Today I hope to get an article sent off to a journal, two chapters from my copy-editor checked, and the finishing touches on the first part of my tenure file. For a half-teaching-load term, this has been insanity. Productive insanity, but insanity nonetheless. I am lucky that my colleagues seem to like me, my book is in press, and my fiancée is friends with people in administration--but nothing is certain these days.

Those of you who are pursuing an academic life, be aware that each stage becomes more challenging than the last--as I presume life after tenure will be. (If I make it, my own internal bar will rise; if I don't, I will need some source of shelter, and refrigerator boxes aren't as sturdy as they used to be.) On the plus side, not much was more exciting than getting the proof of my book cover last weekend!

On The Media reported earlier this month on a type of “predatory journal” that requires academics to pay submission fees in order to be published. These publications appear to exploit a desire (from mostly grad students and junior faculty) to be printed in prestigious-sounding journals, whilst harboring solely for-profit motivations. The main interviewee in the story, Jeffrey Beall (librarian from the University of Colorado, Denver), has created a list of the publications he believes to use these tactics. I glossed through and noticed that they were mostly research or science periodicals, which is are the focus of OTM story as well.

Has this trend jumped to the humanities? Have any of you been approached by open-access publications that are using a pay-to-print model?

If not, why has this been relegated to the sciences?

Is this story not accurate? Is this practice not as evil as the report makes it sound?

I’ve been away traveling for a bit, so maybe this has been covered more since. Additional links or stories on this topic would be much appreciated.

(Also, if you listen to the program, they make a really dumb point about theologians. It’s really dumb. Let’s just not get into that.)

Interested parties can check out the latest installment in my ongoing series, The First World War in 100 Documents, now available at the University of Oxford's WW1C blog. This week's post takes a look at some of the advertising tactics used to promote the enormously popular fundraising volume, King Albert's Book (1914).

So, I've been looking for work as a tutor for this summer, since I've got no funding and I won't have teaching gigs until September. (I got the job I interviewed for last week though! And, I got it while wearing a Canadian Tuxedo.) As a preliminary step to interviewing for tutoring jobs, a private test-prep company gave me sample SAT tests in verbal skills, US history, and world history. I killed the verbal portion. Out of well over a hundred questions, there were only one or two that I wasn't sure of. The history tests, on the other hand...

They were a disaster. It was a strange experience, because taking these tests made me feel both intellectual superior and stupid all at once. The questions ranged from laughably vague (How did the colonists feel about...?) to ridiculously detailed (Who led the Ottoman armies at the siege of whatever random city?), and some of the questions clearly had no right answer. One asked who "established" Geocentrism, and then gave five choices: Galileo, Kepler, Brahe, Copernicus, and Newton. Another asked who the "worst" Mughal emperor was.

But the test got into WTF territory with its cartography. Here's the worst example. I don't even know what to say about it, just look at it and tell me what the hell is going there. This one is slightly less fantastical than the first, but still about as poorly designed as a map could be. And the worst thing about it that this was the OFFICIAL PRACTICE TEST published by the College Board (or whoever does the SAT subject exams). It was an absolute shit show, and when I pointed out to the woman giving the test that some questions didn't have right answers provided, she just looked at me blankly and said, "That's the official test."

But, I feel stupid because I just didn't know a lot of the "answers." I think it was largely due to the content of the test. The US history one was substantially better than the world history one; both were low quality, but the world history test was just a joke. In terms of content, it was basically Western Civ c. 1970s plus political histories of various "civilizations," and a bit about the Cold War in Latin America. Thinking about it, I don't think there was a single question dealing with what we might consider a world-historical process; instead, it was all about kings and emperors. And, to be honest, I thought it would be something like that, but I didn't think I'd do as poorly as I did. I guess my knowledge of Ottoman sultans is really bad.

Needless to say, they haven't called me back.

(Cross-posted to /r/badhistory, by the way.)

My blog recently talked about the strain of being a grad student in an Arts program and the nature of our work and struggles. It's about surviving creativity.

I wrote it because I think it's the sort of thing we often ignore or minimize in our profession. One of my coping mechanisms is writing fun posts on here! Maybe others do that too.

DoV: So, signore professor, did you hear the one about the architect who defied me?

MF: Tell me.

DoV: I had him design this lovely palazzio all in marble with no doors and only windows on the third floor, facing out to a reflecting pool. It was a lovely building, a true expression of the human spirit.

MF: Yes. And?

DoV: And then I had him bricked into it!

Both laugh. Exeunt.

Would Roman legal trials have been conducted in Latin or in the local language?

Tiako thought Friday:

So, one topic that is heavily tangential to my study is the transfer of ideas between India and the Mediterranean, which includes artistic forms like Gandharan art, and scientific knowledge, such as astronomical thought (the direction of these is related to my point). It is a pretty interesting topic and one that has elicited a great deal of interest in recent years.

One possibility I sometimes see discussed, but not as much as I would like, is asceticism and monasticism. Both of these have a very long history in India, and both of these are commented upon with great interest by numerous classical sources. Now, to be fair, both of these have precedent in Mediterranean culture, but either in a highly different form from Indian and later Christan versions, such as cynicism or bacchantes, or are well after contact and cultural transfer, such as the Essenes (who are also pretty different). And here is a bit of a kicker for me--Christian monasticism really got its early form in Egypt, which had a great deal of contact with India.

Now, I don't think that this proves that Christian monasticism and asceticism developed under Indian influence, it might not even be very good evidence, but I am pretty sure that if the direction of influence were the other way this conversation would be different.

Anyway, this is an idea I hear at times when discussing Indian-Mediterranean contacts, but I am curious what those in Early Christian studies think about it. Is this idea bandied about?

Today I spent my first day in the Humanities Reading Room of the British Library. I'm working on an MA in Gender, Sexuality and Culture, and my dissertation is about the historical intersections of japonisme with the development of homosexual identity in Britain.

I'm just really proud that I've got to this point. I struggle a lot with depression and some physical health issues, so just getting here is an accomplishment for me. Not trying to pat myself on the back too much, especially as I have a long way to go, but I wanted to share with someone.

Also, I want to thank Ask Historians for giving me a constant reminder of what I'm working towards. I have a real problem with procrastinating on Reddit, and this sub has really set the bar high for what I want to become. It reminds me that there is a medium to be found between spending weeks immersed in books and chilling out online. I'm constantly amazed at the quality of scholarship on this sub. One day, I want to earn a flair and be part of the club!

I recently defended my dissertation proposal and am currently working on an abstract for a big conference working group. It's a terrible line to straddle; I have to signal that I'm doing something new while appropriately genuflecting to senior scholars, particularly since one major scholar in my subfield is convening the group.

Can anyone suggest a good book on 1700ish - 2000ish Irish history?

I stumbled upon this interactive slavery map, which details U.S. population/slave density down to specific counties from 1790 to 1860, the other day while reading the Early American history blog The Junto(which is great btw) and figured some of you would find it helpful or interesting.

Anyone see 'The World Wars' on History Channel? I thought it was pretty well-made, but they kept it at very general topics. Kinda like reading a middle school history textbook all over again.

I got the marks from my last-submitted item of coursework back the other day; it was a 68%. In my UK uni (and I think in all others but some institutes may deviate), a 'first class' classification is 70%. I wasn't expecting a first as a sure thing but I'm a bit disappointed I didn't make the cut on this one because I'd worked pretty hard on it and it was, as far as I could tell, a very unique and original enquiry.

I might make more of a fuss if my overall degree classification is near the 2.1-first boundary but otherwise I'll just leave it.

Anyone got any tips for interesting subjectsbto specialize in if you want a career as a historian?

What are some methods for treating eye injuries (as in getting stabbed in the eye)? Edit: sorry if I didn't do this right, first time asking question