Andrew Webb “A history degree? What are you going to do with that?” Work my way into the best tech company in the country. That’s what. Not right out of college, of course. It’s entirely possible to work at your dream company with a history degree, though—-as long as you’re willing to work hard at learning new skills. How, though?
This is the third post in the Pandemic Methodologies series. See the introductory post for more information. by Erin Spinney Books are a part of my life. When I moved across the country, and then across the country again and again, the books were what got stuffed inside the trunk of the car and filled up the suitcases; while clothing, dishes,… Read more »
by Erin Gallagher-Cohoon and Letitia Johnson In April 2021, Erin started to write a piece she would later call “Pandemic Methodologies.” Without much of a plan, she only knew that she wanted to figure out how to verbalize what it felt like to be doing historical research during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was deeply personal, born out of little and… Read more »
This post by Lilian Radovac and Simon Vickers is part of the “(In)Security in the Time of COVID-19” series. Read the rest of the series here. Alternative Toronto is a DIY digital archive and exhibition space that documents the history of alternative communities in the Greater Toronto Area from 1980 to 1999. As archive director and volunteer coordinator for Alternative… Read more »
David Calverley I don’t want my comments to come across as insensitive or uncaring towards people struggling to get a university position. I attended the first CHA panel about precarity in the historical profession. I felt a lot of sympathy for those who outlined their anger and disappointment with either not obtaining a full-time academic position or the stress they… Read more »
by Steven High “We all love what we do deeply. … This love is taken from us by our institutions, employers, and administrators. It’s used to exploit us every time we do extra work or support the students we teach or mark papers properly even though we’re not paid enough to do it, or get a course outline just right… Read more »
The comments here were first shared during the Canadian Historical Association’s second of three panels responding to the “Precarious Historical Instructors’ Manifesto” entitled, “Precarious Historians, Trade Unions, and the Neoliberal University.” Along with Godefroy Desrosiers-Lauzon, Peter McInnis, Christine Gauthier, Catherine Larochelle, and Janis Thiessen, Jeremy Milloy discussed his insights on precarious academic work and working-class organizing. What follows is an… Read more »
We are caught in a cycle where a large chunk of historians in the field are precariously employed. Tenured faculty and university administrators often ask about solutions to precarity from the people who are facing it during faculty meetings or when our professional associations meet, but they rarely act on suggestions. Precarity and those who face it are ignored as… Read more »
Mary Chaktsiris, Sarah Glassford, Chris Schultz, Nathan Smith, and Jonathan Weier During the first half of 2019, we the editors of ActiveHistory.ca’s long-running series “Canada’s First World War” stepped back and reflected on the editorial work we undertook over of the course of five years of Great War centenary commemorations, 2014-2019. In response to a series of questions circulated over… Read more »
Andrea Eidinger On April 3rd, I was on my way to class, when I received a phone call from my husband. It was the last day of the winter semester, and my students had organized a potluck to celebrate. My husband has battled Crohn’s Disease for the better part of ten years, and had decided to stay home that day… Read more »
