Historians get Materialistic

I was hoping there would be some big controversy to report about some of the big disciplinary conventions that meet around now, other than MLA -- the American Historical Association, the Linguistic Society of America, etc.

Well, the LSA did get a little media, mainly because of their goofy annual contests for interesting new words. I was pleased to see that "crunk" was nominated, and sad that it lost out to "red state/blue state" as "most likely to succeed." Then again, it's not as if "crunk" is likely to be a word anyone is still using a year from now!

Tim Burke did have some interesting insights on Historians' discipline-wide neglect of Africa at Cliopatria, but it's hardly on the order of "Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl." (The scandal of Eve Sedgwick's title never gets old.)

Well, the Boston Globe at least has something to report about Historians: they've got a tendency to be materialistic.

Ouch, bad joke; sorry. But I've been desperate to see some metacommentary on a discipline other than literature for once.