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[catilina]

Hi.  I've gotten such good advice in answer to something I posted about graduate school in general, that I thought I'd try asking some questions of people specifically in the field of history.  I'm putting in applications for the Fall of 2010 but have been out of school for a quite a while.

1.  What are the current "hot topics" and/or fields in History?

2.  Suggested reading--key texts, publications, conferences, etc?

3.  Since I have a J.D., the field of legal history is of interest to me.  Is this a strong area to specialize in? 

4.  I went straight to graduate school in English Literature from undergrad.  Going in, I had no idea how much emphasis was placed on critical theory.  I expected it to be about literature, but before I knew it, I was writing a Master's thesis on a french psychoanalyst.  Is there anything like that I should be cautioned about before going into history?  (For the record, I'm not anti-theory and I don't expect it to be just memorizing facts.  English departments are just pretty over the top on this, and I wish I had been warned beforehand.)

5.  How detailed and specific was your statement of purpose?  I am struggling with this, as I think it will be the sticking point of my applications.  I feel pressure to practically be able to provide a dissertation topic, and I'm nowhere close to being able to do that.

And anything else you think I ought to know.  Thank you!   

[verysneaky]

Catilina, since I'm not a historian, I don't know the answers to your questions. I hope you get some quality replies, though. In the meantime, you might want to check out a couple of other fora as well, these two specifically designed for people applying to grad school:

www.thegradcafe.com

which has a subforum for history at

http://forum.thegradcafe.com/viewforum.php?f=51&sid=39408b0e44964af481cb2462c82998ca

and also

http://community.livejournal.com/applyingtograd/

Oh, and there's also

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/graduate-school/

Best of luck!

[samspade]

Don't specialize in diplomatic, military or political history because history departments prefer to hire people in trendy areas like "The Atlantic World". Postcolonialism, or Colonial New England midwifery. If you have the JD, I would urge you to think of legal or constitutional history. It might allow you to teach not only for history departments but law schools as well.

[secretweapon]

In general, work that is transnational or international in focus is 'trendy,' I suppose - partly because it allows you to teach a broader geographical range, and partly because there is just increased attention to globalisation as a historical phenomenom.  Check out the Journal of World History to get a sense of what this is about.  The emphasis on the bigger picture is a good one, anyway, because when you're doing historical graduate work it's very easy to get so wrapped up in the details that you miss that big picture, or find it difficult to articulate in a job interview.

With your JD it certainly makes sense to pursue legal/constitutional history, although you could also frame this as social history (how does the law impact upon peoples' lives?), political (what political factors lead to changes in the law?), or intellectual (what ideas create/are reflected in legal change?). 

Is there a geographical area or time frame that interests you?  What languages do you read and speak?  European and US history are more oversupplied, I believe, than southeast Asian or African history.  You could also look at the American Historical Association's website or newsletter, which offer statistics and information about these trends.

[promovenda]

Posting for the updates; thanks!

[erzuliefreda]

What is hot right now won't matter in 6-8 years when you finish your dissertation and go on the market. Middle East is hot now--will it be then? Solid research and elegant writing produced by someone at a top school with a well-placed advisor never goes out of style. Everything else is variable.

Rule 1: Find a topic that really interests you, or you will never finish an excellent dissertation. Really.

Rule 2: Find an advisor with tenure, but know that s/he may still leave the university. Discuss intelligently a topic you want to study in your statement of purpose, but later if that doesn't pan out, don't whine about it, just find another one.

Rule 3: Buckle your seat belt. Graduate work and the job market in history is a wild ride.

Do read the AHA information secretweapon mentions. http://www.historians.org/info/AHA_Data.cfm

[dreamingofslac]

What is hot right now won't matter in 6-8 years when you finish your dissertation and go on the market. Middle East is hot now--will it be then?

While this is certainly the conventional wisdom, I'd like to respectfully disagree with this. 

People talk about "hot" topics in history as though they come into and out of fashion like Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag or something.  Most fields in history move fairly slowly.  It takes years for books to come out.  And come on, it takes months and months for journal articles to get reviewed.  The process of bringing a paper from an idea to a conference presentation to a journal article to a book is LONG when compared to other fields.

Let's say American foreign policy toward the Middle East is a relatively "hot" topic right now.  Would anyone care to bet that this won't be a hot topic in 7 years?  I'd put my last dollar down on it still being a hot subject.  Are people suddenly going to stop being interested in topics related to drugs or sex in seven years?  I doubt that too. 

While I agree with the notion that you should pick a subject that interests you - if everyone you talk to about your topic seems like they are just listening politely, that probably isn't a great sign for how marketable you will be as a historian.  You do want to have a dissertation topic that excites others, not just you.  Anyway, that's my opinion, no doubt others will disagree.

[erzuliefreda]

I can't imagine the history of American foreign policy ever going out of style. But I wonder how many Middle Easternist bandwagon jumpers will flood the field in the coming years thinking it's hot, but lacking the necessary language skills to do work of real significance. Similarly, yes comparative/transnational work is a good thing, but only if you can really do the languages/archives/etc. needed to do good work.

And who would argue against someone finding a topic both she and her advisor love? Just don't pick one because someone flattered you and told you it was a good idea, even though you don't really groove to it, then work on it half-heartedly but disinterestedly for 10+ years like people I have known, before dropping out of the Ph.D. program/not publishing enough to earn tenure/etc. If it's broken, fix it. Adapt. That was my main point.

Best of luck!

[samspade]

Try telling history departments that diplomatic history will never die out. It along with military history is being slowly squeezed out.

[erzuliefreda]

Try telling history departments that diplomatic history will never die out. It along with military history is being slowly squeezed out.

In general, yes, in that few schools advertise for TT "Military historians" anymore. I do think some types of diplomatic history and military history are more dominant though--gender (any) and war (any), transnational European foreign policy--those folks seem to be doing as well as anybody.

[msparticularity]

Okay, no one has administered the cold slap of reality on the job market in history. Or am I missing something?

[promovenda]

Okay, no one has administered the cold slap of reality on the job market in history. Or am I missing something?

Probably because OP seems to have decided on history before coming to us. And because the thread title "Questions FOR historians" (my emphasis) may be attracting people to post who are already engaged in history and not as pessimistic about opportunities.

[timurid]

Watch out for Cicero.
He's on to you...

[dellaroux]

Actually, lit-crit has invaded (infused?) historical writing as well, in some cases with good results.

I sat next to someone in a library once who wrote on hagiography from a critical perspective, showing what was important to the writers of the saints' lives in different periods (which virtues were emphasized, etc.) and connecting those to known events at the time the writing was done... a kind of meta-critical reading of the texts using events as context. I think Le Goff may have first suggested the approach, but I found it useful in something I worked on later as well.

Likewise with many of the medieval chronicles and other historical sources, your French psychanaliste, taken with a <<pince de sel>> in some cases, might provide you with a useful hermeneutic from which to look at texts that can stand up to that kind of reading...and from which to determine when that kind of reading isn't appropriate. That kind of familiarity might be a positive niche for you to work from.

Unless you were wanting to leave him in the dust and move away from that, which may also be a supportable position....

Do you have a target school/department/topic/etc. in mind, and have you started contacting people there? Often it's the personal contacts that help clarify the more idealized goals into what's possible and what isn't.

And I'm of the stripe that, yes, you must look very hard at the job situation and decide if you have the strength, as well as the acumen, to do what you're proposing AND find work at the end of it.

But you may also want to take some time to define for yourself what that work would be that would satisfy you, and whether it has to be in the more specific "want a TT-job" mold, or if there are other options for you to consider that could make you equally happy and productive.

Since those TT molds may be getting radically reformed in the next decade or so, you'd have to be omniscient to know whether your target continent will have moved by the time you're ready to land your rocket or not.

Hence you also have to consult your soul and discover whether you can sustain yourself through the process and live with the results of your passions in the long run. It really is a kind of marriage.

Bon chance.

[litcrittr82]

Actually, lit-crit has invaded (infused?) historical writing as well

Have not!

But seriously, this reminds me of another point that I don't think has been mentioned yet.  OP, you noted that in your view the discipline of English lit. is 'over the top' with respect to theory.  But of course both English and history departments vary significantly in their general character.  Some departments (in English and in history) will be very theoretical or historiographical, others more literary or traditional.  So do bear in mind that these things vary from department to department, and not just (or even necessarily) from discipline to discipline.  Having switched disciplines, be sure to seek out the department that suits you and your research interests best.

At some point, Hayden White was an historian...