Defining Historical Scholarship
The American Historical Association has "broadened" the definition and is getting it right
Modern Medieval
by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele
What does it mean to produce historical scholarship?
This question exists in a complicated moment in the history of History (as a discipline). In the United States, enrollments and full-time employment plummet, raising concerns about the future of the profession. We all know (we hope) about the political attacks on the teaching of history from the American right wing. But meanwhile within the profession, a reactionary rear guard fights to preserve a false, nostalgic ideal of objective history and the primacy of traditional scholarly publications, of peer-reviewed journal articles, chapters, and monographs. These, and only these, in fact do still primarily provide the keys to jobs, tenure, promotion, status.
But in this economy, in this period of deliberate destruction of the humanities, making keys is meaningless if there are no doors to unlock. And we could choose to value other keys anyway.
Because at the same time as all these problems for historians, we’re in a golden age for public humanistic work in every regard except making a living at it. There are more academics working in more public media than ever before. But within the halls of academe, there’s been precious little energy spent on building systems to support and reward public work. If you want tenure at a research university, you have to produce standard academic publications.
Our position is that all history is public history, that public outreach in all contexts is good for history, and that there is no tension between specialized scholarship and broad outreach. Both are good. No historian has to do one or the other, and we’ve spent a lot of energy defending the importance of specialized scholarship. So it was with pleasure that we saw the American Historical Association produce a new document on Guidelines for Broadening the Definition of Historical Scholarship (2023). It’s really good.
It opens with saying that the mission of history is not just to produce knowledge, but to disseminate it. In that context:
The first decades of the 21st century have witnessed a broadening of the ways historical knowledge is advanced, applied, accessed, integrated, diffused, and taught. Despite this multiplicity of scholarly forms, most history departments remain wedded to narrow conventions defining how historical scholarship is packaged and circulated, as well as what “counts” toward elevations to tenure and full professor and in decisions about fellowships, awards, hiring, and other venues of evaluation. At the same time, essential forms of scholarship—from textbooks and reference works to documentary and journal editing, op-eds, expert witness testimony, and more—have traditionally been relegated to the category of “service” within the triad of research, teaching, and service on which academic promotion rests. The disconnect between the wide variety of valuable work being done by historians and the much narrower boundaries of scholarship considered for professional evaluation limits historians’ public influence while perpetuating inequities harmful to individuals and to the discipline as a whole.
Yes.
This is the whole problem, well articulated, and it’s very solvable. The document continues by exploring the problem, then coming to theses key points:
A wide range of scholarly historical work can be undertaken in ways consistent with our disciplinary standards and values, from writing briefing papers and op-eds, to testifying in legislatures and courts, participating in the work of regulatory agencies, publishing textbooks and reference books, expanding our media presence across a wide range of platforms, and more.
To support such publicly engaged and/or policy-oriented work, history departments should give it appropriate scholarly credit in personnel decisions. Not doing so diminishes the public impact of historians and cedes to others—observers less steeped in our discipline-specific methods, epistemologies, and standards—the podium from which to shape the historical framing of vital public conversations.
Historians cannot expect decision-makers or other potential audiences to appreciate the value of our work if we don’t affirm its value ourselves.
All historical work can be peer reviewed, whether before or after publication.
Our definition of public scholarship has long been that it’s any work that is (1) based on one’s scholarly expertise, and (2) intended in whole or in part to be consumed by an extramural audience.
This is to say that when we write this blog about history, it’s a very minor act of public intellectualism. When David writes science fiction or essays about parenting, he doesn’t claim that label - even when the sci-fi is about a historian in the 27th century or when his writing about disability is informed by the scholarly expertise of others in that field.
But when we act as historians, in any context, we’re doing public scholarship. And so is the activist who studies movements, the theater professor putting on community theater, or the inventor of a new delicious apple at an agricultural school.
So what pleases us about the AHA’s 4 pillars is first the breadth of them, including testimony (one of David’s colleagues spends a lot of time testifying in immigration cases, talking about dangers to specific peoples in order to help them win asylum), regulation, and yes, publicly oriented books and essays. Second, the pillars acknowledge that the what is produced has to “count.” David wrote about that in 2014, and was far from the first to do so, but we’re thrilled to see our professional body formally call for this.
Our definition of public scholarship has long been that it’s any work that is (1) based on one’s scholarly expertise, and (2) intended in whole or in part to be consumed by an extramural audience.
Finally, about that point about peer review, which we haven’t seen articulated so well before. Often we get told that non-specialized-scholarship can’t count because it isn’t reviewed. But, as the doc says, we can do something different:
The evaluation of a historian’s adherence to these standards has traditionally relied on peer review as a requisite to publication. There is no reason, however, why peer review and other conventional paths of evaluation prior to publication cannot take place after work is produced and circulated.
The AHA recognizes the logistical challenges posed by post-hoc peer review. The calendar for peer review is already complicated by factors that depend on an institution’s particular criteria. Institutions that consider scholarly “impact” often depend on predictions of influence, or they must wait until that influence can be assessed (if only through measures of visibility that can even include word of mouth). With some exceptions and the occasional time lag, the impact of work directed toward scholarly audiences usually aligns with quality. This is not necessarily true for publicly engaged scholarship, whose influence sometimes derives more from marketing, sensational modes of presentation, catering to prejudices, financial resources, and other factors unrelated to quality. Evaluation that considers public impact should, in all cases, include scrutiny of how such impact was attained, and maintain the standards of scholarship equal to those expected of other eligible formats.
This is a broad expansive statement of principles that nevertheless contains appropriate guardrails to focus on mission: create knowledge, spread knowledge, do so responsibly based on our pursuit of truths and understandings. It also, in some ways, aligns with the standards in other fields that publish “pre-prints” or “white papers” that invite public (and scholarly) conversations that advance the creation of knowledge within those disciplines.
Last year, the academic president of the AHA (the man voted in to lead the organization as an honorific, rather than the professional staff), made headlines by sneering at public work as a threat to the “real” work of history. This new statement could be seen in part as a rebuke to that reactionary model. If so, we’re thrilled.
More of this, please, as we struggle to meet the challenges of the age.
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