Leonard Benardo interviews Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins over at The Ideas Letter:
Leonard Benardo: I thought I would begin by asking you why you think the field of Intellectual History has made such an unanticipated resurgence in recent years. At some point, only a decade or so ago, it was seemingly on the brink of turning moribund, and if you were interested in the area you would have been well advised to go to law school instead. Jobs were scarce. What happened? What were the triggers that reignited the field? How do you account for the turn in terms of structure, ideology, and otherwise?
Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins: I do think intellectual history has been revitalized but primarily outside the confines of the academy. Of course, there are plenty of great intellectual historians currently writing, but the field has experienced the same fate as the general history profession in terms of the so-called academic jobs crisis that has significantly deepened since 2016. Even if one was to be admitted to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton to study intellectual history, it is probably unlikely that doing so would lead to a tenure-track job. I think there is a hesitancy for professors at even these places to take on students as they know there is a good chance it will not result in a tenure-track offer. Whenever one of my students at Wesleyan says they want to go to grad school to become a history professor, I feel an ethical obligation to explain to them the risk involved in that decision. In terms of your comment about law school, I encourage them to do a PhD/JD so that if a history job doesn’t materialize, they at least have the fallback option of a law career or even becoming a law professor. Of course, some students are privileged enough so as not to have to worry about the risk, which means that we might end up with a profession, in a generation, dominated by a particular class.
More here.
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