Dispatches from Graduate School–Part 21

Cali Pitchel McCullough is a Ph.D student in American history at Arizona State University and 2007 graduate of the Messiah College History Department.  For earlier posts in this series click here. –JF

I had my first official PhD meltdown on Thursday night. My family requested to take Quinn and I out for dinner on Thursday night. We settled on The Mission, a Latin restaurant situated in the bustle of Old Town Scottsdale, and within walking distance from our condo. My parents and brother were seated when we arrived, so Quinn and I took the empty seats across the table. I was about to dig a hot corn chip into the made-to-order guacamole when my brother nudged his head to his left, my right. Barry Zito and five friends were seated directly next to our table. The tables were positioned rather close, so it felt a little like we were actually sitting with their party. So basically, I had dinner with a Cy Young Award-winning Major League Baseball pitcher. Kind of. Anyway, on to the meltdown.

We finished our meals as we discussed our upcoming family cruise to the eastern Caribbean—what to pack, what not to pack, etc. The waitress brought the check to our table and my mom, in typically fashion, proceeded to leave a 30% tip—roughly $40. Then I thought to myself, Barry Zito will likely leave an equally, if not more, generous tip for our energetic, cute waitress.  Then I started to do a little math. We were two of her three or four tables. And we were a 7:00 reservation. So if you figure she does about 3 tables per 2 hours in three successive waves making on average $50/hour, she walks with at least $300 at the end of the night. I make a little more than $300 in a week. One full week. 7 days. She makes $300 in six hours.

All of this went through my head in a matter of moments, and I interrupted whatever conversation was going on with my rather upsetting epiphany. This lament led to another, and to another, and to another, until tears were streaming down my cheeks. I felt a little embarrassed that this was happening in front of a major league baseball player, but then I remembered that Zito and I both have reason to cry—he might not make the rotation this year. That offered consolation for but a minute before I started on a rambling list of the difficulties of graduate school.

We closed our bill and walked outside to avoid further embarrassment for my younger brother. My mom gave me a kiss, told me I was her hero, and we parted ways. As soon as I got home I opened Indeed.com in my web browser and searched for jobs. Even after six years of college education under my belt, there is little for which I am qualified. That led to further depression and to a lengthy yellow notepad cost-benefit analysis. It makes no sense and isn’t the least bit helpful to try and conduct a cost-benefit analysis for a PhD program, because frankly, time, money, and security cannot and should not be factors in pursuing such a path. That’s not what this is about.

On Friday I had lunch with one of my classmates (who has become a dear friend). I shared with her my meltdown experience and she lauded me for making it this far before my first lapse into weepiness and irrational thoughts. I told her that it had happened before, but only in my mind and never led to an actual public hullabaloo. We decided that because we’re at a Research 1 university, we have few examples of what a balanced academic life might look like. The faculty are largely single, or on multiple marriages, and have moved from place to place to place, all consequences of climbing their way up the ivory tower. Feeling as if I had to conform to that image (and the realization that I will subsist on rice and beans for many years to come) caused me a great amount of distress (e.g., crying like a baby in front of Barry Zito).

Neither my classmate nor I aspire to such a lifestyle, but when that is modeled for us, it’s hard to imagine anything different. So we resolved to not live that life, to always seek to find balance, and to think about what is best for our families before we think about what is best for our careers. I doubt that Thursday night’s meltdown will be my last. But hopefully each time I will gain a new perspective on this journey.

My takeaway(s) this time around: 1. It’s not about the money. I’m doing this because I love to learn and I want to share that passion with others. 2. I need to forge my own way.  I cannot always look to others to define my experience—this is not a value judgment, just a realization that my life doesn’t need to look like anyone’s but mine own. I’m sure there will be many more lessons acquired. I just hope that next time I grapple with them in the privacy of my own home!

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More Job and Internship Opportunities

Building Preservation/Restoration Intern, Stratford Hall, VA.

National Trust for Historic Preservation Intern, Washington D.C.

Historic Landscapes Intern, Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, Wyoming.

Museum Intern, Custer Battlefield Museum, Garyowen, Montana.

Historical Site Researcher, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia.

Education Intern, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Intern, Florida Historic Capitol Museum, Tallahassee, FL

Public Programming Intern, San Francisco Planning and Urban Outreach Association

Communications and Development Intern, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Curatorial Intern, Martha’s Vineyard Museum, MA

Park Ranger, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Montana

Colonial Apprentice Role Player, Plimoth Plantation, MA

Summer Interns at General Henry Knox Museum in Montpelier, Maine

Tour Guide, Howard County Historic Sites, MD

Museums of Old York Elizabeth Perkins Fellowship in Museum Practice & Research, York ME

Jobs at St. Mary’s City, MD

Curatorial Assistant, The Hermitage (Home of Andrew Jackson), Nashville, TN

Summer Internships at Mystic Seaport, Mystic, CT

Preservation Intern, Blue Ridge Parkway, Boone, North Carolina

Interns, Preservation Action Foundation, Washington D.C.

Education Director, Fort Larned Historical Society/Sante Fe Trail Center, Larned, Kansas.

Historian and Archivist Intern, Staunton State Park, Pine, Colorado

Sustainability Program Assistant, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Chicago, IL

Web Editorial Assistant, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington D.C.

Membership Coordinator, Historic Seattle

Educational Outreach Officer, Intermuseum Conservation Association, Cleveland, OH

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Job Opening: Messiah College Admissions Counselor

http://www.messiah.edu/offices/hr/job_opportunities/admin/admiss_counselor.html

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Dispatches from Graduate School–Part 20

Cali Pitchel McCullough is a Ph.D student in American history at Arizona State University and a 2007 Messiah College history graduate. For earlier posts in this series click here. –JF

I would call few of the books assigned for class “page-turners.” Alfred Chandler, you are a good man, but The Visible Hand didn’t quite take hold of me. And one of the words I would not use to describe The Fall of the House of Labor is riveting. However, each monograph has a rightful place in the graduate seminar.
Understanding the transformation of the American economy in the mid-nineteenth century or the demise of a united labor front at the turn of the twentieth century are essential to piecing together a larger narrative of American history.

Every once and a while I am assigned a book that makes my usual approach to reading difficult. I typically use the following steps as a guide: 1. Read reviews. 2. Carefully examine the Table of Contents. 3. Read the prologue and the epilogue. 4. Skim chapters. I don’t like this process, but I’ve found it to be a necessary evil. I would love to sit down and read every single book (well, I take that back…most books) from front to cover, but that just isn’t realistic. For example, the second week of courses I was assigned three books, each more than 500 pages in length. I also had to write two essays and prepare two lectures. Now, some might be capable of such a feat. Me, not so much. I suppose if I had forgone sleeping and showering, church, and my requisite yoga classes (believe me, no yoga makes for an incorrigible Cali), then I might have been able to give a thorough reading to all 1500 pages.

This was yet another week full of an intimidating amount of reading. I still haven’t touched The Promise of a New South by Edward Ayers or the book assigned for Global Enivronmental History. But I just cannot put down White Mother to a Dark Race by Margaret Jacobs. Jacobs writes a comparative analysis of settler colonialism and indigenous child removal in the American West and in Australia. She reveals striking similarities between the two nations, particularly in a time when both the U.S. and Australia were bent on securing a more powerful place on the world stage. In her exploration of the American West, Jacbos shows how Indian removal allowed white women to leverage power, yet despite their heavy hands in the removal, rearing, and education of indigenous children, white women were ultimately subject to the male-dominated authority of the state—a state with an acute goal: to acquire land for the sake of nation-building.

White women in both the U.S. and Australia used a variety of means to justify transferring children from the care of their tribes to boarding schools, dormitories, and white homes, but most of their rationale fell under the umbrella of Christian charity. I found one excuse especially troubling. Women missionaries involved in removal zealously advocated for a sexual division of labor based on middle-class, Christian, white gender norms. According to Jacobs, these women believed that “‘true women’ oversaw domestic duties and guided affective relationships in the home while their husbands worked outside the home for pay.”[1] Indigenous sexual division of labor did not conform to this standard and thus white women actively upended the long-established traditions of both Indian and Aboriginal families.

When white women saw indigenous women engaged in what they perceived to be roles coded masculine—planting, harvesting, setting camp—they assumed that the indigenous women were enslaved to their idle husbands. And they set out enthusiastically to right such a wrong. What was so striking to me was that these white women no doubt used their interpretation of Scripture to defend removal. I immediately thought of Proverbs 31—an oft-cited passage describing a good Christian wife and mother. The following excerpt really complicates the white critique of indigenous labor:

She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant; she brings her food from afar. She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens. She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.[2]

Although some of the above tasks were considered domestic and appropriate for women by nineteenth century standards, others were condemned or considered men’s work. How could missionary women, committed fully to spreading the gospel and Christianizing indigenous women (and men), have interpreted the physical labor of indigenous women as backward or oppressive when clearly, the godly woman from Proverbs engaged in similar tasks? This made me think about how our interpretation of Scripture is at times subject to the larger cultural and social patterns of the world in which we live (similar perhaps to how the women, despite their own maternal instincts and efforts, were subject to the demands of the state).

This both humbles and frightens me. In what activities do I engage in the spirit of Christian compassion or concern that in one hundred years will be understood as oppressive, judgmental, or misdirected? I can only hope that I am not completely blinded by my situatedness. I can also strive to be self-reflective enough to recognize my own prejudice and bias, and that I might leave a legacy not of unrestrained criticism, but of patience and perceptivity.

[1] Jacobs, 114.
[2]Proverbs 31: 13-19, ESV.

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Today at the Messiah College Humanities Symposium

I hope you are enjoying this year’s symposium.  Monday was a big day for the History Department as we sponsored two events.   In the afternoon, we heard presentations by five Messiah College History Majors on the impact of historic power and fame on friendships.  Then we returned in the evening for a vibrant panel discussion with the entire History Department faculty on the history of friendship.

Today, professor Norman Wilson and the students in his Humanities Seminar are leading a session entitled “”Public Friendship and Civility in the Humanities.”  The session will meet in Boyer 130 from 4:00-5:30pm.  Here is a blurb:

Should we understand public friendship and civility primarily as a means of political and civic engagement in a community or alternatively as the social bonds of mutual affection that bind a community together? Humanities majors in the Spring Seminar will explore this question through an interdisciplinary analysis of a variety of human societies.

I hope to see you there!

 

 

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Monday Sessions of Note at the 2011 Humanities Symposium

I hope all of you will consider attending some of the events this week that are part of the 2011 Messiah College Humanities Symposium.  Please come out and support your students and faculty members who are making presentations.  Here are a few sessions of note on Monday.

Monday, Feb. 21

3:45-4:30:  Opening Reception.  (Free food!)

4:30-6:00:  Student Colloquia: “The Impact of Historic Power and Fame on Friendships” (Boyer 130).   Come and hear history majors Natalie Burack, Elizabeth Coon, Megan Keller, Alexander Lovelace, and Colin Riddle talk about how power, status, and celebrity have influenced friendships between George Patton and Dwight Eisenhower, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein; Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; and Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong.

7:00-8:30:  “Becoming Acquainted With the History of Friendship”:  Come out and support your history faculty (all 7 members of the department will be participating) and join a conversation about friendship in history.

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Saratoga National Historical Park Seeks Volunteers

From New York History Blog

Saratoga National Historical Park is preparing for the 2011 season and is looking for enthusiastic and dedicated individuals to assist as Volunteers in Parks (VIPs) in several areas. As a volunteer at Saratoga Battlefield you will receive training and a uniform, plus you’ll get to work in a beautiful environment with knowledgeable and friendly rangers.

Time requirements vary by position (they are listed below) and are arranged to work with the volunteer’s schedule. For more information, please call the Saratoga National Historical Park volunteer coordinator at 518-664-9821 ext. 225.

Schuyler House Guides – provide 35-minute guided tours of historic Philip Schuyler House in Schuylerville, NY. Six positions available.

Visitor Information Specialists – greet visitors and provide basic site orientation to the battlefield. Three positions available.

Battlefield Interpreters – stationed at Neilson House to provide historical information to visitors touring the battlefield. Six to eight positions available.

Bookstore Sales Associate – assisting visitors with suggestions for book or gift purchases, operating computer-based sales system. Three positions available.

Musket Corps – participate in living history programs through demonstrations of 18th century soldiers’ musket drilling, firing, marching and maneuvering. Eight positions available.

Special Event Volunteers – help during large events with needs such as parking, greeting and orienting visitors, handing out information and crowd control. Six to eight positions available.

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Dispatches from Graduate School – Part 19

Photo by Cali McCullough

Cali Pitchel McCullough is a Ph.D student in American history at Arizona State University.  For earlier posts in this series click here. –JF

My courses require an amount of work equal to the first semester, but they feel different, more purposeful. Two of three courses are in my presumed “field”: Environmental/American West. Each week in “Readings in the American West” our professor assigns two books. At the beginning of the semester he used a deck of cards to divide the readings evenly—each week half the group reads one, half the group reads the other; then we discuss each as a class. It’s like a two-for-one.

This week I read Donald Worster’s Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the American West, while the other students read Dan Flores, The Natural West:  Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. This is my first taste of Worster, but I’m already smitten by his poetic prose and impassioned analysis of irrigation in the American West. And because that wasn’t enough water for the week (it is essential for life, you know), I read Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization by journalist Steven Solomon in my Global Environmental History course.

Although each monograph is unique with different analytical frameworks, content, and calls to action, all three had something in common: a rather biting critique of the Judeo-Christian tradition. When it comes to the environment, Christians get a bad rap. Let’s face it, Genesis 1:26-28 has been interpreted in many ways, most often with a heavy emphasis on dominion. Worster briefly details the secularization of medieval Christian notions about nature (á la Horkheimer) into a Western worldview known for its exploitation of the environment. He’s not complimentary. But who can blame him? Or Flores, or Solomon. Of all the public interest issues evangelicals support (abstinence education, anti-abortion, politics and morality, etc.) concern for the environment lags behind, far behind.

Solomon suggests that stewardship and dominion are a contradiction in terms, but he accuses Christians of using the terms interchangeably. Genesis 1:26-28 does make clear the command to rule and subdue the earth, but I must agree with Solomon. Using a biblical mandate to justify wastefulness and exploitation seems hypocritical, and it clearly goes against the rest of biblical teaching.

In Genesis 2:15, one finds God’s further instruction to Adam and Eve—they are to keep the garden. The Hebrew word shamar means to keep, guard, keep watch and ward, protect, save life, as a shepard over his flock. It’s the same word used when God extols Abraham for keeping His commandments. Shamar is also used in Proverbs concerning wisdom: “Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee.” Many Christians do take such commands seriously and also take personally the responsibility to be true stewards of creation. But, as is often the case, this portion is sorely underrepresented in the media and thus the Christian’s ambiguity in public life is perpetuated in the books of scholars such as Worster, Flores, and Solomon.

I can’t offer a solution to our “public image,” one that is certainly grounded in historical reality. But I can ask you to consider what God asks of His people when it comes to his creation. When we fail to treat the whole of creation with honor and respect, we fail to fulfill part of our evangelical mission. We miss out on an important opportunity to show the world that a commitment to the earth is a commitment to the Kingdom come and that Christians do care about ecological issues.

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History Department Faculty Updates

I asked history faculty what they had been up to recently with their teaching, research, and service.  Here are some updates I received:

• Anne Marie Stoner-Eby began her new project on the history of Mennonites in Tanzania and Ethiopia this Fall with two conference papers given at the Conference on Faith and History (CFH) held at George Fox University in Oregon and the annual meeting of the African Studies Association (ASA) held in San Francisco.  Her CFH paper was titled “Effects and Limits of the East African Revival on the Mennonite Mission in Colonial Tanzania, 1930s-1950s.”  Her ASA paper was part of a panel that she organized and chaired titled  Constructing Lives of Faith:  Self, Community, and Agency in African Christian Biography/Autobiography. Her paper was titled:  “Building a Church Locally and Globally: The Twentieth Century Autobiography of the First African Bishop of the Tanzanian Mennonite Church.”  Anne Marie enjoyed her research for these papers which took her to the headquarters of Eastern Mennonite Missions in Salunga, Pennsylvania and the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  She had fun conducting a number of interviews.  She has also enjoyed  helping to organize events for International Education Week held in mid-November and planning a May Term in Ethiopia for 2012.  Finally, she’s helping to get the Peace and Conflict Studies major off the ground.  BTW, the 36 credit PACS major makes a great second major for History majors!

 

• In addition to his duties as department chair, John Fea is ramping up for the publication of his new book, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation: A Historical Introduction and the speaking engagements that accompany it.  His co-edited book Confessing History: Explorations in Christian Faith and the Historian’s Vocation has already been adopted as a textbook at a few colleges and universities around the country.  In November 2010 he signed a contract with Baker Academic for a book tentatively titled The Power to Transform: A Christian Reflection on the Study of the Past.  This Spring he is working on two essays–one on the relationship between evangelicalism, Anabaptism, and the study of the past for an edited collection on evangelicalism and Anabaptism to be published by Cascade Books and the other on New Jersey in the American Revolution for an edited volume on new directions in New Jersey history to be published by Rutgers University Press.  Long term projects include a book about Presbyterians and the American Revolution and a book about the memory of an 18th century “tea party” in the town of Greenwich, NJ.  For the later project, John has again received funding from the New Jersey Historical Commission to bring a group of students and former students to Greenwich to conduct summer research.  And finally, John continues to blog daily at The Way of Improvement Leads Home.  His blog was recently chosen by the Social Science Research Council as one of the top 100 religion blogs in America.

 

• Joseph Huffman has once again assumed the directorship of the Center for Public Humanities, and this year he has not only to provide leadership to the Center’s many educational, civic, and cultural programs but also has been conducting a program review of the Center.  In addition, he continues to teach both medieval & Renaissance European history as well as Latin language and literature courses.  He is scheduled to teach a Readings Course steeped in primary sources on the Trial of Joan of Arc next fall semester, which should be fun!  Along the way he has also published four book reviews with the European journal Francia: Studies in Western European History and the American Library Association’s journal Choice.  His article titled, “Between History and Romance: Teaching Medieval Culture to Undergraduates through Chivalric Biography” appeared December in the journal Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching (17: 2).

 

• David Pettegrew has been busy preparing for archaeological fieldwork at the Stauffer farm, a site near Dillsburg that dates from the later 1700s.  Some two dozen history students will be excavating at the farm in late March recording the buildings on the property, and documenting a nearby cemetery that is badly in need of preservation.  Look for updates via this blog.  Over the last semester, David has been making progress on a book on the Corinthian Isthmus, and has delivered papers on the commercial image of the Roman city.  He has forthcoming articles on the diolkos of Corinth, the ancient railway used for transporting cargoes across the Isthmus and occasionally military ships.  He is preparing for an archaeology field school in Cyprus in May-June 2012 and encourages any interested students to stop by and discuss the opportunity. Finally, David has been blogging somewhat frequently on Corinthian history, archaeology and religion.

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History Club Spring Schedule

The History Club has big plans for the spring! We’re taking a trip to one of the coolest places in Philly, and if all goes as planned, we will be getting club t-shirts (Ideas for the shirt? Let us know in the comments or on our Facebook page).

Our first event, on Saturday, February 19th, is a game night in Boyer 130. We’ll have snacks, and Dr. LaGrand will be there to show us a 30 minute episode of The Simpsons called “Lisa the Iconoclast.” After that, we’ll have a quick rundown of semester plans and then we’ll get to the games! Join us at 7 pm for the night of fun!

Stay tuned throughout the semester for more details on all of our events:

March 25th/26th (TBD): Movie Night

April 9th: Field Trip to Philadelphia – Eastern State Penitentiary

April 14th: History Club Service Project – TBD

April 30th: End of Year Barbeque

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