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Will be published in the Perspectives soon:
A Response to Darnton´s Farewell Comments
By Sigurdur Gylfi Magnusson
Robert Darnton published a very interesting article in the January 2000
issue of Perspectives in which he looked over the field of history and
made an educated evaluation of the current position of our discipline. He
pointed out that one of the most memorable moments during his term as president
of the AHA was when: "A hundred or more unhappy members crowded into a
session devoted to the lot of part-time and adjunct teachers and to independent
historians, many of them unemployed. One after another they told stories about
the struggle to survive at the margins of the profession" (p. 2). Darnton
went on, in this article, to discuss this drastic situation in the field of
history and by extension, in all of higher education. New styles of management
in university administrations effectively exploit young scholars who live on the
fringes of the academy, and have few options to fight back. Darnton asks:
"What can the AHA do about this?" He then answers his own question:
"Little, I´m afraid" (p. 15). This is an extremely sad statement, but
unfortunately it appears to sum up our present reality. But does this
necessarily have to be the case? Are there really so few options for new
scholars?
New opportunities
I want to introduce to the growing number of scholars without a job, an
alternative academic environment which can be found in Iceland, and could
potentially be created elsewhere.
Iceland is a young modern society which has grown rapidly in the last 50 years.
Technological advancements have been enormous and the population of 274,000 is
among the best educated in the world. Not surprisingly, the educational system
has had its share of growing pains. After 1970 the number of students enrolled
in institutions of higher education increased dramatically. The renewal of the
Student Loan Fund resulted in large numbers of students traveling abroad for
graduate education. Many managed to gain admittance to the finest educational
institutions in the world yet, for some odd reason, a great majority of these
students returned to Iceland, even after many years abroad and the possibility
of finding work in larger
centers.
Until recently, professional scholars could count on a solid academic position
upon arrival home, either in private or public institutions. Once there, they
had ample opportunity to exercise their knowledge and skills. They often became
pillars of their community and many of them managed to use their education for
the betterment of society.
Today, this has changed drastically -- and not for the better. The intellectual
community continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, while the educational
institutions have grown at a much slower rate. Scholars with Ph.Ds from abroad
have been returning home to find that most doors are closed to them. I returned
home in 1994 with a Ph.D. in history from Carnegie Mellon University, a handsome
three year grant from the Scientific Council of Iceland, and a burning desire to
take on new challenges in my field of specialization. I had the opportunity to
teach at the University of Iceland, but usually only one course a year. Sadly,
that was all the contact I had with the Department of History, the leading
institutional setting in Iceland for the practice of historical research, since
no office space or common meeting area existed for contract teachers. I worked
in the archives, but the rest of my analysis and writing went on in the
isolation of my apartment. After coming from a very dynamic academic atmosphere
in the USA, this situation was devastating. I felt paralyzed by the lack of
collegial exchange and the inability to share my knowledge and enthusiasm for my
research. Instead, I paced the floor of my apartment, talking to myself just to
be able to formulate my ideas. Fortunately, my students saved me. Without that
dialogue and their inspiration, I would never have had the opportunity to
advance my research into microhistory which has occupied my attention over the
last few years.
The Reykjavík Academy
In the midst of this personal crisis I received a call from a friend, Dr.
Jon Karl Helgason, a leading scholar in the field of comparative literature and
the editor of one of the oldest literary journals in Scandinavia, who asked me
to take a seat on the board of a new organization called the Reykjavik Academy
(RA). Dr. Helgason told me that a number of independent scholars were forming a
society with the aim of bringing together those wishing to do primary research.
Word of mouth among young intellectuals in Reykjavík made it common knowledge
that many well-educated scholars would be interested in forming an alliance in
order to fight for recognition in the realm of higher education as well as in
the larger public sphere. A meeting was about to be held in order to see exactly
how many people, as a starting point, would be willing to share the costs of
renting office space.
The meeting was a great success, and fifty scholars from several disciplines in
the humanities and social sciences attended in order to see what this new
organization had to offer. We soon realized that only a small part of this group
would be willing or able to rent office space. Many of these people had other
positions and were not willing to risk those positions for an uncertain future
with a novel but not-quite-defined-yet organization.
Those of us who were committed to the idea of a new academy and who formed its
governing board spent two extremely productive years meeting periodically in
order to work on the conceptual framework for the RA. Our main task was to
organize the work ahead and tie together loose ends such as how we could work
out a balance between theory and practice. We tried to put in motion the ideas
and desires of all participants. We recognized that we were forming a new type
of academy or research center that would focus on higher education and the
application of scholarly knowledge to society. Because we were a new phenomenon,
we had to do this without support from the universities in Iceland or from
formal academic channels such as the Scientific Council of Iceland. We started,
in fact, without any financial support.We were driven by our collective optimism
and desire to work on serious research projects which would be impossible to
finance privately.
Our biggest task was to find affordable and suitable office space. By luck, we
found an old department store, rented by the Icelandic government but left
unused for almost three years. With the support of a sympathetic Secretary of
Finance, Mr. Geir Haarde, we rented the space beginning in November 1998, and
the Reykjavik Academy became a reality. Sixteen scholars from the humanities and
social sciences moved in initially. By May 1999, our numbers had increased to
thirty, with more people expressing interest in joining. We soon ran out of
office space, necessitating an Amish-style building bee to erect walls and hang
doors in what had been a large open space. How strange in these modern times for
scholars to take on the role of carpenters building offices!
Never looked back
From day one, the atmosphere at the Reykjavik Academy was electric and
everyone realized that something special was in the making. We began to chart
our future direction by creating smaller, interdisciplinary research
collectives. The energy of young and enthusiastic specialists with diverse
experiences brought together in a cooperative rather than competitive setting
was soon productively channeled into several enterprises. Among these are, the
Icelandic Institute for Rural and Medieval Studies, formed by eight scholars in
the fields of literature, history and ethnology; the Institute for Primary
Sources which focuses on the use and the applications of historical sources on
the Internet; and SUMMA, a group of scholars who are developing an Icelandic
version of cultural studies. All of these groups have designed university
courses, organized conferences and seminars, and applied for research grants.
Yet other members of the RA took more formal steps and formed new companies in
the areas of education and research. A good example is The History Workshop
(Sogusmiðjan), which specializes in local historical research and its
application to museum management, book writing, and the Internet. Verba, another
RA company, is developing translation and linguistic software, and analyzing
their applications to society at large.
At the same time, the whole RA community brainstormed about how to refine its
institutional structure, and to find financial backing to keep the experiment
alive. Within a few months, the RA received some support from the Icelandic
government and the City of Reykjavík, but funds were still lacking to meet
basic operating expenses such as running the general office and paying salaries
for part time manager and project leaders. In December 1999, the RA got its
biggest break when the Icelandic parliament, Alþingi, decided to give the RA a
handsome grant for future development of its infrastructure. This was indeed an
extremely important step and a great acknowledgment of the great potential of
the RA.
By the end of September there were 40 scholars actively engaged in research at
RA, and an additional six held temporary positions at other institutions. Dr.
Annadis Greta Rudolfsdottir, a social psychologist, is a good example of a
scholar who made the most of her time at the RA to work and grow in this new and
exciting setting. Later, she was asked to teach for one year at the prestigious
London School of Economics. Still, Dr. Rudolfsdottir remains on the board of RA
and is instrumental in the Academy¹s continuing development. She is a good
example of a scholar who has been able to continue her research within the walls
of RA when other academic institutions in Iceland did not find her expertise
relevant to their growth and development. She is at the same time a reflection
of a reality which the RA has to face, namely the fluctuations in active
membership as people come and go from paying employment. We still struggle with
the reality that people will leave if job opportunities become available, no
matter how great their commitment is to the future of the RA. We need to find a
means to ensure the continuity of the RA¹s central ideals even when we will
never know for certain who will be a member of RA in the weeks and months ahead.
So far we have been lucky: when Dr. Rudolfsdottir left we lost an energetic and
active force. But soon someone else appeared who willingly stepped into her
shoes and became a new element in our community.
One thing is clear: we have not solved all our problems. On the contrary, we are
still in our formative stage and we expect to be working on our such
institutional realities over the next few years.
The Group
The combinations of scholars in RA is extremely interesting. Ten of them
have finished their doctoral degrees; seventeen are working on their doctoral
dissertations which they are going to defend in Iceland or in universities in
Europe, USA and Canada, and many of the scholars have extensive experience in
the university environment, without doctoral degrees. Finally, there is a group
of young scholars who have just recently finished their MA degrees and are
taking their first steps as independent scholars. These four groups of
intellectuals form an extremely dynamic environment which has already greatly
influenced all of its participants. Currently working in RA are historians,
social psychologist, philosophers, archaeologists, classicists, ethnologists,
social workers, economist, art histoians, philologists, linguists, political
scientists, lawyers and literary historians.
This interdisciplinary assembly has quickly sent out an important political
message to the intellectual community at large, regarding the politics of
research definition and funding. It isn¹t just that there is no longer room for
young scholars at universities. The other problem that is common to universities
internationally is the definition of what constitutes knowledge, and whose
knowledge counts as valid. Some of the RA scholars are working in areas deemed
"flaky" or peripheral by a more parochial,
mainstream, or old style academy. This is the reality that new scholars who
challenge existing boundaries face, as we well know. One of the interesting
aspects of the RA is that we are proposing a whole new location for pursuing
scholarly research that is not constrained by old thinking, and rather is
innovative enough to catch the public eye.
The Dawn of a New Century
The task ahead is an enormous one, but at the same time we are proud of our
successes thus far. We have built a strong and healthy community of scholars who
strive to address some of the most pressing issues of contemporary society. At
the moment, we believe that the opportunities for the RA are limitless, as long
as we continue to build on our initial financial and structural foundations
through dedication and continuing cooperation, which is no small task.
With its reputation spreading beyond Iceland´s shores, the RA has piqued the
interest of other young, independent scholars. Some have expressed interest in
adapting the RA¹s philosophy to their own intellectual surroundings. One of the
RA¹s mandates is to help scholars throughout the world to build similar
institutions or collectives in their own countries. Hopefully, sooner or later,
we will see a global network of academies: communities of independent scholars
who refuse to accept the constraints and deadening politics that have come to
characterize many universities. We are currently translating our web site
(www.akademia.is) so that the Internet will be the means for spreading the
ideals of the RA.
Is this merely wishful thinking? I don¹t think so, simply because the growth of
the intellectual community is a universal phenomenon, but at the same time
educational institutions all over the world have grown at a much slower rate.
The model of the RA could be a solution to the problems which so many of our
colleagues currently face, and that Robert Darnton so eloquently expressed. My
own feeling is that it would be a mistake to wait and see how things will turn
with universities. Scholars need one another on an everyday basis, since
intellectual work is necessarily built upon dialogue, conversation, and
challenging encounters with new and different ideas. If we are isolated from one
another, or occupy marginalized and demeaning positions as contract lecturers
otherwise disenfranchised from any university community, then our intellectual
skills will lose strength and diminish. That is why it is important for scholars
all around the world to use their intellectual skills in a positive and
productive way and to think about forming their own institutes where they would
be in charge. It would help such endeavors immeasurably if professional
associations like the AHA were to work as a supporter or initiator for such a
activity.
Sigurdur Gylfi Magnusson was the president of Icelandic Historical Associations
and the former chair of the Reykjavik Academy.
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