Of other people’s career arcs, you mean? Well, yes, occasionally I am. Look, I’m not proud of my covetous nature, particularly not with the Day of Atonement fast approaching (note to self: get right with God). But there it is. And this interview with Jill Lepore didn’t exactly make me feel better. An endowed chair at Harvard, a published novelist, a staff writer for the New Yorker, sigh, it is to want.
Anyway, the interview is interesting. And you should read it. But the part that caught my eye was where Lepore talks about why she became a historian. Oddly enough, someone asked me that question over the weekend. Usually the issue doesn’t come up, because when people ask me what I do for a living, I say that I’m a teacher. Or a shepherd*. Anyway, before my older boy’s soccer game on Saturday, one of the other parents wanted to know why I became a historian. And I totally fumbled the answer, pointing to various teachers**; an untold number of childhood Shabbat dinners, during which my grandparents screamed**** at each other about their experiences during World War II; and my rather extraordinary success at National History Day*****. Thinking more deeply about it, I think the answer is probably some combination of those things. Regardless, I need a stock reply that I can get out in 30 seconds or less. And you? Why are you in this line of work?
* A guy can dream, right?
** Thanks Dr. Newby, Mrs. Stout, and Professor Sewell.***
*** This list is not exhaustive.
**** Always with love. Seriously, my grandfather insisted, ’til his dying day, that he and my grandmother never had an argument. They simply had loud discussions.
***** Ask me! Oh please, ask me!
43 comments
September 21, 2009 at 11:52 am
dave
Because history is the master discipline. Who would not want to be an historian? The real question is what went wrong for all those other folk who inexplicably find themselves economists, critics, sociologists, lawyers, etc etc…
September 21, 2009 at 11:53 am
ari
Heh.
September 21, 2009 at 11:59 am
rick
Because I think using models a la economics, poly sci, sociology, etc. are silly ways to view the world?
September 21, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Josh
Usually the issue doesn’t come up, because when people ask me what I do for a living, I say that I’m a teacher.
You’re a(n) historian? I thought you and eric were well-educated janitors.
September 21, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Vance
You really say just “teacher”? Surely in a college town nobody would be surprised to hear “professor”.
For me, there’s always a doubt about how well my interlocutor knows the world in which I work — even in Silicon Valley, “computer programmer” is often enough more than they want to hear.
September 21, 2009 at 12:09 pm
andrew
Because it was there.
September 21, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Jonathan Dresner
Dumb luck:
If people ask me why I study history at this point, all I could say is that it’s the study of everything human, and gives me an opportunity to think and teach about all kinds of interesting things.
September 21, 2009 at 12:48 pm
ari
Yes, Vance, I just say teacher. If people here in town follow up, I say that I teach at the university.
September 21, 2009 at 1:13 pm
kid bitzer
when people ask me what led me to becoming a historian, i usually just sigh, look off at the horizon, and say, “i don’t like to talk about the past.”
September 21, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Bruce Ross
Tell them you get to indulge your curiosity for a living — not a bad gig.
September 21, 2009 at 1:18 pm
ben
Someone asked you why Jill Lepore became a historian?
Philosophy is the queen of the sciences. That’s my answer.
September 21, 2009 at 1:25 pm
eric
I, also, say “teacher”.
September 21, 2009 at 1:26 pm
eric
In fact, you can see Ari and me and everyone else doing just that on the “about” page.
September 21, 2009 at 1:28 pm
eric
Say, Ari, how’d you do at National History Day?
September 21, 2009 at 1:31 pm
ari
Well, I came this close to winning the national competition. Two different years! And then the president mocked me in public.
September 21, 2009 at 1:31 pm
JPool
Mostly I go with the rambling biography thing. If I’m with someone I trust I say that I find it endlessly interesting and that one of the lessons I was lucky enough to learn from my parents was that life’s too short not to try and do something that you have a passion for. Occasionally, when pressed on the why history rather than anything else, I’ve alled myself the indulgence of saying that I find that it helps the world make more sense. (Of course, that isn’t always true. Sometimes it just makes the world confusing in a more interesting way.)
Usually though, the conversation goes like this:
“What do you study?”
“African History.”
[Long and awkward silence]
September 21, 2009 at 1:32 pm
eric
And then the president mocked me in public.
I didn’t wait to be asked, you know.
September 21, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Kieran
Because I think using models a la economics, poly sci, sociology, etc. are silly ways to view the world?
Am I being trolled? Surely not. I should say I have nothing but respect for historians, who reject useless formalization and are famous for their elegant prose style — especially in the matter of subject/verb agreement.
September 21, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Erik
I always just say that I’m a historian because it is the only thing I’m any good at.
September 21, 2009 at 3:01 pm
ari
I might say the same — if I thought I was any good at historianing.
September 21, 2009 at 3:02 pm
ben
That novel sounds interesting.
September 21, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Russell60
As Richard O. Hathaway once said to me, “scratch a historian and you’ll find an antiquarian.” Which kind of applies to me, because I’m not a professional historian, but DO like to write and research history, and also like old things (books, buildings, etc.).
September 21, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Tyler
At least you aren’t still students.
Them: “What do you do?”
Me: “I’m a student.”
Them: “Oh, what do you study?”
Me: “History”
Them “So you want to be a teacher?”
At that point, in my mind, I stab them.
One of my mother’s church friends once asked if I was studying Japanese history because perhaps I like asian women in a “special” way. Which is odd, because that person is a missionary in China… O_o
September 21, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Sifu Tweety
Why are you in this line of work?
Well, you know, I tried those “jobs” where you go places and do things and then people give you money in exchange for your labor or services, and I just felt like, you know, this isn’t for me. Sure, there are tradeoffs — eating was always a thrill — but I’m feeling good about my trajectory.
September 21, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Galvinji
my rather extraordinary success at National History Day
Yes, please do tell me about that, and especially tell me about your somewhat disappointing project the following year.
Two different years!
Really?
September 21, 2009 at 7:05 pm
tpb
When people ask me why I became a(n) historian, I punch them in the throat. This may explain why the job search isn’t going so well.
September 21, 2009 at 7:13 pm
ben
I’m feeling good about my trajectory.
Loafing?
September 21, 2009 at 7:42 pm
ari
Really?
We made Nationals! Even that year! Er, didn’t we?
September 21, 2009 at 7:56 pm
delagar
Sometimes I get asked why I became a English professor. I always use the same answer: “It was an accident,” I say.
Which is the truth. I checked the wrong box on my TA form, back when I was applying to grad school. (I thought it was for research work, in some library somewhere.) By the time I found out what that stipend was for, shit if I was going to give it back.
Turned out it was like the first jolt of cocaine. Nine years later I had the Ph.D. in hand and was applying for jobs.
September 21, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Vance
Nine years
World’s longest slippery slope. (I got done in a mere seven, or eight by the quirky terrestrial calendar.)
September 21, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Galvinji
We made Nationals! Even that year! Er, didn’t we?
We did, but that’s hardly “almost winning.” That’s like saying that I am “almost a history professor.” The year before, when you finished in the top five, was “almost winning.”
September 21, 2009 at 8:35 pm
ari
The year before, we were runner-up, right? And honestly, I thought we made the final round at nationals the next year as well. But really, once we diluted the talent pool on the team, it was only a matter of time before our results suffered.
September 21, 2009 at 10:10 pm
TF Smith
It’s inside work and there’s no heavy lifting?
Seriously?
Because there is nothing more fascinating and illuminating as the passage of our species through time…and if one doesn’t know the past, one has no idea of the present – or the future.
And because Santayana was right, even if he didn’t mean exactly what he is quoted saying; Gerda Lerner says so, so there…
And because Edmund Morgan is the man.
September 22, 2009 at 6:15 am
Woodrowfan
because people are interesting and history is a record of what people have done. Life, sex, death, love, hate, greed, jealousy, inventions, wars, politics, heroes, villains, people being swept away by events beyond their control, people controlling events, etc. etc. What’s not to like???,
September 22, 2009 at 6:31 am
Fats Durston
The explosion-filled cover of a kid’s version of the Battle of Midway at a fourth-grade book fair; a bus-ride to an engineering class; conversation among pizza drivers; a future wife’s move 1500 miles cross-country; no way to turn back at ten years; a lot of luck.
Not a bad gig, all in all, even if there’s a department meeting in three hours.
September 22, 2009 at 9:25 am
serial catowner
Because it’s more interesting than most fiction.
Incidentally, in Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, check out how closely the character Naptha echoes Hitler- even though Mann finished the book in 1920.
September 22, 2009 at 10:01 am
eric
The explosion-filled cover of a kid’s version of the Battle of Midway at a fourth-grade book fair
I totally had that book. Also this one.
September 22, 2009 at 11:27 am
rdale
Because all I ever wanted to be was an archeologist; still do, in fact. But then I entered the program at the University of Utah and was thrown out of his office by a doyen of American archeology, Jesse Jennings, because I mentioned I’d read books by C.W. Ceram; he was so rude, so hateful, so sneering, that it shook my view of the field. Plus, in the UU department at the time, there was a rivalry–too mild a word; hatred is more like it–between Jennings and Phil Hammond, whose thing was Petra. They hated each other, their grad students had to hate each other, you couldn’t speak to someone from the other camp in the halls of the Stewart Building without being denounced. The final straw was a class in Physical Anthro that was a requirement; it was taught by some mullet-ed little coke head from LA, who came to class every night with carosels full of slides of baboon butts. Blue ones, green ones, red ones, striped ones; after that I switched to the History Dept, now have an MS in history, have worked in the field (Certified Archivist) for three decades; written five books and about 120 articles, been the consultant for a number of documentaries. And all because Jennings was such a jerk.
September 22, 2009 at 11:28 am
Erik Lund
The summer of my 10th birthday, I learned that the world was a wonderful place, and I wanted to know how it got to be that way.
http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2009/08/grooviest-covers-of-all-time-summer-of.html
September 22, 2009 at 5:14 pm
dance
History Day has teams?
I generally say “I teach” rather than “I’m a teacher”, and I explain being a historian by saying I read too many historical novels as a child. Which I did. Including a lot of history written for children.
October 7, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Mixmaster
1. I say I am a teacher. Then I school them in the pick-n-roll.
2. Ari, remember Heather*? You may not, she went to HB. (I didn’t really know her in high school but did in college.) Anyway, I just saw her last week in Boston and she, until recently, lived upstairs (or maybe downstairs) from Jill Lepore. Heather who is neither an historian or a journalist is, like you, jealous of Lepore’s success. Lepore also has three kids apparently. There’s no real point here other than that, in less than a week, two people I know have professed their jealousy of Jill Lepore. Next time I see her, I think I’ll punch her in the back of the head.
*Even though about three people (including you and me) will read this, I feel like I shouldn’t print her last name.
October 7, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Mixmaster
Oops. I meant to write “nor a journalist”
October 7, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Mixmaster
One more thing – nice shout out to Audrey Stout. I dig it. She turned me on to history as well. To be honest I have to give crazy Ms. Janosik credit too. On that subject, check out:
http://www.saintjoe.edu/news/contact/pdf/Contact_2009_Winter_Web.pdf