This letter is a response to a column by Matt Farmer that appeared in the Feb. 17 edition of The Post under the headline "OU's history curriculum could use some diversity." You can read that column here.
(Full disclosure: my father Steven Miner is a Russian history professor at Ohio University. I write this letter in part as a response to the blatant slander of Mr. Farmer’s article, but also because I have a close attachment to the history department).
I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to expect an undergraduate integrated social studies education major to have all of his facts straight. He could not, for example, know that the last four history department hires have been in Chinese history, African history, Middle Eastern history and Southeast Asian history. He might not know that OU has one professor of African history, whereas the prestigious Harvard, Princeton and Brown universities only have two (in departments much larger with much higher endowments). He might also not know that retired OU history professor William Frederick played a pivotal role in establishing the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, a program that has given OU world renown as a center for research on Southeast Asia (I know, not Africa, but still, it’s certainly not “Eurocentric”). He might also not be aware that the George Washington Forum has no attachment to the department, other than being run by one of its professors. It is a privately funded organization. I think perhaps it’s best to avoid petty pot-shots at individuals whose politics don’t agree with one’s delicate sensibilities. I would not expect him to know these things. But I would expect him to look up his facts before he decided to write down his musings.
Perhaps what is most offensive is his use of the term “Eurocentric,” as though Europe and the United States represent one block of peoples to be studied. I know the author of this article likes to speak of a “white” block of study. This kind of thinking is remarkably old-fashioned; there is as much cultural and ethnic variety between the Spanish Moors of the 8th century and Volga Tatars of the 19th century as there is between Masai Tribesmen and Bedouin Nomads. He also focuses his fury on the lack of courses on African history (in one semester, mind you) and ignores other areas of the world. The history department has two Latin Americanists (Mariana Dantas and Patrick Barr-Melej), one of whom focuses on African diaspora in the Americas. Professor John Brobst specializes in the British Empire. He is as much interested in the Middle East and Central Asia in their own right as he is the study of “white” Englishmen.
I won’t engage the author on whether or not the United States and Europe are worthy of such in-depth study. That is his personal belief. I would ask him to go into a Barnes & Noble bookstore the next time he stumbles across one and look at the history bookshelves. I think he’ll see that the overwhelming interest in American and European history is due to popular demand, not any nefarious ideological commitment.
Mr. Farmer is free to think that the Ohio University Department of History is a bastion of conservative Eurocentrism. It is, however, a lie. And if journalistic integrity is at all important to Mr. Farmer, he will publish a retraction.
One more thing: I did this on my own volition. Rather like Robert Ingram heading the George Washington Forum, I am an individual with my own opinions and beliefs.
Samuel Miner is a senior studying history.
