McCARTHY: Harvard: ‘Yes’ to discrimination and ‘No’ to Western civilization |
Frozen and dead, where Western history is concerned, at Harvard
You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.
At Harvard University today, professors who teach Western history are history.
Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.
Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.
Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.
Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.
Don't have an account? Create Account
James Hankins, a specialist in Renaissance thought, was one of the last holdouts.
Now Hankins, who has just published a hefty book that teaches what Harvard doesn’t — The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition. Vol. 1 — has decamped for the University of Florida’s Hamilton School of Classical and Civic Education.
It’s not the warmer weather that’s drawn him away from Cambridge, Massachusetts. It’s the contrast in intellectual climates: Frozen and dead, where Western history is concerned, at Harvard; full of green shoots at the University of Florida.
“We have not hired with tenure a historian in a Western field — ancient, medieval, early modern, or modern — in a decade,” Hankins says about his Harvard department, which in that time “lost eight senior historians in Western fields —all major figures — through death, retirement or departure for other universities. I will be the ninth and I am not expecting to be replaced.”
The........