Dr. Ray Haberski
The Contemporary History Institute held its first public lecture of the semester and welcome alumnus Raymond Haberski Jr.
In his talk, titled “Dangerous Ideas,” Haberski explained how the internet has revitalized and broadened intellectual history. The branch of knowledge that deals with changes in ideas, intellectual history has suffered in the last 50 years because of the increased prominence of cultural and social history. Shifting standards and political movements also brought charges that intellectual history was elitist and dominated by white males to write about dead white males. By the 1990s there were serious debates whether intellectual history could survive.
Haberski opened his talk by recalling that the Contemporary History Institute positively influenced his early career. CHI provided an opportunity to better know colleagues and professors in a way that may be lacking in most history programs. CHI also offered new ways to think about how history is presented to the public and what role the internet would play in communicating with a broader audience. CHI, for example, gave him the opportunity to work with H-Diplo where he saw the power of the internet to bring scholars and ideas together in a way not found in normal academic settings. Both these experiences shaped his later career.
Haberski received a doctorate in history from Ohio University in 1999 and was an early member of the Contemporary History Institute. He is now the director of both the American Studies program and the Institute for American Thought at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), where he researches intellectual history and runs an initiative to redefine the Ph.D. program in the direction of public scholarship. He is the author of five books on intellectual history and American culture and editor of three other monographs.
After graduating from Ohio University Haberski started teaching at Marian University and he became one of the founders of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History (S-USIH). Its blog quickly became a way to connect with those interested in intellectual history both in the academy and outside. It also provided a forum for debate and a point of departure to conduct more formal academic conferences. More importantly, it broadened the field of what was considered intellectual history.
“S-USIH demonstrated how many scholars actually self-identified as intellectual historians even if their job titles or job offers did not include that language,” Haberski explained after the talk. “Maybe we consistently get those labels wrong!” This is captured in his recent book American Labyrinth (co-edited with Andrew Hartman) which presents a collection of essays by a diverse array of scholars focusing on topics that are influenced by intellectual history.
Despite his work with the S-USIH blog, a podcast titled Trotsky & the Wild Orchids, and an active Facebook page Dr. Haberski is still uncertain what social media means for his field. The new medium has its dangers not least of which is being driven by personalities rather than substance. But he also credits S-USIH and the internet for reviving the field of intellectual history and creating the market for scholarship and publications.
CHI has a full slate of exciting public talks and discussions on offer this fall semester.
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