A Word from the Chair
Omer Bartov
John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History and Professor of History and Professor of German Studies |
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Ken Sacks, the outgoing Chair, has kindly suggested that I compose this Word from the Chair as his replacement. I do so happily, not least because it gives me an opportunity to thank him in for all his hard work and accomplishments, always performed with good humor and a smile, during his two years of chairing the department. Among Ken’s many accomplishments, during the first year of his “reign” the Department conducted a Senior Search, which concluded with the hiring of Cynthia Brokaw, our new scholar of Chinese History, who will begin teaching this fall. During Ken’s second year the Department conducted a search in United States History, which culminated with the addition of Linford Fisher to our already distinguished list of American historians. We welcome Cynthia and Lin most warmly, and we wish Ken a quieter yet productive year now that he has relinquished his post.
The History Department faces many challenges in the coming years. These have to do both with material issues of resources and funds, and with intellectual and scholarly matters. In the current economic situation, all institutions of higher education in the United States have had to pay the price of reckless speculation by some of the county’s top financial organizations. As we plan the future of the Department, we will need to keep focused on the essential task of academe: the pursuit of knowledge and understanding and the relentless rethinking of conventions and truisms, even as we maintain respect for tradition and past achievements. This is why the current economic crunch also provides us with an opportunity to reexamine and remold the academic profile of the Department. History, as a profession and a discipline, has been dramatically transformed over the past few decades. Our perspectives of the past have both grown and changed. Traditional geographical and chronological categorizations have been challenged, and different ways and paths of approaching the past have shed new light on well known historical events as well as illuminating areas of the past that had previously remained in the shadows. As we adapt to the changing material and intellectual environment in which we find ourselves, we will also strive to maintain and enhance our position as one of the most distinguished, creative, and exciting departments of history in the country.
Our in-coming faculty members clearly reflect this combined effort to maintain excellence and look at the past with new eyes. Cynthia Brokaw received her Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard, and has taught at Bowdoin College, Vanderbilt University, the University of Oregon, and the Ohio State University, before coming to Brown. The author, among many other publications, of The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit: Social Change and Moral Order in Late Imperial China (Princeton University Press, 1991), Cynthia is one of the foremost scholars of Late Imperial China. She has singlehandedly forged a new field of inquiry into the history of the book in China, and is currently researching the book trade in South China from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Linford Fisher received his doctorate from Harvard University, and comes to us from Indiana University South Bend. He is currently revising a book manuscript on religion and the shaping of native cultures in Early America, as well as working on slavery and servitude and the involvement of Native Americans in the Revolutionary War. This is fascinating, cutting-edge work, that fits well with the important work of our other Americanists.
Finally, as a result of Karen Mota’s retirement – thank you Karen for all your years of service! – Cherrie Guerzon has now moved into her office as Academic Department Manager, as well as keeping watch over her previous duties. She is already doing a fantastic job, most ably assisted by Mary Beth Bryson and Julissa Bautista. We are all completely dependent on the administrative skills and efficiency and of this small and devoted team, even as we do our best to enhance the staff once the budget allows us to do so.
I wish us all a productive, enjoyable, and, most importantly, intellectually invigorating year!
