Just a modest cry of exasperation:

As the various Centenary plans begin to roll forward for the First World War this year, there's an unprecedented opportunity for new discussions, new approaches, and very useful engagement between the academy and the public on a variety of levels. It should be exhilarating!

But don't worry, everyone, we sure as hell don't have to worry about any of our understanding of the war changing -- no, that tragedy is being nipped very firmly in the bud. With thousands of hugely competent scholars panting away for the opportunity to talk to newspapers, magazines, documentarians and really just anyone who will listen about the latest in First World War research, those publications are still turning to... novelists! And actors! And comedians! The true authorities where the war is concerned since time immemorial.

Why ask Sir Hew Strachan or Gary Sheffield or Holger Herwig what they think when you can have Michael Morpurgo and Jude Law instead? Morpurgo wrote a novella that became a play AND a movie -- what can Stephen Badsey or Alex Danchev boast compared to that? And Jude Law was literally IN some movies, so I don't know why we even have to ask where his qualifications lie. The novelist Sebastian Faulks is the cheerful public face of the British Government's official Centenary preparations, while the involvement of someone like Sir Hew Strachan -- who was literally knighted for his decades of work as an historian of the war -- is treated as a regrettable and faintly embarrassing necessity.

Even apart from who is being turned to for comment, the various commemorative enterprises that have been undertaken in a broader and more even-handed spirit than previously accepted are uniformly facing criticism.

• "In fact, some of the generals might actually have done a good job, or at least tried to do so" --> "Propaganda! Jingoism! Why are you acting as an apologist for rich old men who took pleasure in killing off young poor ones and did so on purpose?"

• "In fact, the spirit of misery and sorrow that many now feel in response to the war was by no means universal either during it or in its aftermath" --> "Propaganda! Jingoism! Why are you trying to rewrite history?"

• "In fact, the image of Lord Kitchener and his stern appeal for recruits is a very evocative one to keep in mind when commemorating the spirit of 1914" --> "Propaganda! Jingoism! Why are you ignoring the sacrifices of the common man? Why isn't the best image a poppy or a dove?"

There are eight months to go until the official centenary of Britain's entry into the war. Eight. And it's already like this.

And this is just the start! I might spend June 30th, 2016, with a bottle of scotch -- and the entirety of July 1st in bed.

THIS WEEK IN PROFESSIONAL ACADEMIC SCANDALS:

The University of California Riverside's English department is having a job search. The department will be informing candidates of their selection to be interviewed on Jan 3rd. The interview date is Jan 8th. In Chicago, at the MLA convention.

UC Riverside is giving their candidates 5 days to prepare for a job interview and buy tickets to Chicago.

An academic blogger named Rebecca Schuman posted her rage, which got the initial attention of the public.

A blogger from the Chronicle, Tenured Radical, responded with a not-very-radical post defending the English dept at Riverside and condemning Schuman for her raging against the machine.

After a couple of exchanges, Schuman responds in turn by calling out Tenured Radical for her complacency in which she announces that Tenured Radical has only published one monograph, and as a result, does not know what the current job candidates are up against.

If you want more reading, here's some responses from UC-Riverside about their decision. They basically say that it's not that big a deal, since serious candidates should be going to the MLA anyway, and the chair of the English dept even remembers "being thrilled" when her interview was scheduled a week before the interview date.

You might already be able to tell where my sympathies are, but I was wondering what you folks thought about this scandal among academics!

(In response to a question elsewhere on AskHistorians)

I'm on a search committee for a tenure-track position. It's been a very strange experience so far, as I'm reading literally hundreds of job letters and application portfolios. I have no idea how to distinguish between candidates, other than whether or not their job letter is good or bad--and let me say, the "job letter" is an absolutely wretched genre. Nine out of ten of them are simply big words that say absolutely nothing. I find myself reading and re-reading these overwrought turds trying to figure out what the fuck this person actually does as a historian.

Started focusing on dissertation research - I'm gonna be looking at the history of the Paralympic movement, probably with a focus on its intersection with militaries and the warrior identity - over the break and I've been spending my first full day at the library today trying to assess what's out there already and where to look for more. For those of you focusing on a topic for which there's not a huge amount of secondary literature to engage with, how has that changed the way you approach your research?

I think it's interesting how the original "historical" texts in Japan and China are now looked back on as mythology, legend, etc., but were considered at the time as history, even though there was no way the historians could know exactly what the participants at the time said and included dialogues in their chronicles anyway.

Specifically, I'm referring to the war stories such as the Gikeiki and the Heike Monogatari. Are there other examples outside of East Asia in which early historical texts are a mixture of creative narrative and objective observation? In other contexts what were the transitions into what we now think of as "History" from more narrative or legendary religious storytelling?

I will be in Indy tomorrow and Saturday, I don't suppose here anyone works at IUPUI? I've got a couple of hours to kill and I'll probably be scooting around the campus and checking out their library/archives.

How much would you kind historians say that history applies to general philosophy? Should we deal only with metaphysical questions outside of their time, as though various modes of thought were ageless? If history is applied to philosophy, how much is a "healthy" amount, and at what point might it be called "encroaching" on the science?

This may not be the right forum, and mods strike me down if it is so, but...next year I will be starting my undergrad degree in history. I hope to continue on to at least my masters, and hopefully one day a doctorate. What can I expect? Edit: If given the opportunity, I would also like to double major in international relations. How much overlap can I expect? Are they complimentary?