<p>Does anyone know how far left the History Department is?</p>
<p>Since when did left become a bad thing?</p>
<p>I'd actually wager it happened in 1968.</p>
<p>Penn has some lovely conservative luminaries like Arthur Waldron and Walter McDougall.</p>
<p>undisclosed: no problem with left, but extremists on either side are crazy</p>
<p>Truer words....though he asked about the left, not extremists.</p>
<p>yes, but he simply asked how far left they were. You were the only one to associate left with bad. Either way, we are hijaking this thread. :)</p>
<p>Yeah but from use of the words 'how far' you can clearly see implication of an upper limit, which is what the OP is inquiring about. Now that either means he's a radical leftist himself and looking for an environment which shares his views OR more likely, a negative feeling. :p</p>
<p>But you're right. We're hijacking.</p>
<p>since we're talking about the history/politics departments how good are they?</p>
<p>Some of the best in the world. The history dept has a bunch of top names like Eric Foner and Kenneth Jackson. The political science department is the 2nd most popular major and is pretty well-regarded too. I'll let WindowShopping tell you more about it if he's around and reading this.</p>
<p>...and to the OP, the answer is "N/A". They're historians, they deal in facts and research, not biases. There's nothing right or left about the War of the League of Augsburg or the economics of trains and transportation and their effects in the early 1900s. It's when you get into political science (or cultural "___ Studies" majors) that you get people with more of an ax to grind. The fact that those axes may be particularly good opportunities to learn something tends to help with that.</p>
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...and to the OP, the answer is "N/A". They're historians, they deal in facts and research, not biases.
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<p>Come on, are you that naive? There's no room for bias in history? Yes, historians dig up the facts and present them to people. But they also interpret the facts, think up theories for how to make sense of the facts, etc. History is all about analysis, interpretation, and judgment which necessarily imply bias. And don't call me for splitting hairs; "they deal in facts and research" is a gross oversimplication of what historians do.</p>
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Some of the best in the world. The history dept has a bunch of top names like Eric Foner and Kenneth Jackson.
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<p>Is Eric Foner N/A? Neither right nor left? He just deals in facts and research?</p>
<p>I guess it doesn't make you right or left to organizes a "teach-in" at which your colleague wishes for the deaths of American soldiers and you implicitly agree with the statement.</p>
<p>Being an essentially self-proclaimed Marxist/communist doesn't make you right or left either, I guess.</p>
<p>You've got to be kidding, dude.</p>
<p>Thank You, Columbia2002, for the type of clarification that I sought. What's more, it's what I suspected, but without any evidence (anecdotal or other), I wasn't sure, and now I know what I'm up against. And I agree with you absolutely that the interpretation of history is essentially a reasonable or unreasonable judgment colored by historians' biases.</p>
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And I agree with you absolutely that the interpretation of history is essentially a reasonable or unreasonable judgment colored by historians' biases.
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<p>A good historian, no, any good social scientist tries to keep their own biases away from the interpretations of history. Go sit in on the very first lecture of Rise of Civ by Terrance D'Altroy, he gives a very good explanation of the troubles social scientists face when interpreting the past.</p>
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I guess it doesn't make you right or left to organizes a "teach-in" at which your colleague wishes for the deaths of American soldiers and you implicitly agree with the statement.</p>
<p>Being an essentially self-proclaimed Marxist/communist doesn't make you right or left either, I guess.
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<p>Obviously there are moves and theories in the soc.sciences, like revisionist history, that can be described as right, left, marxist, whatever but can you say it really impacts his teaching? If anything, I would say taking classes with someone you don't agree with allows you to develop your own theories more...</p>
<p>Any attempt to deny bias is posturing. Everyone is biased and it always seeps into their interpretation. Teaching history in 50 minute classes you are bound to leave out facts and emphasize others, that is bias in itself. For example, I remember sitting in on a Cornell Middle Eastern history class, it is history, but I felt the bias, it is unavoidable.</p>
<p>Yet on the same point, I don't see it as a bad thing, as long as your own opinion is not silenced, then I wouldn't mind.</p>
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Any attempt to deny bias is posturing. Everyone is biased and it always seeps into their interpretation.
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<p>yeah, i'm biased when I teach calculus to high schoolers. I really put a political spin on those derivatives.</p>
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<p>My point is, obviously there's a spectrum. And there are areas of academic study that lend themselves towards biased teaching if you have an unscrupulous professor (or one who is not too tightly wrapped). And areas where that risk is less so, due to the nature of the material and the general type of person who would tend to get a doctorate in it.</p>
<p>Unless I'm mistaken, mr. "a million Mogadishus" was in the MEALAC department, whose professors I will agree often take an anti-American view with respect to our foreign policy. (that they love this country aside from its foreign policy is a point that few people bother to realize, preferring to paint everyone with a broad brush). That's the middle-eastern studies department, Celita, and it's a hotbed of controversy, yes. That it also happens to be one of the better-regarded departments in its field just shows you where the field falls on the spectrum. If you sit in on an Eric Foner class, as Skraylor says, you'll quickly determine the man is sharp as a tack and approaches his subjects rather scientifically.</p>
<p>My argument is that the same is true for the vast majority of the history department, and less so for the Polisci department.</p>
<p>I agree with Columbia2002. History and polisci often are highly politicized departments.</p>
<p>I have to agree with denzera in that history as a discipline is more factually based. The cultural departments which are highly regarded are often more left leaning. Poli sci has potential for the political bias, but i've heard that's it is surprisingly moderate with many conservative profs. Econ and poli sci in CC are supposed to be the two moderate depts. history i guess leaves less room for this than does poli sci.</p>
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Unless I'm mistaken, mr. "a million Mogadishus" was in the MEALAC department, whose professors I will agree often take an anti-American view with respect to our foreign policy.
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<p>Anthropology and latino studies.</p>
<p>Cultural anthropologists are usually cultural relativists and yes, that often mean that they are left-winged. But I'd rather have a left-winged anthropologist than one proclaiming that a certain cultural is superior to an other.</p>
<p>Furthermore, historians often do have an opinion on a certain matters that other might consider ‘biased’. When a historian writes about the Armenian genocide as such, it is already remarkable that he/she <em>acknowledges</em> that here has been one, aside from whether he just states facts or lets his opinion shine through. The fact that he thinks there has been genocide says much already. There is, however, a difference between a historian who indoctrinates and one who proves a point related to his political beliefs. For example, an important issue in Dutch history (I'm from the Netherlands) is the uprising to the Catholic Church and specifically the demolition of churches and valuable religious object in 1566. This is seen as an act against the clergy and one of the beginnings of the Reformation in the Netherlands. One historian, however, Kuttner believed that this had rather started as a revolt by the lower classes against the nobility (and later on the nobility pointed out that they were being oppressed by the church and the clergy possessed all the riches). That is his and Kuttner probably thinks this because he was a communist and saw history as a struggle between the lower and upper classes. In this way, his political and yes, far-left beliefs influenced his work and view on history, but it does not mean he was telling everyone they should become communists and that everyone who isn't, is the scum of the earth. </p>
<p>Also, Samantha Power wrote a book on genocide in which she states factual events and states what happened, but actually does this to prove the central point in the book, which is that the America government could have and should have done more to prevent genocide.
She is leftist (supports Obama) but just because she criticizes the American government, it does not mean she's anti-Western or extremist or whatever.</p>
<p>So it is very much possible that historians let their own judgment and beliefs become part of their work, but that certainly does not have to be a bad thing. It is in the end about interpretation and clarification and not just about in year X event A occurred</p>