Interesting piece in the Guardian about the affordability of research:

It is the age of the digital historian. Technology gives researchers the means of carrying out their work more effectively and quickly, and archivists need to respond positively to these changes. Without encouraging researchers to use and disseminate their material, archive buildings risk becoming populated only by those with the incomes to be able to indulge in research – and we will all be poorer for it.

Full article.

http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mh9ahwm/Cameras

Why my PhD hasn’t been published yet (although I’ll be tackling it again this summer):

For academics working with visual culture, securing image permissions for a publication can be extraordinarily painful. For early career academics, without access to research funds but under pressure to produce a first monograph, this pain can be felt especially keenly in the wallet.

In my own field, classical archaeology, copyright is a slightly different beast than in, say, fine art. Ancient artefacts have no copyright in themselves, and obviously no living artist can claim royalties. The only relevant copyright belongs to the photographer, so it should all be quite straightforward. But anyone with experience of the process of acquiring photographs from museum files or archives will know how varied, complex and financially horrifying it can be.

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Right up to, and even for a while after, the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, the predominant attitude in Hollywood towards fascism was classic three-wise-monkeys strategy – pretend it’s not there and perhaps it’ll go away. Partly this was due to the belief that movie-going audiences would be turned off by politics: that “the purpose of the screen, primarily”, as Joseph I. Breen, the industry’s all-powerful censor, maintained, “is to entertain and not to propagandize”. (His italics.) No less influential was the fear that any films that offended the Nazi government might entail the loss of the German market to the studio involved. There was little risk of anyone overlooking this last consideration: the German consul in Los Angeles, Georg Gyssling, kept himself closely informed on all forthcoming movie projects and was quick to complain to Breen, to the relevant studio heads or even to Washington about anything he believed might impugn the honour of the Führer or the Reich.

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Image Credit: Sxc.Hu

Fascinating insight into writing persuasively:

I never had a single rejection as a fiction writer, but that was because I spent an eight-year apprenticeship as an advertising copywriter, learning to use words to persuade and convince (I nearly wrote corrupt), everything I wrote subjected to reading and noting tests, every word graded according to efficacy. I learned to identify with readers, the uses and abuses of typography, how one enthusiastic adjective makes three times the impression of two, how to fill a brief, how to write for the press, for the screen, for audio. I had the vague impression when I began that publishers published my early novels un-interfered with because I was a “natural” and grew very conceited, but actually it was because I was properly trained.

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And here’s the main bit where our half hour conversation is highlighted (there’s some other bits that I recognise from our conversation, but they are bits that most now see as “public information” as my thesis has permeated culture … I may not be rich, but who can say that, eh?)

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Abstract.

“Ultimately, if we cannot find a home for this material, it will finish up going through the shredder and being recycled. I think that would be a tragedy, but I cannot see an alternative,” David Heathcote, former Bunac national committee member, told Times Higher Education.

“The material traces the changes in attitude among young people to the US from the time of the Vietnam War to the present day. There must surely be a PhD thesis in the material, at least.

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In university teaching, he told Times Higher Education, “we need to move beyond rather insular profession-oriented courses and introduce courses that have breadth rather than depth, that deal with some of the big issues, that bring together teachers from a variety of different disciplines”.

Thus, courses on the Global South “cannot just rely on economists”, and programmes on climate change “need environmental scientists, biologists and human geographers”.

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First-year history students at my university take a course titled Making History that teaches them about historical research and writing.

It comprises 20 twice-weekly lectures, given by various colleagues, on broad topics such as historiography, periodisation, causation, primary sources and reading critically, and 10 weekly seminars applying those topics to particular historical subjects – the American Revolution in my case.

This year, though, one seminar required students to “prepare three things: a CV; a paragraph identifying its weaknesses; an action plan for how you are going to address these weaknesses”.

Seeing these instructions, it struck me how far the “employability agenda” has progressed – to the point that it is now claiming time on syllabi at the expense of academic subjects and inculcating market values at the expense of free and critical thinking.

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http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mhARSNe/history+lesson+3

A number of US arts and humanities departments are fighting back against calls that the liberal arts aren’t worth funding as they don’t lead directly to jobs…

In response, several associations of universities with four-year courses are fighting back. The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is aggressively advocating the importance of imparting “broad knowledge and transferable skills”. And the Council of Independent Colleges has established a Campaign for the Liberal Arts that will provide research and data to dispel stereotypes about the discipline.

“There is a new and heightened perception driving this trend that associations and organisations need to help the public better understand the value of the liberal arts,” said Laura Wilcox, the council’s spokeswoman.

The organisations contend that what employers really want from universities is not job training but graduates who can think critically, write and speak well, and solve problems.

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