Today I'm posting Max Weber's classic piece on "Science as a Vocation." It was originally delivered as a speech at Munich University in 1918. Its relevance for scholars today is as great as it was then, asking these questions: What does it mean to be a scientist? What are the sources and limits of scientific … Continue reading Max Weber’s “Science as a Vocation”
Month: July 2019
Frederick Douglass’s 1852 Speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
I'm posting today one of the greatest speeches ever given, from that master of rhetoric, Frederick Douglass. It demonstrates the power of language to make arguments and change hearts. In a time like ours, when rhetoric is used to promote the worst social ills, it's gratifying to see what it can do in the right … Continue reading Frederick Douglass’s 1852 Speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
Q and A about A Perfect Mess
This is a Q and A I did with Scott Jaschik about my book, A Perfect Mess, shortly after it came out. It was published in Inside Higher Ed in 2017. ‘A Perfect Mess’ Author discusses his new book about American higher education, which suggests it may be better off today than people realize … because … Continue reading Q and A about A Perfect Mess
Perils of the Professionalized Historian
This is a short piece about the problems that professionalism poses for the academic historian. History is a different kind of subject, and too often academic rigor gets in the way of telling the kinds of historical accounts that we need. An earlier version was published in 2017 in the International Journal of the Historiography … Continue reading Perils of the Professionalized Historian
Academic Writing Class — Complete Course Materials in One Document
Earlier I posted course materials for my academic writing class (both 6-week and 10-week versions via a link to a Google drive that contained the syllabus and class slides. Here I'm posting a more compact and convenient version of each class. The syllabus for each class contains embedded links to both the readings for the … Continue reading Academic Writing Class — Complete Course Materials in One Document
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 