Christoff which triggered a conversation. Many e wrote anhe wrote an article where he said many people rendered themselves unavailable or not asking questions that were relevant to the public and in some ways fostered a disconnect with the public that is necessary. He didnt say this is true of all intellectuals but he did argue theyre a dying breed. Others said theres many good, interesting voices out there. The point of todays panel is not so much to have a debate about whether he was right or wrong nor have a debate familiar at almost every oha conversation about the role of the public intellectual or should historians be tried to do this. I think most of us in the panel given what we do start and its a good thing for those that what to do it. It has a lot of value. What i wanted to do when i put this together was bring together people who have been doing interesting work and ask them about their lives and their career and experience and give a little autobiography about how this has worked for them and what we can learn about what the public intellectual is through their own experience. Im going to introduce everyone on the panel. I will begin. Well go about commentary and then q and a. When you ask the questions, it might be a trick for some people. If you can get to that mike to ask. Well figure it out. Dont worry. Ill start out. Im a professor of history in Public Affairs at princeton university. I write a weekly column for cnn and i also write for other outlets and appear on radio and television. I have a new book thats coming out this week with Penguin Press called the fierce urgency of now. Well turn to eric who is the dewitt professor at columbia. One of the most prominent and important figures in the history discipline. Hes written many classics. You can go to a book signing upstairs in the book exhibit. Hes also someone who appears in various places in the media, television, documentaries. Hes published opeds in newspapers and magazines. Hes become a regular congressmen commentator in the national press. Youll see him weighing in on issues in a serious and smart fashion. Then we vehave a good friend and a great historian who is a professor at georgetown university. Hes very well known. His pieces are important. Hes heard everywhere as well, television and radio. 2008 you have launched historians for obama. Hes been very involved politically and i think his work, his scholarship has become important to the american left in a way thats quite impressive. Look forward to his comments. Finally, to my right, we have claire potter. Im hoping she can talk more about the world of social media where shes had a tremendous impact. Shes a professor of history in the new school for social research. The author of war on crime bandits. Hes writing a book about antipornography campaigns. She has a popular blog called the ten year radical, which which was picked up. At the end well have questions. Let he start with some comments. In my opinion theres a great tradition in this discipline which was part of its attraction. I dont quite agree with christoff that its dead. Theres many examples of people who really contribute sporadically or regularly to what we call the Public Square broadly defined. I think theres a wide range now of places in which this happens from scholars and traditional popular outlets like the New York Times to those who are abusing social media to those who work with museums who are engaged in debates with policy makers. Theres no shortage of people. Theres more ways in some ways where you can find them. Its an old tradition. Was talking to a broader public and figures Charles Beard and my model for scholarship richard hoff hoffsteader was able part of this. The other part i found important is historiography. One of my formative moments came when i was trying to decide where to come to graduate school. One of the places was upenn to work with michael katz who passed away this year. His work is an example of how to reach a broader public. I got off the train and i was walking somewhere. I dont remember where it was to get to his office and there was a big rally of Civil Rights Activists not even near the campus. A copy of the undeserving poor. For a 21yearold kind of getting into this it was very impressive to see how this book by a scholar who i was learning about and thinking of studying had, at least in a little bit, had become part of what these act activists were doing. My time doing this has been mump longer than the 15 minutes i thought this thing would last. I started in the late 1990s. It was during the impeachment of president clinton. Its something ive tried to gain mastery over the year. They asked me to come into the morning news show. They squeezed me in between the weather and the sports. He liked me and started having me on once a month to talk politics. It was inconvenient and odd. They were dressed up in survivor outfits but i did it. I did it because i figured this was part of the way in which i could learn how to do this medium. It was very helpful. I met great editors early in my career who had a huge impact. Heefs always finding academics. She was a great editor. She was quite brilliant. What gave the drive. She thought me how to structure the argument and how to move things in directions i probably wouldnt for an academic piece. I had an editor who is also worked with some people here. Ive been working with him for many years now on a weekly basis. Hes done that same kind of mentorship. It i went to a sports bar on a monday night and there was a guy from the local espn doing his radio show live and he did it every month night before monday night football. We go on the air. Hes like what do you do. At first we talk about the jets. I know a lot about the jets. Hes like what do you do. Im like im a professor. He found this odd. That wasnt what he was expecting. He liked it. He had me on. He said can you come on next monday. He could have me on every monday night. It was like 15 minutes the professor took calls about the new york jets. I did it for two or three years. It was kind of, it wasnt obviously not what i write about but i always tell people, i said, ill learn something from this too. Ill take it seriously. I really learned a lot about radio. A second thing is ive allowed myself to be open to new developments in the media. I was never a guy who was going to be stuck with am i in the New York Times or not in the New York Times. Ive been fortunate to be there. Itsgoing to be 24 hours. Its going to be fast. They were going to try to make it snap. I had no idea what he was talking about. It was totally kind of a bizarre concept. I wrote for them. That became a ongoing relationship. Im glad i didnt just shut down. Also introduced me to writing to this new online journalism which is in many ways surpassed a lot of older outlets. Cnn was the same thing. My editor asked for an opinion page at cnn. I was like what are you talking about. Its a tv show. I didnt understand they were going to do a new long line page that had the kind of impact newspapers did. We have to have some of that especially for younger people that are just starting. It can have a big impact. Theres a lot of outputs for opinion. I know some are bad. Im talking about some of the beneficial things that ive learned. Finally, one of the things i have tried to do from the start is understanding the world of the academy and the broader world. I think the role of the public intellectual is to bridge the two worlds. If you read the books its such a big impact he is still ver versed in academic debates. Thats what i was trying to do. Back to the po larization with politico, thats been a theme ive written about in many ways and over and over trying to really explain what to we learn from Political Science . What do we learn from historians and how does that add to the conversation of the dysfunction in washington that were always talking about . I try to talk about what we learned. Theres no set definition of what a president is and how we evaluate the difference aspects of presidency but bring that to the public. My new book just landed in one of these debates with the movie selma. Its rewarding to take arguments that really grow out of academic concerns ive had about the treatment of president ial power and the relationship of the grass roots to congress and then try to connect them to debates that more people are interested in as a result of something of like a film. When you can do this its actually both useful and rewarding. There are some ways in which this happens. The Miller Center offers fellowships in u. S. History and require people to write an op ed and if they get it they write more. I think there needs to be oneonone mentorship. People say i want to be a public intellectual and its not like open that door and youre set. Its something that has to be learned. I hope the academy can do more about that. Overall for me its been a really wonderful experience in my career. I didnt fully expect it. I hope to continue bridging these two worlds. Thank you very much. [ applause ] which like many it seemed to be a bit premature. Today anybody with a smart phone and a twitter account can be a public intellectual and can post his or her views about history or anything else for anyone to see. Does this represent the democratization or is this another sign of the decline of everything . On the one hand we witness the proliferation in the public spe sphere of invocations of history. On the other hand there are noneacademic intellectuals. What does all this mean . That is involved Museum Exhibitions, writings from the New York Times to the magazine and appearing on tv. I think its been successful. Some have not. I think the Museum Exhibitions i have helped to curate from the civil warrer era, another one on reconstruction which traveled around the country and the National Park service new visitor center, i think all of those were quite successful and help to bring up to date views of the civil war era to a noneacademic audience. In other cases not so much. Was questioned at length by the judge in my testimony the reasons for the enactment of the 14th amendment. Sort of like taking my orals again. Not only the judge wrote came in one sentence. Professor eric phoner also testified. I signed on in the 90s to a brief before the Supreme Court which had to do with the interpretation of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Briefs alphabetically. It became known as the phoner brief. My name was the first one on the list. Before that i had sent a copy of my book on reconstruction to Justice Anthony kennedy. I was told he was one of the very few members of the Supreme Court who read books. He wrote the majority opinion which went the wrong way from our perspective. He said the position of the phoner brief seemed to differ from the account of this event in eric phoners book on reconstruction which it was not entirely wrong. Which was a warning against the temptation to use history to instrumentally instrumentally. We are all attempted by and ought to resist. Sometimes briefs play an important role. I am not satisfied with the end result of tv history documentaries of which ive been involved which seem unable to avoid the oversimplification of history. I just give up. I know not everybody has but i have. I think the think is one has to remain cognizant of what had youre wearing when writing. When i write for the nation magazine im writing with a different hat and a different style and in some ways a different genre. Trying to apply some information. This is important. It ought to be done but tricky also. Probably my nation piece most widely cited an edd and denounced. It drew on the history of the depression of Civil Liberties and wartime. I reminded people you know all this history from john adams to the whether lincoln suspension of habeas corpus. You can go onto argue that governments in times of war see Civil Liberties as an inconvenience if not an outright treason. This would have to be fought. This led to a lot of praise and a lot of criticism from people who thought i was a first cousin of bin laden or something. What should we try to achieve as historians who are public intellectuals. Im going to quote you a letter in the Financial Times. Very good newspaper. The letters are denouncing other letters. It goes on and on. This guy writes sir, john tip tiplers letter is so misguided so uninformed that revisionist historian comes to mind. This is a common term of public abuse. I would counter with oscar wilde who said the only do do we have to history is to rewrite it. Being a revisionist is what we do. Outside the Academy History is seen as a collection of fixed facts, fixed interpretations, new interpretations are seen as suspect if not downright subversive. Many you have are familiar with the quotation often used from the 19th century historian ernest. All nations are built on and promote. There are many people in public life politicians columnists, to whom the active reinterpretation itself is a kind of a threat. The first thing we have to do is tell people what is it that the study of history entails and why do historians disagree with each other and why do we think differently about History Today than people did in the past. Beyond planing what the study of history is, i think our job is to try to keep alive the role of the public intellectual is to try to keep alive something endangered in our society which is respect for the life of the mind. In the last generation the values of the market have come to permeate every aspect of our lives. The notion that public good can be measured other in economic terms have been abandoned. The philosopher Williams James once wrote that an hour spent communing with nature must be considered a worthless hour when measured by the usual standards of commercial value. The same can be said of an hour contemplating a work of hard or reading a work of history. As a result arguments for Higher Education today are almost, we have been pushed back into the position where the defense of history or Higher Education is couched in economic terms. Having more educated people is good for the economy or for the social advancement of individuals. Unfortunately, this outlook helps look out for the fact that literature, history, philosophy and the arts subjects that do not seem to increase economic productivity are on their way to becoming accept children at all levels of education. Many years ago Charles Frances adams in his president ial address noted that the historical point of view is an important point of view for only when approached historically can any issue be understood in manen manifold. The study of history and this is something we need to promote in our Public Discourses. The study of history instills the quality so lacking among policy makers and more broadly today. The value of critical inquiry, of subjecting all believes to the test of reason an experience and questioning dogmas whether political, religious or economic. The historical frame of mind may assist americans in candidly afacing up to some of the problems we face in our society. The historian does not have to step outside the ivory tower to have a lasting public impact. Scholarly works of history can be quite public. The periods which ive devoted much of my career after the civil war is an object lesson in how interpretation in this case, the old Dunning School can offer intellectual legitimacy to serious injustice. It became a powerful part of the political culture offering a powerful basis. If you dont believe me take a look at how often their works were cited down into the 1950s by the Supreme Court itself. Every writer i know interested in the american dilemma of slavery, jim crow has read eric phoners reconstruction. Every feminist has read linda gordon gordons history of birth control, womens body, womens right. Historians can through good history offer a usable path to those struggling to make this fairer, more equal an more just society. Thank you. [ applause ] my mom will see this. I have to give a shout out to jermaine joseph. My take on being a historian is deeply rooted in a specific experience as a native new yorker whos mother was a trade unionist. I was on my first picket line at eight years old in new york city. I became a scholar after being an activist in the city in new york. Scholarship has never been separate from politics, policy and social movements. When we think about historians, im not going to talk about the process of how do you get do msnbc or cnbc. Were engageing in the debate because peoples lives are at risk black people, poor people, lgbt, women. When you think about how do you become a historian we have to say what are we engaging in . Is it about us or or careers. Are we trying to transform policy and a Public Discourse unequal in the United States. Think about especially africanAmerican History historically theres always been black public intellectuals. Usually theyre not in the conversation. People who contributed not just to pragmatism but to american de democracy and citizenship. What we have seen have even know theres not a Dunning School in terms of civil rights in public commentary about the movement its been whitewashed. Its been so distorted that by the time we got the election of barack obama in 2008 people said that was the end of the Civil Rights Movement. It was rosa parks, Martin Luther king jr. As the reward for all of us was barack obama. Six years later with black lives matter and eric garner and ferguson and Michael Brown we see that wasnt a reward. The reason why historians have a vital role in terms of being the public intellectual is about democracy. What ive done throughout my career is try to talk about the way in which black rad