April 8-9, 2023: The Limits and Potential of Scholarly Organizations

[A coupleweekends back I was in Niagara Falls for the 54th annualNortheast Modern Language Association Convention. Longtime readers willknow well how much Ilove NeMLA, the organization and the convention alike, and this year was noexception. So this week I’ve shared a handful of reflections on a great NeMLAconvention, leading up to this post on scholarly organizations more broadly.]

On whatscholarly organizations can’t really do, what they definitely shouldn’t do, andtwo related things they absolutely should.

As thepost hyperlinked above under “I love NeMLA” reflects, I served on the NeMLABoard for nearly a decade, including a stint as the organization’s President(itself a five-year process that includes a couple levels of VP and a year asPast President). Throughout that time, and most especially for my Presidentialyear and its 2016Convention in Hartford, I had very clear and high hopes for how theorganization could make a difference in a number of ways: advocating foradjunct and contingent faculty and challenging attacks on higher ed; connectingwith secondary and primary schools and educators for cross-network alliancesand efforts; expressing an organizational perspective on relevant national andworld issues in an attempt to help shape our conversations around them. At theend of the day, what I can say is that we definitely talked about all thesethings as a community, including in a number of greatpanels and sessionsat that 2016 convention. But beyond talking, we took just one tangible action:bringing some Convention attendees to aHartford public high school to connect with educators and students. Thatwas very nice, but it was also very specific compared to my lofty goals.

So maybescholarly organizations can’t really intervene in our public conversations(although more on that question below). But I’ll tell you what they definitelyshouldn’t do, as recent events have illustrated all too potently: attack fellowscholars for trying to make their own such interventions. I’m thinkingspecifically about the August2022 American Historical Association (AHA) president’s letter in which thatorganization’s current leader James Sweet expressly criticized historians whoseek to produce public-facing scholarship, to be part of public conversations,calling out their “presentism” as a problem in the profession. It’s not just thatI believe Sweet was deeply wrong, although I most definitely do (and I’m farfrom alone in feeling that way). It’s also and especially that Sweet wasusing his position and public pulpit—during, I believe, the one year in whichhe had access to them—to criticize fellow scholars, to participate in the kindof circular firing squad about which I griped in my non-favorites series backin February. To level such attacks at all, much less to do so in our currentmoment (he said present-ly), seems to me a genuine dereliction of duty for ascholarly organization’s president.

To quote Will Hunting whenhe takes that pretentious Hahvahd grad student down a few pegs: “Don’t do that.”And reading Sweet’s letter and all thethoughtful responses to it did make me recommit (now that I’m no longer anorganizational president, of course; but I’m certainly still part of thesecommunities) to a couple things that scholarly organizations should still betrying to do. One, directly contra Sweet’s arguments, is to be part of ourpresent—whether individual scholars choose to do that in their work (whichagain I support but is an individual choice), it seems to me a crucial role fororganizations like these is to try to help make all relevant collectiveconversations more informed and more meaningful. And the other, directly contraSweet’s tone and even more important than the first, is to show genuinesolidarity with all those in the profession, to genuinely advocate for allscholars and educators (and most especially those being attacked by outsideforces, which is the vast majority of us here in 2023). How we do those thingsremains a complex question and one we need to keep figuring out together—but whetherit’s the AHA, NeMLA, or any other scholarly organization, we most definitelyneed to keep trying to do them.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Ways we can make scholarly organizations more relevant and meaningfulin our current moment?