Religion in American History: To Embargo or Not to Embargo: ...What Was The Question? (An #AHAgate Link Round-Up)

"As many readers already know, this has been a week full of excitement for members of the American Historical Association, especially its #twitterstorians. It has already been dubbed #AHAgate. On Monday, the AHA posted its 'Statement on Policies Regarding the Embargoing of Completed History PhD Dissertations.' Adopted at the June 2013 AHA Council meeting, the Statement begins with the clear recommendation: 'The American Historical Association strongly encourages graduate programs and university libraries to adopt a policy that allows the embargoing of completed history PhD dissertations in digital form for as many as six years.' With more universities making digital copies of dissertations available and easy accessible beyond the university, the AHA contends, publishers will be increasingly reluctant to turn revised dissertations into books ... The online challenges to the Statement came almost immediately with the first comment to the AHA blog post reading "Stupid and stunning." Twitterstorians were not far behind with their own, varied comments and analyses. (AHA storified many of them, which can be read here. Michael Hattem's version can be found here.) While the Statement is straightforward, it should come as no surprise that it erupted into controversy, because it touches on a number of topics central to the academy, namely individual control over research and intellectual property, the expectations and purpose of graduate school, expectations for job placement, the requirements for promotion and tenure, the nature of the university, the function of the humanities in society (the specter of STEM), and the role of publishing ... The sharpest critiques of the statement come from supporters of open access who first challenge the AHA's assumptions that publishers aren't willing to work with historians who make their work available online, often using this survey as evidence. There is also anecdotal evidence, likeShelia Brennan, Jennifer Guiliano, and Adeline Koh at ProfHacker, who made their dissertations available yet also received book contracts for books based on their open access work. The frustration is that the AHA is contributing to a culture that remains afraid of open access because it is relatively new and unknown. As the Harvard University Press blog explained 'when we at HUP take on a young scholar's first book, whether in history or other disciplines, we expect that the final product will be so broadened, deepened, reconsidered, and restructured that the availability of the dissertation is irrelevant' ... The AHA followed-up their original statement with a Q&A meant to clarify several points ... William Cronon buttressed the Q&A with his own statement 'Why Put at Risk the Publishing Options of Our Most Vulnerable Colleagues?' ... Not to speak for him, but Cronon's concern for the proper timing of students' work seems to be the same reason Michael Altman decided to embargo his dissertation. I embargoed mine too and, not surprisingly, it was one of the questions I was asked when meeting with editors. Even though I did embargo--and I am grateful to have made the choice myself--I am sympathetic to critiques of the AHA's statement, particularly Brian Sarnacki's 'The Ivoriest Tower,' when he writes,  'I understand the impulse of Cronon and those who wrote the AHA's statement. They want to protect their students from a broken system. The problem is they didn't actually seek to reform the system. To them it was crafted out of compassion, but for their AHA members who do not live in the Ivoriest portions of the Ivory tower it looks like leaders who are out of touch with the most pressing issues facing the discipline ...'"