spent most of my time teaching
> history of medicine, legal history, and American history period courses.)
> Perhaps it works differently in English departments, which tend to be highly
> politicized, but historians and social scientists seem less concerned with
> the research specialties of new hires than their ability to plug conspicuous
> holes in the curriculum. I say this as someone who has taken part in perhaps
> twenty assistant professor searches over thirty years.
>
> David T. Courtwright
> University of North Florida
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society on behalf of Ernest Kurtz
> Sent: Tue 3/3/2009 4:36 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: literary drinking
>
>
> Michael,
>
> I admire your courage, but in my professional career, I have consistently
> found alcohol studies to be as stigmatized as alcoholism itself. And the
> same is true of addiction studies. But some truly great people have made
> and continue to make real contributions: Robin Room comes to mind, as does
> George Vaillant, but quite a few others on this list also qualify. My main
> suggestion is to maintain your ambiguity -- some people will listen to you
> or read you just to figure out whether or not you are one of "them." And
> once you've got them listening, if you are a good teacher, you can teach.
> The main thing in job-hunting, I believe, is convincing people that you a
> truly good teacher.
>
> ernie kurtz
> ----
> Ernest Kurtz, Ph.D. (Harvard 1978)
> Adjunct Assistant Research Scientist (than which rank there is no lower)
> The University of Michigan School of Medicine
>
>
>
> On Mar 3, 2009, at 10:36 AM, Michael Carolan wrote:
>
>
>
> As a new member of the forum (and, believe it or not, a former
> student of Professor Wedge's), I appreciate all the recommendations of
> creative work in here. I wanted to share what a veteran professor had to say
> about the field in a professional recommendation he wrote for me recently
> after I developed addiction studies courses at UMass:
>
> "Addiction is an area of study not unlike African American studies
> or Native American studies, and possibly all the more relevant not least
> because it not yet an established area of study."
>
> As I enter the severely shrunken academic job market, I am left
> wondering why all I see are openings for minority, third world, gay and
> lesbian studies but none for alcohol, mental illness, and/or addiction? Am I
> missing something?
>
> With deep respect,
> Michael Carolan
> University of Massachusetts-Amherst
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society [mailto:
> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Fahey
> Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 1:19 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: literary drinking
>
>
> [Personal papers of George Wedge]
>
>
> Database:
> University of Kansas Libraries
> Main Author:
> Wedge, George F. <
> http://catalog.lib.ku.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?SC=Author&SEQ=20090228121723&PID=nZT-3bbxeXgav16B8dUssxr0H2ka&SA=Wedge,+George++F
> .>
> Title:
> [Personal papers of George Wedge]
> Linked Resources:
> Finding aid <http://ead.diglib.ku.edu/xml/ksrl.ua.wedgegeorge.html>
> Publisher:
> 1958-1993.
> Format:
> Archival/Manuscript Material
> Description:
> 12 linear ft.
>
>
> Indexes:
> Finding aid available on the Internet.
> General Notes:
> Wedge taught English at the University of Kansas from 1958-1993. This
> collection consists of writings, manuscripts, research, and correspondence.
>
> Margaret Wedge; gift; 2003.
>
>
> ________________________________
>
>
>
> Location <http://catalog.lib.ku.edu/help/location.htm> :
> Spencer Library (University Archives)
> Call Number <http://catalog.lib.ku.edu/help/callnum.htm> :
> PP 408 <
> http://catalog.lib.ku.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?SC=CallNumber&SEQ=20090228121723&PID=nZT-3bbxeXgav16B8dUssxr0H2ka&SA=PP+408
> >
> Status <http://catalog.lib.ku.edu/help/status.htm> :
> Item details not available
>
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 11:11 AM, Crowley, John <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
> There is, of course, no shortage of examples of alcoholic characters
> and
> alcoholic behavior in twentieth-century American literature. Just
> look
> into the recent wave of memoirs. One early success, Mary Karr's THE
> LIAR'S CLUB, is everywhere redolent of her father's whiskey breath.
> The
> one I most admire and the one I've taught most often is DRINKING: A
> LOVE
> STORY by the late Caroline Knapp (who died much too young, but not
> from
> drinking after all).
>
> This topic reminds me of George Wedge (U of Kansas), one of the true
> founders of Alcohol and Addiction Studies within the "discipline" of
> English. For many years he compiled a bibliography of
> drinking/drunken
> writers and their stories. (I hope it's gone into the Kansas
> library.)
> Unfortunately, George never published very much of what he knew; but
> all
> of us owe him an intellectual debt.
>
> Toward the end of his life, George was thinking about the idea that
> AA
> had possibly distorted the early scholarship in the field
> (including,
> for instance, mine!): by subtly introducing an unduly righteous tone
> toward unregenerate alcoholic authors as well as the possibly rigid
> notion that sobriety goes with superior literary production, in
> terms of
> quantity and quality too. Perhaps a dubious idea; for some writers
> (e.g. Styron) report the virtual necessity of alcohol in their
> literary
> inspiration. Simply denial? Just an excuse? Maybe not? That's
> the
> direction George would have taken. Any fellow travelers? (I once
> tried
> out this approach in a short piece on James Whitcomb Riley, all of
> whose
> best poetry was written under the influence and none of whose sober
> poetry has ever been considered worth a damn.)
>
> John W. Crowley, U of Alabama
>
>
>
> --
> David M. Fahey
> Professor of History
> Miami University
> Oxford, Ohio 45056
> USA
>
--
David M. Fahey
Professor of History
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio 45056
USA
|
