Sarah Jones Weicksel (AM'09, PhD'17 History) and Julia Brookins (AM'03, PhD'13 History) join our hosts to discuss their time at the University of Chicago as PhD students in the Department of History, and the career paths that have led both of them to work for the American Historical Association.
Sarah Jones Weicksel is the Executive Director of the American Historical Association, the largest membership association of historians in the world. She has previously worked as the Association's director of research and publications, and as a project historian at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. She also serves on the National Archives Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Advisory Committee.
Weicksel earned her BA from Yale, MA in American material culture from the University of Delaware, MA in history from the University of Chicago in 2009, and PhD in history from the University of Chicago in 2017.
Julia Brookins is Senior Program Analyst, Teaching and Learning as well as TPS Program Analyst for the American Historical Association. Her team develops initiatives to advance history in education and public life, designing and implementing professional development and networking programs that bring together history teachers and faculty across institutions.
Brookins earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard, her MA in history from the University of Chicago in 2003, and her PhD in History from the University of Chicago in 2013.
Kelly Pollock:
Hi everyone. I am Kelly Pollock and this is Dialogo, a podcast where we interview alumni of the Graduate Division of the Social Sciences here at the University of Chicago. I'm joined by my co-host, Paul.
Paul Poast:
Yes, I'm Paul Poast. I'm deputy dean in the Social Science Division here at the University of Chicago.
Kelly Pollock:
And today we have with us two guests who are alumni of our history program. They both received both an MA and a PhD from us in history. We have Sarah Jones Weicksel, the executive director of the American Historical Association and Julia Brookins, a senior program analyst in teaching and learning at the American Historical Association. Hello, Sarah and Julia.
Julia Brookins:
Hi, Kelly and Paul. Thanks for having us.
Kelly Pollock:
All right. Well, let's start with the most obvious question, which is what is the American Historical Association and what do you both do there?
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
Well, the American Historical Association was founded in 1884 and we were incorporated by Congress in 1889, specifically for the promotion of historical studies in the United States. So, today we provide leadership for the discipline of history and we promote the critical role of historical thinking and public life. We are the largest membership association of historians in the world with more than 10,000 members. And we serve historians in a wide array of professions and we represent every historical era and geographical area.
Paul Poast:
And I think the next big question that we're very curious about is how did you come to the American Historical Association? And Julia, would you like to start us off with your story?
Julia Brookins:
Sure. That would chronologically make sense too. So, I started at the American Historical Association in 2010. At the time, the then executive director was a former Chicago person, James Grossman. And I was moving to D.C. slightly before I actually finished my PhD, but I was looking for some work and there was work to be done. So, I started there part-time doing admin stuff. And in the midst of some reorganization that was happening, some other types of roles opened up. So, I started off as the special projects' coordinator, which was ill-defined, but super interesting and versatile role for a number of years for me. And yeah, I've enjoyed it. It's been lots of different phases of the work over the years and more to come, I think.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
I came to the AHA in a rather roundabout way. So, as Julia said, we're based in Washington D.C., our office is up on Capitol Hill. And I finished my PhD in 2017 and moved to the D.C. area. I was, at that point, a research associate at the National Museum of American History with the Smithsonian. Then I had a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania, and then was back at the Smithsonian working as a project historian but I was on soft money there. And so, I was also casting about for other permanent positions that were in the area.
And I came to the AHA in 2020 while they were working on an NEH grant that was tied to the pandemic. And they were working on producing resources for teachers who were having to suddenly shift to teaching remotely. So, I was contributing to that project, and while there, I applied for a position that opened up the director of research and publications, and I was hired for that and I worked in that role for about five years. I became the executive director when Jim Grossman retired in 2025 after ...
We had known for years that 2025 was the year that he was retiring. And so, a full year before he retired, they launched a search for his replacement, and somehow, I ended up in the executive director role as a result.
Kelly Pollock:
I think you mentioned Jim Grossman, who of course had ties to UChicago. You both are alumni ... Whoa, am I frozen? Sorry. Froze on my end. You both are alumni of the University of Chicago, I wonder if there is something about the kind of education that you get in the history department at the University of Chicago, the way people think about the discipline of history that works especially well in thinking about these larger issues at the AHA.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
Julia, you've been here longer.
Julia Brookins:
Well, I don't know. Certainly, the Life of the Mind is alive and well at the AHA. It's been a series of unexpected intellectual challenges that the association has had to address and practical challenges. And it has been very helpful to have that kind of rich intellectual background and flexibility. I think the positioning of history in the social sciences at UChicago actually helps a lot in terms of the orientation that we got to a wide range of disciplinary approaches, not just in the humanities, although also I think most historians encounter the humanities as well, whether they're in social sciences or college.
So yeah, I think that there was some of that and also the tradition of history at UChicago is a very strong one. So, well networked, well aware of some of the structural issues confronting the discipline and I guess a willingness to think about it on the fly.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
I second everything Julia has said. And I'll add that while I was at Chicago, I participated in a number of opportunities that I think really prepared me for actually all of the jobs that I have found myself in since graduating. One of those was the Little Red School House, which I think is called something else now, but I participated in that program in teaching it. And I also taught with the Graham School in teaching writing for non-profit professionals. I was also very involved in the Center for Teaching and Learning, where I was working with other graduate students who were from a variety of disciplines in humanity, social sciences, sciences.
And those experiences really gave me a way of thinking about the university world, but also thinking about what we could do when we stepped outside of the academic world as well. And I find myself constantly drawing on the skills that I learned through all of those experiences, as well as my more specific history-oriented opportunities. But one of the things that's really stuck for me throughout has been when I was able to take my work at the Center for Teaching and Learning and combine it with the opportunities in the history department to offer some pedagogy classes for other graduate students on material culture.
That's an area that I specialize in US history. And that workshop series that I developed at that time has become something that has really shaped a lot of the work that I've done, both an NEH grant that I received, workshops that I run, and other work that we have that's ongoing at the AHA. It helped me develop a bigger network, it helped me to identify a lot of ways to help other teachers and to better connect with the public too. So, it was always just opportunities that could be taken to then develop into something new in each place that I went.
Julia Brookins:
And I'll add to my answer as well, because I had forgotten about this, to be honest, but I do think about it sometimes. My first three years in the graduate program, I had a work study job, which was helping to organize what we then called the professional issues workshop for other graduate students. And that was essentially a professional development series for other graduate students. We would bring in speakers either within the department or beyond the department or visiting campus, and we would talk about things like teaching controversial issues or how to run a discussion section, which a wide range of different things, different kinds of methodological issues that might be useful in professional settings.
And that was really a great development opportunity for me, getting to know the workings of the department in a different way, getting to know the needs of the graduate students in a different way, and working closely with the chair and some of the other faculty on that.
Paul Poast:
Building on what both of you just shared, so you just talked about how UChicago and your experience at UChicago prepared you for what you're doing now. But I know a key question that Kelly and I always like to ask is, what brought you to UChicago in the first place?
Julia Brookins:
Well, when I was little, we lived in South Bend, Indiana, which is just the other side of the South Shoreline. And so, it was on my map of the world, perhaps more so than would've been the case otherwise. We moved to the East Coast when I was young, but we didn't forget about the Midwest, as some people on the East Coast do. So, that was part of it. I had a sister who attended UChicago as an undergraduate for some years, and then ultimately did get her undergraduate degree. And that also, it was definitely had a sterling reputation in my family as a place. If you were really serious, that was where you would go.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
I'm learning new things about Julia in this conversation. For me, it was that I came to Chicago right after finishing a master's degree in American material culture, and I wanted to be a historian who worked with objects as a primary source, and I needed a department where that was not just going to be allowed, but was going to be encouraged. And the work that was going on at the university at that time was really exciting in terms of object study. I worked with Leora Ouslander in the history department who has just really been a driving force behind historians and the study of material culture.
There was object cultures project that Bill Brown was running. Eric Slaughter was working on getting the Carla Share Center going and also paying attention to objects. And so, it seemed like a place where I could really come and have an intellectual life that was grounded in the material world and be able to engage in an interdisciplinary way while still focusing in on history.
Paul Poast:
And I think the follow-up question to that is, and I think I already have, especially Sarah, with your answer right there, so maybe you could continue with it, is what ultimately did each of you write your dissertation on? And so, Sarah, maybe we'll start with you since you've already talked about your experience in material history.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
Sure. Well, I started off, I've always been interested in how objects are used to mediate conflict between people and also how they create conflict between people. And so, I decided to work on a topic in the American Civil War era. I started doing work on that with Legora and with Christine Stanzel, Kathleen Konson. And when I started it, I thought that I was going to write about looting during the American Civil War. I was really interested in people stealing objects, taking them ... You probably want to cut this out.
I was really interested in learning more about how people approached the theft of objects, what they thought about the things that they lost that were stolen, and how that was shaping their experience of war. But as I started doing the research, I realized that clothing was something that was constantly appearing in all of my documentary sources. It was in diaries, in letters, in newspapers, so much about clothing and so much ire around clothing. So, I ended up shifting my project to understand just what it was about clothes that made it just so laden with conflict during the war. So, I ended up writing a dissertation called The Fabric of War: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era.
Paul Poast:
That's terrific. And then Julia, do you want to go ahead and share what yours was about?
Julia Brookins:
Sure. And I will also tell you that I've recently rediscovered my own dissertation. I was asked to present on it to the German Texan Heritage Society, which I will be doing soon. And so, I had to get back into it after many years. And when I started graduate school, I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to work on, but I was interested in working in German sources. I had learned German from eighth grade on with a wonderful high school teacher with whom I'm still in touch. And I had lived in Germany briefly and I was interested in immigrant acculturation and immigrant integration in the United States and how it was different from immigrant integration in other areas of the world.
So, I worked on a dissertation about German immigration to Texas in the 19th Century, and I looked at their attitudes towards nationalism and race and their interactions with Mexican Americans and Tejanos specifically. So, what was going on in terms of incorporating new territories was affecting the way that new immigrants understood the nation, understood their own belonging, and felt about other groups in their vicinity.
Paul Poast:
That's great. I mean, both of those sound fascinating. And Julia, I'm sure yours given current debates right now is probably generating all sorts of interests. And then Sarah, I think my mom, who's a big Civil War buff, would love to read your dissertation.
Kelly Pollock:
And she can write because it's now out as a book.
Julia Brookins:
Yes.
Paul Poast:
That is true. That is true.
Julia Brookins:
It just came out two months ago under a different title. It's now called A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era.
Kelly Pollock:
And was that a title you had considered for your dissertation, or no?
Julia Brookins:
It was not, but it's generally discouraged by presses to have the same title for dissertation and book. And there was another book that had a slightly similar title that came out in between as well. And then I realized that it needed a new title given the kind of revisions that I did to it too. So, it really is about a nation coming unraveled and then getting knit back together. There are so many puns.
Paul Poast:
Yeah, there's so many puns. It's a great title for the play on words, the puns, that's fantastic. Yeah. And we'll make sure that there is a note for all those listening and you want to be able to read the book, they'll be able to access it.
Julia Brookins:
I hope people will enjoy it.
Kelly Pollock:
Before we ask you more difficult questions about the state of history and things like that, let's start with a more fun one, which is, what did you do in your free time? Not that you had a lot of free time when you were in graduate school here, what sorts of things did you do for fun? Were there activities and places that you enjoyed?
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
Definitely. I had a great social experience as a graduate student, I loved living in Hyde Park. I lived in Hyde Park my entire time in Chicago. I liked being near the lake. You could go to the point. If you had an hour, you could go swimming. And most places, no matter how close to the water you are, if you have an hour, it doesn't necessarily mean you can go swimming and then also get where you need to go. So, that was something I liked. And I love Hyde Park, I like eating at Valois, I like cafeterias. Yeah, it has a lot going forward. It has a kind of groundedness to it that most cities and neighborhoods don't have that I really appreciate.
Julia Brookins:
I was having to really think on that question, but I also lived in Hyde Park the entire time that I was there. Minus a year I spent in D.C. on a fellowship and it really felt like home. I loved being able to walk down to the university. It's something that I really miss today, not living near the AHA itself. And I also really love the lake and being able to go for a bike ride or walk or take a run. I also spent a fair amount of time being a material culture person up in the loop, exploring some of the 19th Century buildings that are still there and going to the Art Institute, Newberry Library.
So, just there were so many places to go and things to see. And I also had a good social experience at Chicago and have a lot of friends who continue to be close friends today that were always game for a museum trip or something.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
And the architecture is at such a different level from other places I've lived. There are not many places where a graduate student could afford to live in a place that has an architect that has books about them. And I was fortunate enough to happen into that situation. And every other place I've lived, it's like, "Oh, okay." It hasn't spoiled it, but it has definitely made me appreciate. I went back and visited a friend of mine who also lived in that building and she loved it so much. She found another building that that architect had built up in Old Town and she lives there now and it was wonderful to visit it and to experience this art again in everyday life like that.
So yeah, the 1959 ranch style tract house I live in now is great, but it's not that.
Julia Brookins:
I also had an architecture fascination while I was in Chicago. I still do today, but one of the things that my college roommate and I have done for years is go to Frank Lloyd Wright houses wherever we may find ourself and there's a Frank Lloyd Wright house and Chicago had a lot of those and including the Robie House in Hyde Park. And so, when she would come to visit, we would always make a trek to a new one and that was a lot of fun.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
Just to be specific, the architect is named Edgar Miller.
Kelly Pollock:
Great. That's what I was going to ask. There are lots of incredible buildings in Hyde Park by well-known architects, so it could have been a lot of people.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
Yeah. And more recently, I've gotten involved a little bit with historic preservation, which I never had before, but an opportunity arose here where I live, which is actually in Austin, Texas. And that was another great experience that put a lot of these different experiences I have together, also the history, education and training, the project management and teamwork, working on the community working group to develop a new historic preservation plan for the City of Austin, which was great.
Paul Poast:
Yeah. It ties in very well because just a few years ago, the Robie House was named UNESCO World Heritage Site. So, tying all that together, it's great. But yes, I love it and I'm just thinking to myself, I'm a big fan of the Museum of Science and Industry. I give a tour where I talk about the world's fair and I'm just thinking about material history. And because I try to make that the museum or you go over to the statute of the Republic, it's like there's these very clear symbols, but you're right, just bringing up Hyde Park has all this architecture and just being around it, even if what you do for enjoyment is just walking through it is really a treat.
Kelly Pollock:
All right. So, I said we'd have the fun question first, but I want to ask a little bit about the kinds of things that AHA is working on now. Obviously, there's a lot going on in the world that touches both the profession of history and also thinking about how is history presented in this country. So, not sure where you want to start with that, but just would like to know some about what projects you're working on right now.
Julia Brookins:
And I will let Sarah start with that.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
The list grows every day in terms of the things that we're working on. We have several facets of our work. We are very active given our charge of promoting historical studies. We are leaning into advocacy work to ensure that historians, wherever they teach, wherever they work, whether that is in a K-12 school, at a university, in a museum, in a library, that they're able to do their work with integrity. And this is something that we've been working on for several years. We look at both state advocacy issues as well as the federal level.
And I can let Julia talk a little bit more about the state level work because she has been absolutely integral to our ability to intervene in those debates. But it involves commenting on legislation that would be restrictive for what students are able to learn and what historians are able to do, to teach and to talk about. It also has implications at the federal level. Last week, for instance, we co-launched a new coalition in support of the National Park Service and the ability to have accurate history presented in the parks.
And that's bringing us into new kinds of collaborations with organizations that you might not expect historians to be working with, like the Sierra Club, the National Parks Conservation Association and others. So, we're working in a number of coalitions around history in this moment in which it is being particularly politicized in the public sphere. And that has also meant doing advocacy work that relates to higher education and academic freedom and requesting and advocating for full funding for programs that are central to university's work, to international students' ability to continue to attend universities here.
So, our work can range anywhere from writing a letter to a Senate Committee in a state to working on an amicus brief in support of a case, to actually being directly engaged in a lawsuit as we are with one for the National Endowment for the Humanities currently over the cancellation of more than 1,400 grants last year by DOGE and the dismantling of that agency. So, a lot involved in the advocacy realm, but there's many, many other facets of our work. We publish the American Historical Review, which is a flagship journal for the Discipline of History that covers the entirety of history from the ancient world to the present and every geographic area.
We publish Perspectives on History, which is a bimonthly magazine about the discipline. We just released a new booklet on Careers for History majors, which Julia was the lead on, and that's in its second edition. We have the largest annual meeting of historians every year with, depends on the city we're in, but between 3,000 and 4,000 historians come together in a place to talk about research and professional development and teaching. So those are some of the things that we do, but I'm going to stop talking because Julia can fill you in on some of the other ones.
Julia Brookins:
Yeah. Well, that covers a lot of it. I feel like my first major phase with the AHA, I was trying to help a lot of university faculty see more of the landscape for higher education and the changes to higher education and how history fit into that, and to support them in continuing to offer high quality history education to college students. In some difficult circumstances, mostly due to kind of financial pressure or prioritization of STEM and things like that. Whereas, in addition to that now, there are new political pressures and new types of cultural pressure on the work that history faculty and universities do, as well as on K-12 history educators.
So, it's been additive, which is not what you want, but there are lots of fronts now I wish to help support historians specifically in their teaching work. And one of the things that's been really central throughout my time at the AHA has been the need for historians to be able to articulate the value of what they do. And that takes a specific form with history. You don't find people who say, "Oh, history is dumb, it doesn't matter." But you find people who would rather have history that isn't necessarily written by academic historians or they want to consume their history in different types of genres and formats.
So, continuing to say, "Well, yes, and also academic history and the teaching of history in academic settings is still important." And helping faculty and other historians articulate why that is and what the intellectual contribution that they make can be, has been very important throughout. I think that having the core at Chicago, maybe there was less doubt about the contribution of individual disciplines to the whole, but in the kinds of institutions where most US students attend college and where most history faculty people teach, that is not the case. And it's a everyday struggle to say, "No, no, no, it's still important for students to learn history. It's still important for us to be able to do research."
It's still important for us to travel to conferences and to be able to say why that is and what it is that's important about that is a lot of the work I've done. And so, the Careers for History Majors booklet that Sarah referenced is a part of that effort very much. And I think it's been well received, I hear from people, I have heard from people that the Careers for History majors booklet has been very valuable to them that they hand it out to their students. And that it helps to allay some concerns on the part of would be history majors or people who would just want to take more than one history course and to help them see their future through the historical study that they want to do.
Paul Poast:
To build on what both of you were just saying, and especially Julia used the phrase struggle, and you're in the midst, both of you, very much in the midst of that struggle right now of trying to ensure that history, humanistic fields more generally, as well as the social sciences have prominence, have perceived value both in higher education as well as in society. And so, you're in the midst of that struggle, but one question I would have, especially because you're in the midst of that, is how do you see the future? I guess one way to say is, do you see that struggle as going in a successful direction or is it something where you have doubts?
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
Well, I've been thinking a lot about this sort of a question lately, and I've been asked it in a variety of different ways and prefacing this by saying that I wish that we were not in a moment in which history was so utterly politicized and such a flashpoint. But accepting the fact that that is where we are, I also think that it's important for us to take this moment and do something good with it because the public is listening. They are paying attention to history this moment, not only because we're in the 250th commemoration of the Declaration of Independence year now.
But also because of all of the news articles that are coming out about erasures at the National Park Service and the cancellation of National Endowment for the Humanities Grants and other things of that nature, the challenges that the Smithsonian has been facing. So, the public is listening and they're listening to what is important about history. And so, one of the things that I've tried to do when I'm talking with, for instance, with the press, is to really emphasize how it is that we know what we know as historians, why our expertise is something that should be valued within the public sphere, why it's something that should be trusted, and helping people to better understand how historians work.
And it's been interesting because I've started getting more questions about, can you help me understand how curators make decisions and how they make decisions about how exhibits change and all of those sorts of things. And so, there is a curiosity that has been peaked and I think that we have to work hard to make sure that we have our voices out and be very loud about that in this particular moment. So, perhaps I'm too optimistic, but I do think that we constantly see the importance of understanding where we have been from a historic standpoint, and there are many opportunities to learn from that and help to chart a path to our future. And we historians are particularly well-equipped to do that.
Julia Brookins:
Yeah. And I would add that I think that the contemporary media environment from the profusion of social media to the rise of artificial intelligence has really put this moment and the role of history and the epistemology of our discipline in the spotlight in a really specific way. I'm hoping it doesn't last, to be honest, but I do think we have to go, the only way to the other side is to go through it. And I think helping people understand how historians work is critical in that. But a lot of people are skeptical about experts and expertise and even their relationship to social knowledge in general has changed, I think, in the way that people consume information now.
So, I think there's a lot going on and it's too soon to say, but I don't think nihilism is very popular and so there is an end logic there. At some point there will be a change and a new direction will emerge, but I do hope that historians have a role in shaping what that new direction is.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
And we're working to try and do that ourselves, even thinking about the Congressional Briefing Series that we run, for instance. So, we go to Congress once a month, every other month, depends on what the schedule looks like there, to give them a briefing on a topic that is likely to come up during that legislative session. And in doing so, we bring in three or four historians who are experts on a particular topic. We give them a long overview of the issue, the kind of government policy that has emerged to shape that issue, and then what the results of that policy have been.
So, for instance, we had one this last couple months on the history of vaccines, we've had them on federal science policy, on artificial intelligence, tariffs, the history of deportation, and all of this is to provide a nonpartisan understanding for congressional staff and legislators to better understand the issues that are at hand and to help them in their decision-making process. We don't recommend policy ourselves, but we're helping to equip them with the historical knowledge that can hopefully enable them to make decisions that are in the best interest of the population.
Julia Brookins:
Yeah. And so, as Sarah referenced, I've been doing some state level advocacy work for history as well, and that has taken different forms as different types of either intentional or unintentional threats to history and history education have emerged over the past four, five years, started about five years ago with the so-called divisive concepts legislation that began around 2021. And the idea was, well, if you know too much, it's divisive. And I still haven't gotten my head around the popularity of that framing, but it seemed to take hold in a particular moment in time, and we're still battling indirect effects of that.
So, speaking to whether it be legislators in committees or also the state board of education officials and talking to them and trying to figure out, what is it that's so clear to me from where I stand that they don't have the benefit of being reassured that it's okay to know as much history as you can learn, and it'll still be all right. So, I've been working on some how to do that, both terms of one-on-one conversations and messaging that tries to represent our membership and the historical community more generally. It's happening right now, so it's hard to say what's going to happen next, but it's definitely still happening and it's been five years in now.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
And it's shape-shifting too. One of the letters that we wrote recently was related to a proposed law in Tennessee that would require teaching the history of communism and the required subject matter did not even reference the Soviet Union. So, requirement of a very ahistorical and very politicized version of the history of communism. And so, one of the things that, as Julia said, we're trying to help people better understand what the implications are of both requiring and prohibiting the teaching of certain topics and how that flies in the face of what good history is.
Julia Brookins:
And it really does students a disservice to have those educational experiences where their teachers are scared and not well-equipped to answer their questions and not encouraged to help them achieve their real potential academically in understanding the best because of either restrictions or requirements.
Paul Poast:
Those are great answers. And there's a lot that you said there that I'm thinking about. It's great that we have two UChicago PhDs who are dealing with these very issues because the issues you're dealing with, and as you described them, are at the heart of at least what I think an ideal that the University of Chicago tries to hold itself to, which is that notion of free inquiry within the classroom. Of course, you refer to Life of the Mind, the Chicago principles, the Calvin Report, all of those ideas. But it's like what you are doing is trying to essentially, I would say, take those ideals and put them in practice widely, not just within the academy, but in the K through 12, but also more generally.
So again, that's a big thought that I'm having going through your mind or going through my mind when listening to you talk about that.
Julia Brookins:
Yeah. Can I just say one of the things I think has been a benefit of the UChicago experience has been in making sure that the AHA stays among nonpartisan advocate for history. And I think depending on people's educational experiences, they might not be able to distinguish the advocacy and the policy quite so well. And I feel like our Chicago, my Chicago, I can't speak for Sarah, but my Chicago experience I think gave us a good nonpartisan education.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
Agreed.
Paul Poast:
Yeah. The AHA is the home of critics, but not itself a critic, if you will, except for when it comes to making sure that you're doing what is needed to enable people to be critics, which is again, a big part of what the work that you are doing. So, thank you for sharing that.
Kelly Pollock:
Are there any questions that we didn't ask that you would like to answer?
Julia Brookins:
I would like to know what this looks like for you guys, where you are, because in my conversations in the last year or so with people, fairly well-educated, cosmopolitan people, my takeaway has been that it's much worse than they realize, but I don't know to what extent that seems like kind of a Cassandra approach, the sky is falling, or whether it really does seem to you now that the status of knowledge as an enterprise in the United States is in trouble.
Kelly Pollock:
Well, Paul likes to talk about wearing multiple hats. In this particular issue, I have multiple hats. At the University of Chicago, knowledge is still very much valued and free inquiry is supported. And so, there's a little bit of a bubble that I think that we are in where it does seem that things on the ground are great because on our particular campus they are. My other hat is as a history podcaster and so, in that world, I definitely see these attacks and I see the challenges that the people I interview are facing. And I think I feel it very keenly what is happening and that I think you're right that a lot of people don't realize how bad it is on the ground in some places.
Paul Poast:
And I would say my answer to this also draws on some other hats in that to the second what Kelly said, I think yes, University of Chicago within itself is a place where I see students wanting to have these engagements and embracing the idea of free inquiry. I've seen that in multiple contexts, international students who come to University of Chicago precisely because of that reputation. So here at Chicago, we see that. But the other thing, and this goes back to just the fact that we're interviewing both of you and what I said about both of you being University of Chicago alums who are at the forefront of the struggle is I've seen where the university itself has taken on some leadership in this struggle.
So, for example, one of the other hats I wear is I'm the chair of the library board for University of Chicago. And one of the things that the library's done when the new initiatives has been a banned books initiative where it actually is keeping a library of books that have been banned by other school systems. It's also been working in collaboration to try to make those books electronically available to people who would be in those locations. And that's something that's a point where the university has been taking a role of leadership, but that's also a way of saying the university, though it might seem great within the university, is very much aware that it is not great everywhere.
And I think that's just one example of some of the initiatives that I've seen to work against this view that both of you spend almost every day trying to work against.
Kelly Pollock:
My 14-year-old just in his school was reading Fahrenheit 451, and then they did a project on banned books. And so, we did a bit of a family deep dive on what does all the legislation out there look like or proposed legislation look like right now? And yeah.
Julia Brookins:
Well, definitely watch the anti-communist case because that's been some of the most bizarre innovation is the lists because each state, unlike some of these initiatives where they're clearly cutting and pasting from model legislation that comes from one of a number of think tanks or model legislation houses, I don't know. The anti-communist legislation shows a lot more idiosyncrasies and I would recommend that. If you're interested in a deep dive, I would recommend taking a look at the Arkansas anti-communist education, the Texas, the Florida, and as Sarah just mentioned, the Tennessee, and you get a real ... It's a Kaleidoscope.
Kelly Pollock:
Yeah. So, Sarah and Julia, could you tell us a little bit about how people can follow what the AHA is doing?
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
Absolutely. Our website is historians.org, and you can find us on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky to follow along with some of our publications, our advocacy actions, and other ways. But of course, the best way to be engaged with our work is to become a member of the AHA. We have student memberships and memberships for people who just like history. My college roommate loves history. She's in insurance and she's a member. So, that's one of the ways that you can engage us and also support our work.
You can also keep an eye out for our conference coming to a city near you and come and enjoy an opportunity to be with other historians and or to learn some history.
Julia Brookins:
And we also have an AHA Learn series of webinars, which can be good little one-hour chunks of AHA work. We have several coming up. We just did one on the civic value of world history, so the connections between non-US history and civics learning. We have one that I've been really working hard on for a long time, which is about what historians should know about the classical education movement. And we're having some national leaders in that field present along with a historian moderator. And we're also doing some stuff on recent history. So, history since the 1970s, like what's the big story that we should be teaching students about the last 50 years?
If you're like me, then in your education, you got, as far as like World War II-ish, you maybe got to the civil rights movement-ish. Vietnam was a stretch. And I'm afraid that even though that was a long time ago, a lot of students still have that experience. So, trying to support teachers in helping their students understand the last 50 years of history is an important priority as well.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
And if you don't want to get too deep into the weeds, but you're really interested in a history that is behind the headlines, we also have a webinar series that is called Precisely That, and that comes out periodically. So, just keep an eye on our website for that. And there'll be other events that we have coming up both in person and over Zoom over the course of the year.
Paul Poast:
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. And we'll make sure for people who are listening, we'll make sure that links to all this is available on the site to be able to access all these great resources that are available through the AHA. So, thank you. But again, thank you both for joining us today.
Julia Brookins:
Thank you for the opportunity to talk about our work.
Sarah Jones Weicksel:
Yeah. Thank you so much for having us. Always great to be back with UChicago.