Re: PEWS (news) blues

Mon, 21 Oct 1996 16:35:25 -0600, MDT
J B Owens (OWENJACK@FS.isu.edu)

On Mon, 21 Oct 1996 12:38:06 -0700 (PDT), Jason W. Moore wrote:

Is there any way to move outward, with an institutional framework that
reaches out to world-systems students and faculty throughout the
humanities and social sciences? I write because I suspect that I'm not
the only graduate student (History, UC Santa Cruz) whose work fits
squarely within the world-systems perspective, but is relatively
isolated in a discipline which gives world history second class status,
and treats world-systems as not "real history." If you want to stop inbreeding,
you need to attract grad
students, and not just in sociology (for instance, I know a number of
literature grad students here who use world-systems concepts in their work).
Inbreeding is indeed quite bad -- but what is to be done?
Best,
Jason Moore, History, UC Santa Cruz.
---------------------------------------------

Jason,

I just want to second Warren Wagar's observations. At my university
our entire undergraduate History program is organized around
comparative and world history, and there is interest in world-systems
approaches, although often without the name. Moreover, our proposed
M.A. program has exactly the same focus.

During the summer of 1995, I was in residence at Cal.-Santa Cruz for
an NEH world history institute run by Terry Burke. It was an
exciting experience. During the course of our sessions, I shared,
with the permission of the authors, the draft conclusion of the
soon-to-be-published book of Chris Chase-Dunn and Tom Hall, and there
was a good bit of interest. At least one of the other participants
was in literature.

Moreover, a number of research programs in History are oriented
towards approaches quite compatible with what world-systems folks in
Sociology do. As an example, I offer the recent brilliant book by
David Ringrose, *Spain, Europe, and the "Spanish Miracle," 1700-1900*
(Cambridge U.P., 1996). While the book lacks any global focus, it is
must reading for anyone with world-systems interests.

For Historians, I suspect that the World History Association will be
the organization around which we will organize our activities. The
WHA appears to be expanding; we will have our organizing regional
conference, the Rocky Mountain WHA, at the University of Utah, 31
Oct. - 2 Nov.

I hope that this adds to the hope Warren sought to offer.

Best wishes,
Jack

J. B. "Jack" Owens, Professor of History
Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID 83209 USA
e-mail: owenjack@fs.isu.edu
www: http://www.isu.edu/~owenjack
Note: new www URL, 12 July 1996.