Dear Fellow U.S. Intellectual History Enthusiasts:
It is my great pleasure to announce the birth of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History!
We began as a group blog in 2007. We hosted our first conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2008. We will host our fourth annual conference on November 17 and 18, 2011, at the CUNY Graduate Center. And now, thanks to the hard work of about 10 of my colleagues, we are an academic society.
We welcome new members. You’ll find our membership form here. (Please download it in order to activate the information fields) In order for S-USIH to thrive, we will need many of you to join and get involved. Other than helping to shape the future of U.S. intellectual history, the benefits of membership include conference attendance and a subscription to our newsletter, the first issue of which we hope to roll out in time for this year’s conference.
You’ll also find our S-USIH Constitution and By-Laws here. As a small sample, I’ll post the first page, which includes the founding principles:
SOCIETY FOR UNITED STATES INTELLECTUAL HISTORY CONSTITUTION
The Society for U.S. Intellectual History advances the historical study of American thought among academic and non-academic scholars and provides a forum for its exploration, aiming also to broaden and diversify the communities engaged in this study and the approaches applied to it.
Founding Principles
The Society for United States Intellectual History is committed to the following principles:
*Scholarship: Upholding a primary commitment to serious, academic scholarship.
*Interdisciplinarity: Understanding American thought in its broadest terms and encouraging interdisciplinary approaches to intellectual history.
*Inclusiveness: Encouraging the participation of anyone with an interest in the intellectual history of the United States, not only professional historians and scholars who work in other fields but also teachers, public historians, journalists, policy analysts, artists, and free-lance critics.
*Outreach: Actively welcoming members who embody the wide range of experiences and cultures that define and enrich our society.
*Media: Using all forms of media to reach broad audiences and engender vital debate and exchange of ideas.
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I am proud to announce the first Executive Committee of S-USIH:
Secretary: Ray Haberski
Treasurer: Mike O’Connor
Conference Committee Chair (2012): David Sehat
Publications Committee Chair: Ben Alpers
Our terms are only one year long. Anybody who is a member in good standing is eligible to run for a position on the executive committee next summer.
I look forward to being involved in S-USIH for decades to come! Cheers.
Andrew Hartman
President, S-USIH
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S-USIH Comment Policy
We ask that those who participate in the discussions generated in the Comments section do so with the same decorum as they would in any other academic setting or context. Since the USIH bloggers write under our real names, we would prefer that our commenters also identify themselves by their real name. As our primary goal is to stimulate and engage in fruitful and productive discussion, ad hominem attacks (personal or professional), unnecessary insults, and/or mean-spiritedness have no place in the USIH Blog’s Comments section. Therefore, we reserve the right to remove any comments that contain any of the above and/or are not intended to further the discussion of the topic of the post. We welcome suggestions for corrections to any of our posts. As the official blog of the Society of US Intellectual History, we hope to foster a diverse community of scholars and readers who engage with one another in discussions of US intellectual history, broadly understood.
In the words of Matthew Cotter, “Things are afoot!”
I’m very excited about the founding of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History, and proud to be an officer of the very first Executive Committee. Here’s to the newest member of the community of historical organizations!
The check is in the mail.
When am I going to see the first issue of The Journal of U.S. Intellectual History or whatever you’re going to call it? Personally, I’d call it U.S. Intellectual History, but that’s just me.
Another check in the mail…and I had better get a very low membership number!