Justin Bengry

Education

Review of Reviews: Should Grad Students Review Books?

July, 2010 · By Justin Bengry

I’m of two minds regarding grad students writing book reviews for publication. On the one hand, they give you regular and consistent publication credits, access to the newest monographs in multiple fields, and of course free books. They are never as valuable as peer-reviewed articles, but they do keep your CV active and up to date. On the other hand, unless the books are directly related to your field of study, reviews divert your attention away from completing your own research and writing. As a grad student, however, there can be few opportunities to publish, particularly in major journals. Book reviews offer an opportunity to get your name out there.

But how can you be considered for review opportunities? And how do you get the most out of them?

My best luck has come simply through word of mouth. Friends, colleagues, and sometimes even scholars I don’t know have recommended me for particular titles. Journals also have book review editors whom you can contact to express your interest and describe your specialization. I’ve never contacted journal editors, but I have recently submitted my details to H-Net lists, which offer the opportunity for a larger online profile as their reviews are published quickly and archived on the internet. I’m certain, however, that most of my review opportunities came out of scholarly conferences, where other scholars have come into contact with my work. Build you profile in the profession, and opportunities of all sorts will begin to flow toward you.

I’ve written 4 book reviews in journals ranging from the Journal of British Studies to Urban History, have two forthcoming in even more divergent journals, and have just committed to writing a review essay of three books for another journal. Each has been a completely different experience.

Those that overlapped with my own field of research were the easiest to write. I was most familiar with the literature they drew upon, the sources they used as the bases for their arguments, and felt more than capable of identifying strengths and pointing out weaknesses. These reviews sharpened my own scholarly skills and allowed me to contribute to the profession in a public and meaningful way.

But I’ve also reviewed books outside of my specialization and only peripheral to my own knowledge base. Similar to concerns expressed by medievalist blogger Squadratomagico, I have encountered books that may have been good enough, but were also unoriginal and unexciting. These types of reviews were definitely harder, sometimes to the point of debilitation. I sometimes had to reposition myself as an educated non-specialist to comment on how understandable, useful, interesting, and applicable such books were. It was challenging to offer something useful to readers as a non-specialist commenting on a field in which I did not participate. Though I knew little, I learned a lot.

Of course, at the same time I was writing my own dissertation, and it necessarily suffered somewhat from these moments of anxiety, distraction, and lapses in confidence. Worst of all perhaps, writing reviews allowed me to procrastinate while still feeling productive. I was getting work done after all (wasn’t I?), just not on my dissertation. In the end, I completed my dissertation, but lost weeks of work time to the stress of reviewing books.

I was only a grad student then, so publications of any sort were valuable. The Tenured Radical, however, offers some sage advice about focus and priorities once we’re on the job market:

Whether it is submitting an article, finishing revisions on an article that has come back with reader’s reports, writing a book proposal and sending your manuscript out, whatever. You need to show that you are moving forward in your career. … the further out you are from graduate school, the higher expectations are about your scholarly trajectory. Do not agree to write any: book reviews, encyclopedia entries, or anything else that fills up a curriculum vita with entries that have nothing to do with original scholarship.

On the whole, however, I would have to conclude that in grad school the benefits of reviews outweigh the challenges as long as you can manage your time, prioritize more beneficial work, and complete more important tasks.

If you choose to take them on, the lesson I’ve learned is to budget time for reviews. Make reviewing a specific task, like completing a chapter by a certain date, rather than an imprecise activity that can grow to consume whatever time you allow it. Reviews can be a dangerous opportunity to procrastinate, but used effectively, they can also stimulate your thinking, offer new insights in your own work, and increase your professional profile and publications credits.

This post was originally published at History Compass Exchanges on
29 July 2010.

This Is What They Don’t Teach You In Grad School

July, 2010 · By Justin Bengry

You can only learn how grad school works by actually experiencing it.

Many future (and even current) grad students are not sure what to expect at grad school, how things are different from undergraduate studies, or sometimes even how to access the information they need to succeed in this new environment.

This new series will offer advice, experience, and ideas for students already in grad school, as well as those thinking about making the jump or just exploring the option.

It doesn’t have to be this way!

Welcome to a new TalentEgg series! While TalentEgg’s Career Incubator is primarily devoted to articles for undergraduate students and recent graduates embarking on their careers, we also know that many readers won’t stop at an undergraduate degree.

Many will go on to grad school for professional degrees, other master’s degrees, and even doctorates. This new series will offer advice, experience, and ideas for students already in grad school, as well as those thinking about making the jump or just exploring the option.

The series will be written by two TalentEgg writers, each with their own unique experiences in grad school.

Danielle Lorenz

Danielle Lorenz will begin grad school at Carleton University in Ottawa this fall, where she will pursue an MA in Canadian Studies with a focus on Indigenous Studies.

Danielle is just embarking on her grad school adventure, learning the ropes and sharing her experiences with readers as she navigates this new world. In addition to articles on applications and funding, Danielle will also write about life as a new graduate student and offer regular updates of her progress in grad school.

At the other end of the spectrum, Justin Bengry recently completed his PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in History with an emphasis inFeminist Studies.

Justin has finished nearly a decade of grad school and wants to share how to succeed and what to be wary of in higher education. He will focus on relationships with supervisors, conducting research and also how to succeed at grad school.

Throughout the summer and fall we will also cover issues and questions surrounding application procedures, fellowships and grants, TA-ing duties and responsibilities, relationships with supervisors and everything in between. This will be an ongoing series of articles, the timing of which will be designed to match your trajectories for applications, anxieties, and needs throughout the academic year.

Feel free to comment on articles with your own ideas and questions for areas you’d like to see us cover!

This blog was originally published at TalentEgg on 20 July 2010.

No Respect! Are Humanities the Rodney Dangerfield of Academia?

June, 2010 · By Justin Bengry

The recent bloodbath in humanities programs has left me reeling.

Most recently there was The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London. According to the Times Higher Education, there has been a unit at UCL covering this subject since 1966. This world-renowned centre currently operates with 29 staff, including 12 academics, and 54 students, including 25 PhDs. This is a significant scholarly presence that has long led international scholarship in the history of medicine. No more. It will be phased out over the next two years.

Then there is the case of Middlesex University. Having already closed its History department in 2006, Philosophy is now on the chopping block. Opposition to the closure has gained support from scholars and public intellectuals around the world including Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, and Slavoj Žižek. But it’s clear from stories like this that humanities programs are considered expendable, suitable victims of cost-cutting measures.

Closer to home, Canada recently invested $200 million in the Canada Excellence Research Chairs initiative. It attracted 19 world-renowned scholars to Canada, but included no scholars in the Arts and Social Sciences. Not a single, solitary one. (It also included no women!)

The connection between these stories, and others we could collect, is a denigration of the humanities. Funding priorities, department closures, and the suggestion that humanities scholars are a drain on limited resources illustrate this over and over again. There are a number of reasons for this, of course, ranging from the recent economic downturn, the ongoing corporatization of the academy, but also just an ongoing, general devaluing of the humanities.

But why do we suffer this fate? Why don’t we garner wider support? Are we too isolated in the ivory tower? I think there’s something else at play. In one way, I think we’re victims of our own success.

History remains among the most widely popular disciplines among the general public. Period films are huge money-makers, and the History Channel has been a success for more than a decade. Yet historians feel constantly under siege. Of course there can be a world of difference between popular and academic history, but it’s often a fuzzy line. We’ve done an amazing job of making our discipline interesting and accessible to non-specialists.

The consequences of this are perhaps also our biggest challenges.

Non-specialists have no problem telling me the “truth” about history, the ways people interacted in the past, the priorities my research subjects held, and the motivations of past historical actors. This is based on intuition, “common sense,” and also genuine interest. But it also positions non-specialists on an equal footing with scholars, people who have devoted at least a decade to complex questions and research. Few would tell my colleagues in nuclear physics or genetic biology, who have the same level of training as I do, the “truth” about their field, the interaction of subatomic particles, or the molecular makeup of DNA strands. But they immediately, whole-heartedly, but unmaliciously tell me all about history.

They are invested in the discipline but don’t respect its practitioners.

This equal playing field in the public’s mind diminishes the need for specialists, and their funding, and their departments. I worry that this kind of casual denigration of the humanities is what “filters” up to non-specialist government, administration, and funding bodies who enact the same assumptions in funding, hiring, and administrative decisions.

Perhaps this goes some way to explaining the bloodbath. But what is the solution? How do we remain relevant and respected? How do we bridge popular and academic history without losing the unique skills and insights that specialists offer? How will we survive?

This post was originally published at History Compass Exchanges on
3 June 2010.

4 reasons to extend your degree

June, 2010 · By Justin Bengry

Sometimes it’s just not the best idea to finish your undergraduate degree in four years. You might need more time.

Whether it’s because you want to take an extra credential or major, do a co-op or work placement, travel or study abroad, or you just need to slow down the pace, extending the length of your degree is a serious but viable option.

It can even make your degree stronger if you plan it effectively and use the opportunity to your advantage.

Here are four reasons you might want to extend your degree, and how you can use them to position yourself better after that degree is done.

Extra major

Completing a double major or adding a credential to your degree can make you more appealing on the job market. If you like languages, you may be able to combine it with business studies for a degree tailored to international business. If you like music, history or sociology, combining these with an education degree opens doors to be a music or social studies teacher.

Double majors and extra credentials show employers and grad schools that you are driven and motivated. And pragmatic combinations position you well for competitive fields.

Co-ops, internships and volunteering

Many of us finish our degrees with the classic problem: lots of education but no experience. But how do you get experience in the first place? You get it during your education as a part of your degree!

Co-ops, internships and volunteering are becoming an increasingly valuable addition to many undergraduate degrees. Some offer you the opportunity to earn while you learn, but each helps build contacts and network in your chosen career. Or you can just use them to give a career option you may be interested in a trial run.

If you choose this path, by the time you finish, you’ll already have practical skills, a stronger resumé and important references.

Travel

Taking time to travel is one of the most valuable experiences in life. Extensive experiences abroad show employers you are adaptable, pro-active and confident. But travel is often expensive and time consuming.

Study abroad programs and international internships offer another chance to live in another country, experience another culture, and gain a sensitivity to international issues and global concerns. They may last the summer, a semester or an entire year abroad. Some even allow you to count courses toward your degree.

But if you continue to take courses while living abroad, they may not all transfer back to your home institution. Always plan foreign study with an academic advisor.

Personal reasons

The transition to university can be a difficult one, especially for students studying in a new city or province. And the pace of courses in your program might be more than you expected. It’s OK to slow down. Many of us also have to earn an income while going to school. Undertaking a full course load at the same time might seem like a necessity in order to finish, but it could do real harm if your grades suffer, or if you fail classes. Repeating them only takes more time and money.

Be sure to look into summer courses, which you may be able to use as prerequisites for other classes, or as required elements for your degree.

It is important to plan ahead since extending your degree can be costly and confusing. Some programs require that students follow a set plan, and many courses have prerequisites that aren’t offered every semester. Make sure to weigh the benefits and consequences of remaining longer at university.

Will you be able to pay for that extra year or semester? Do you want added student loans? Sometimes the answer is yes, but before making any decision,discuss your goals and options with a counsellor or your department advisor.

This post was originally published at TalentEgg on 1 June 2010.

Making the Grade

May, 2010 · By Justin Bengry

I’ve always been ambivalent about grading.

I question how much students really learn from exams. I know, for example, that I forgot everything I ever learned about the Revolutions of 1848 until I actually had to relearn and then teach them again myself.

I question whether undergraduates really need to learn the content of exams. Is it not better for them to complete a course having gained better critical thinking skills, improved communication and writing skills, and an appreciation for history rather than by supplying a flawless (but regurgitated) retelling of the events of 1792 in France?

And I question the effect that grading has on instructors, who must toil through 50 answers to the same question about China’s Cultural Revolution. Of course there are some shining stars, but many answers reflect relatively passive learning and a bit of studying the night before. I love teaching, but I’m never more depressed than after reading student exams and realizing that my love of history and language is only mine and seldom theirs. It is only reflected back to me in a few exciting papers, and rarely from only the students with the highest grades.

But why should my students have the same priorities and passions as me? Just because they are in a history class doesn’t mean they need to love history. History is really just the means, the method, a pedagogical tool. I’m not in the business of creating mini-Justins (aside: Oh, what a world it would be!), rather I want my excitement for knowledge and learning to impart a sense of curiosity and opportunity among students.

Grading quashes that for both of us.

Duke University English professor Cathy Davidson seems to feel the same way:

I loved returning to teaching last year after several years in administration . . . except for the grading. I can’t think of a more meaningless, superficial, cynical way to evaluate learning in a class on new modes of digital thinking (including rethinking evaluation) than by assigning a grade.

I encountered Davidson’s work while reading about her experiment with peer-evaluation techniques. Earlier this month Inside Higher Ed reported on the success of her course “Your Brain on the Internet.”

On her blog, Prof. Davidson explained her grading methodology as “crowdsourcing,” basically peer review, with evaluations based on performance contracts with the students. The course was already organized as a seminar led each week by students, she explained, but where formerly students had only been responsible for reading each other’s work, they would now be required to evaluate it. If the “crowd” deemed it satisfactory, it earned that week’s points. If not, students had the option to revise and resubmit.

Davidson was overjoyed with the outcome:

Whether in conversation or in the presentations, my students often took the best writing on a topic and then took it to a new level, with greater complexity and greater attention to a range of possibilities (rather than polemic) that quite literally any published work on the same topic.

But not surprisingly, critics to this method have appeared. This week, Leonard Cassuto, a professor of English at Fordham University responded in Inside Higher Ed. While he recognized the benefit to questioning grading methodologies, he ultimately felt it was the professor’s responsibility and duty to rank students in a meaningful way. Davidson’s method was unhelpful, he worried, when all of her students earned As.

I think avoiding grading (or some comparable form of rigorous evaluation by the instructor) shirks necessary responsibility, avoids necessary comparison, and puts the humanities at even greater risk of bring branded “soft” than they already face. […] The bottom line question is this: if everyone gets As, does that mean that Yale Law School will simply accept them all?

In the end, Davidson’s class comprised just 16 students, and on a larger scale her methods would, I expect, distribute grades differently. I am, therefore, excited about Professor Davidson’s experiments in teaching and grade evaluation, and I think there is a great deal of space (and need) for innovation. But Professor Cassuto identifies important reservations about the effect such methods could inadvertently have on students who wish to go on.

Davidson’s experiment does, however, bring up a number of questions: Does peer evaluation imperil the humanities? How can we more effectively evaluate students? On what should we evaluate them? Perhaps this offers an excellent opportunity to apply digital technologies more fully to the humanities classroom? And in the History classroom, is there space for this kind of evaluation method?

This post was originally published at History Compass Exchanges on
20 May 2010.

The Strange Case of Postdocs in Canada

May, 2010 · By Justin Bengry

Are they students? Are they staff? Universities in Canada can’t quite seem to decide just what exactly a postdoc is. To be fair a postdoc is in a strange in-between place; s/he is no longer a student, but not yet a professor (even though he or she may conduct original research and teach undergraduate and even graduate students). This might not seem such an important issue at first glance. But there are enormous work-related, benefits, and tax implications that hinge on the definition of a postdoc. And as a postdoctoral fellowships becomes an almost mandatory step toward tenure-track positions, the implications loom large for many of us.

After 10 or 15 years of post secondary education, for many PhDs the next step will be a postdoctoral fellowship. Not only do these fellowships potentially afford time to revise dissertation manuscripts for publication, design courses, and solidify professional networks, they act as another step forward toward tenure-track positions. Ideally they come without teaching requirements, but might include teaching responsibilities from one or two courses per year or more depending on the fellowship. But as faculty hires plummet, and PhD numbers expand, this step is becoming increasingly necessary in order to remain competitive.

So far this doesn’t seem so bad. We all know that academia is becoming ever more competitive and positions ever fewer. Nothing shocking there. The issue, however, is that for many postdocs the issue of defining their position is critical. Many postocs while not enjoying the tax benefits of students also miss out on employment benefits offered faculty and staff.

The issue came to a head last year when after Le Devoir reported that Quebec universities, which had offered postdocs the tax exemptions given to students, had been instructed by the Canadian Revenue Agency to stop doing so. Now disallowed from the benefits of students and without access to those of staff, postdocs got the worst of both worlds, along with a substantial, unplanned, and significant loss of income owing to increased taxes.

Many fear that in order to gain any tax exemptions, postdocs might be defined as some kind of student or trainee. The Ryerson Free Press suggests that a new category of trainee might institutionalize and formalize yet another time-consuming step to professional stability that does little to help postdocs, but everything to maintain universities’ access to qualified but low-payed labour. And both statuses might come with new fees and costs for debit-ridden individuals already strapped for cash in the years before achieving tenure-track appointments. Both the Ryerson Free Press and the Protect Canadian Postdocs site, in fact, are already reporting postdoc “trainee” fees being levied at the University of Toronto.

This issue has become so fraught that two scholars at Canadian institutions have created the Protect Canadian Postdocs website to follow developments and highlight the situation faced by postdocs at their own and other universities. Untenured, they choose to remain anonymous to avoid aggravating their university administrations and threatening their own careers. With less to lose, Tom Spears of the Ottawa Citizen last month likened some postdocs to “indentured servants, with lots of degrees.” Now many fear that in addition they may become cash cows for cash-strapped universities.

No doubt great benefits come with postdoctoral work that gives recent PhDs a foothold on the academic ladder. But postdocs’ relationship to universities needs to be explicitly determined to avoid even further creating an underclass of high-skilled, low-payed teacher-researchers in the Canadian academy.

A number of sites and online petitions have sprung up in protest:

Canadian Postdoc Tax Petitions

Petition to Maintain the Competitiveness of a Postdoctoral Researcher in Canada

This blog was originally published at History Compass Exchanges on
6 May 2010.

History Matters: The High Stakes (and Higher Value) of History

March, 2010 · By Justin Bengry

The Texas State Board of Education’s changes to the state’s social studies curriculum have highlighted the political motivations behind the histories that are taught in schools. In response to the board’s conservatism, the left wrings its hands in dismay, the right smiles with vindication, and centrists ask to restore some kind of balance. But we should be concerned about more than political allegiances. There is more at stake than “correct” or “balanced” or “fair” histories. We need to question not only the power of political factions to promote particular visions of history, but also the profit motives that have made some histories more saleable and therefore more powerful than others.

Many are decrying the board’s revisions for putting a “conservative stamp” on the state’s curricula. According to the New York Times, they endorse the superiority of American capitalism, question the history of secular government, and promote Republican political philosophies. Even just a cursory look over other recent commentary on the subject shows how high the stakes are and how strong the divide remains, even outside Texas. Famously conservative Phyllis Schlafly welcomes a turn away from the imposition of liberal “revisionist histories,” while on the other side Diane Ravitch accuses Texas of promoting ignorance. Other commentators worry about wider effects on education. If textbooks modeled on the Texas state curriculum are successful, they could enter classrooms throughout the country. Such is the power of a large state to influence how history is taught across the country.

Ok, how surprised should we be that history is a fraught and disputed subject? Of course it is. It’s invested with diverse meanings that inform personal beliefs and collective identities. We are heavily invested in history, and that shows up in the Texas textbook debates. Nor should we be surprised that groups on either side of the political divide are deeply concerned about what appears in textbooks, each accusing the other of promoting a particular agenda. Both sides, of course, are correct to question what appears in textbooks. We should constantly re-evaluate received knowledge, question “obvious” wisdom, and be prepared to refashion textbook histories. The point that critics and commentators alike miss in this debate, however, is the sale of history. Money over content.

I would like to be able to blame extremists for the bastardization of history. But I can’t, at least I can’t completely. Even those with whom I disagree, whose positions I abhor, are using an existing opportunity to put forward their values and beliefs. That isn’t the fundamental problem here. The content of textbooks is up for debate not because zealots have undermined history, but because publishers want or need to make a profit off of it, and worse still may be less concerned about content than contracts.

Textbooks will be rewritten because Texas represents an enormous market. And books that meet that market’s “needs” stand to gain enormous readerships, and perhaps lucrative ongoing contracts. Their potential influence and authority in schools and among pupils will not necessarily be based on their historical and intellectual rigor, but on their ability to sell to the Texas market. So, the problem might not be so much that history is politicized. That is, after all, why history is important. The problem is that politicized history is up for sale.

Out in the Academy: Researching Queer Histories

February, 2010 · By Justin Bengry

February is LGBT History Month here in the UK, which focuses attention on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans issues in the present, and also the experiences of queer Britons in the past. This yearly program to promote diversity and LGBT histories reminds us just how rich queer history actually is. But it is still taken as a truism by many that the lives of gay men and lesbians remain absent in the archive, that their stories are “hidden from history.” While it is true that the stories of many gay men and lesbians cannot be found in the traditional archive, we are nonetheless discovering their footprints across the historical record.

Traditional archives have, in fact, been at the forefront of this work in the UK. The National Archives has actively participated in identifying LGBT sources across its collection. Together with the London Metropolitan Archives it is also creating guides to better access these histories in other collections. A number of specialist archives also record the histories of political action, legal reform, and campaigning; women’s and lesbian histories; as well as newspaper and media coverage of homosexuality in the twentieth century. But, even beyond these, researchers of queer history have at their disposal so much more.

As Jean Smith recently reminded us in another Compass posting, we need to look outside the traditional archive for fuller and richer histories of the past. Scholars of queer history in Britain are fortunate to have access to an enormous range of oral history collections, national survey testimony, and other repositories of gay and lesbian history. And in my own research, I have discovered film archives, theater collections, local archives, and personal collections teeming with possibilities after a little digging.

I write this post because I was almost dissuaded from undertaking dissertation research in queer history. This was not because of homophobia or reduced funding on account of my subject. I began graduate school believing, like many, that queer histories were largely marginal, inaccessible, and poorly recorded in the archive. But after arriving in the UK, exploring the archives, and jettisoning the entire PhD project I had initially proposed and the prospectus my committee had authorized (after many sleepless nights), I was able to embark upon the project I was passionate about and which became my dissertation. I had thought that an LGBT history project was not viable as a dissertation. I was wrong. And I hope that programs like LGBT History Month will remind other junior scholars of the range of research possibilities that are available to us, and also of the innumerable histories remaining in the archive but still untold.

This blog was originally published at History Compass Exchanges on
11 February 2010.