Scholar as Citizen is a blogging counterpart of the www.williamcronon.net website where Bill Cronon reflects on the public practice of history and the ways in which academic scholarship in his chosen fields of history, geography, and environmental studies can offer useful perspectives on contemporary political debates. His goal is not just to offer particular historical and geographical insights into present-day discussions and controversies, but also to reflect on ways that scholarly methods and habits of mind can help us ask better questions and thereby offer constructive approaches for better understanding why current events unfold as they do.
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I recall David Keene being in one of my ILS classes (1963) … we both left ILS as I recall! I was impressed that he knew what he wanted to be in life … even then … a Republican!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Keene
Maybe it did start here!!
Bill Gates
Dear Professor,
I thank you! I thank you for your educational efforts to call ALEC to our attention and I thank you for your courage in the face of rather obvious GOP interference and intimidation!
I live in Texas, I could only wish that a quarter of the population here would exercise the part of their brain to think critically, except the norm here seem to be that they want to chase anybody that doesn’t look or think like them out of the state.
Dallas is one of the worst places on earth for original thinking, after all they seem to all drive SUV’s and live in mac-mansions!
I don’t think that this coming wave of Nazis style intimidation and “corporate” thinking can last, after all U.S. power is well past it zenith.
Keep up the good fight, I also am an educator but I’m afraid I don’t have either the facts to the extent that you do or the moral courage.
I hope you can help stem is outrageous behavior!
Dear Professor Cronon:
Thank you for starting this valuable discussion forum about the link between scholarship and citizenship. In a country where policy is often driven by emotional responses to perceived threats rather than thoughtful analysis of emergent issues, this blog could play a critical role by refocusing our attention of the serious issues that should be higher priorities for societal action.
Your work, connecting urban prosperity and rural resources and natural systems, has been an inspiration to many of us in the business community, particularly in the rural business community I am privileged to be able to represent.
Lets hope the conversation between diverse interests that share an interest in a democratic and prosperous future starts here.
Steve Frisch
Sierra Business Council
http://www.sbcouncil.org
Thank you for taking a political stand. I hope that the UW gives you its full support. We need brave people right now in Wisconsin. I have admired you since you wrote your first book in 1983–Ecology of New England. My daughter was the publicist at UC for your book on Chicago.