Assistant Professor of History and in the College of Social Studies (CSS) Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, who arrived at Wesleyan in 2021, has quickly established himself as an active presence on campus and in the broader academic community. He runs an interview series for The Nation, organizes talks and events on campus, and publishes books, articles, and essay collections on European and contemporary history. The Argus recently sat down with him to discuss history classes, a conference he recently organized, and the pros and cons of American college education.

The Argus: How did you get interested in history?

Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins: That’s a great question. When I was thinking about grad school, I knew I wanted to be an academic at a certain point. I just couldn’t figure out which discipline to choose because I had diverse interests. When I was in a master’s program at Reed College, I took a class my first semester there with an intellectual historian. I fell in love with intellectual history, because it’s super interdisciplinary. In many ways, it’s like being a philosopher in exile.  I was able to bring all my different interests together in intellectual history. Once I discovered that, I applied for PhD programs and got into one for intellectual history.

A: I understand that you focus a lot on French history. 

DSJ: My formal training is in Western European history. Typically, that track goes from the French Revolution to the end of the Cold War. And so you’re kind of trained to do French, German, and, to some degree, British history. My book is rooted in France, so over the last 10 years I have been focusing on French history, from more of a “France in the world” framing. But I don’t think my next project will principally have much to do with France. I don’t really consider myself a straight-up French historian.

A: What is your book about?

DSJ: It’s about a guy named Raymond Aron, who was a Cold War liberal intellectual, and typically is considered the preeminent liberal thinker of 20th-century French thought. He was a staunch anticommunist, and got into a lot of famous debates with leftists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. He was very pro-NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization], while they were suspicious of NATO. [His opponents] were supporters of the Communist Party in France, which was aligned with the Soviet Union. …[He] was kind of beloved by certain thinkers in the United States. Henry Kissinger liked him, [as well as] academics like Daniel Bell and Stanley Hoffman.

A: What do you think is the value of teaching history?

DSJ: Well, we live in history when we’re going through challenges, changes, crises. It’s only human to try to look to the past for some sense of orientation of what’s happening in the present. I think history is a form of human necessity and allows for answers to existential dilemmas. However partial, however limited, I think it’s something that can’t be avoided. For me, the relevance of history is that it plays this practical function in our everyday lives. We use the past to make sense of the present, and realize that the present is different from the past, and that allows us to think about what’s new. It’s a relevant discipline that shouldn’t be reduced to irrelevancy because it’s focused on something that happened in the past. It’s connected to our present and informs our future. 

A: Do you find yourself thinking about the present a lot when looking for new interests or historical projects? Or vice versa? Using history to think about the present? 

DSJ: I teach a class here called History of the Present, where each week we deal with a topic based on a key word, and we provide a little history of those words. For instance, the class has a week on neoliberalism, a week on populism, and a week on fascism. The purpose of the class is to teach students the promises and perils of using history and historical comparisons for thinking about the present. 

A: You taught in France for a while. What are some differences between teaching in France and teaching here that you noticed? Anything we can learn from them, or vice versa?

DSJ: Everything would be based on my personal experience. I don’t know if I can extrapolate into general truisms. I taught at Sciences Po. During my doctoral studies, half of my students were French, half of them were international students. One thing is that the relationship between students and professors was much more formal [and hierarchical], at least on the French side. Over the course of the semester, the French students would kind of migrate in the direction of the informality of the international students, which was primarily made up of North Americans, with some people from elsewhere.

I took away from that [experience] that teacher-student relations, just the nature of the power that exists in that relationship, does affect the ambiance of the classroom, how freely people feel that they can talk, or how restrictive things might be if that gap is too wide. And even though I’m teaching here, I try to have a more loose—not informal, but more relaxing—kind of class that allows for more candid and more open conversations that I felt might not have been possible in the French system.

But there are benefits to that system, too. There was no grade inflation in that system, at least that I can remember. I think that’s maybe a better system—one where you can always improve, whereas maybe the message sent with grade inflation is that you’ve already arrived. And no one’s already arrived. Even academics have room to grow.

A: Do you think there’s any good way to deal with or counteract grade inflation?

DSJ: I like the CSS approach of not giving grades. If you buy into it, you buy into the spirit of learning for the sake of learning and enrichment. You’re doing it because you have a passion for it, you’re intellectually curious. The feedback that you receive is just to allow for continual improvement, not to receive a grade. You [still] have to apply for internships, professional schools, this is the way our system works. But I do like the sophomore year of CSS, where the students recognize that no paper will be perfect. They’re essentially writing the paper before the class starts, so that they can go back later after having attended the class and kind of reconsider some of the things that they’ve written and learn that way through widening of knowledge.

[When] I was at Reed College for a master’s degree, there were no grades for the classes. The teachers didn’t mark papers, but they did give you a grade for the semester. But the spirit of the school was that you weren’t supposed to look at these grades unless you had to apply for something. It really was about learning for learning. I think it was a community standard that was shared and taken very seriously. I think it made for an incredible learning environment, where it wasn’t just to get the grade, it was to develop knowledge inside and outside the classroom. 

A: You recently organized a conference at Wesleyan called “Did it Happen Here? Perspectives on Fascism in America.” How did that go?

DSJ: I think it went well. I think there were 90 people that RSVP’d for it. That volume level was new for me. It was great to have different points of view represented. You know, debates [about fascism] are very popular now, so [they] generate a lot of passion, and it can get maybe too impassioned. But ultimately, that’s what democracy is. It allows and encourages citizens and members of communities to speak their mind and express their feelings. I think [my] event did that. Of course, there are limits to this, but I think it ultimately succeeded. And I think the students and the faculty benefited.

A: The event came out of a collection of essays that you edited, as I understand. 

DSJ: Yeah, it was a book that I edited with Norton [Publishing]. [It] essentially gathered together into one book the key pieces of something called the fascism debate, which had emerged since the election of Trump, and whether that election indicated some turn towards fascism in the country, with some saying, “Yeah, this is going to eventually lead the country down to an authoritarian regime” and others saying, “This framing is misguided, and there’s other factors that explain the current contemporary moment.” The book essentially tried to bring all these pieces together in one volume. It’s ultimately intended for assigning in class, and can be used in other ways as well.

A: Do you have a favorite memory from your time at Wesleyan?

DSJ: I haven’t been here so long, and early on, it was COVID. I think the best memory I’ve had is, you know, I was on the job market for five, six years, and just the first day coming to work and moving into my office, after not thinking that this career would work out. I think that was very meaningful for me, and continues to be. My time here has been great. I’m sure there’ll be many more great memories, but I think July 1, 2021, or whenever it was, was a very meaningful day.

A: Do you have any advice for current students? 

DSJ: I’m hesitant to give advice. I think students face a dilemma, especially when they’re juniors and thinking about doing internships, and of course, as they’re going into their senior year, they have to figure out what steps they are going to take with their lives. Often for very good reasons, practical reasons, financial reasons, there’s a move towards professionalization. Maybe the more liberal arts motives were there early on, [but you] kind of move into a more professional, vocational direction.

As an educator, and as someone who’s a humanist, my hope would be that—even [with] the vocational responsibilities and the need to pursue a career—that liberal arts spirit can remain because it’s great for critical thinking and self-development.

A: What role do you think liberal arts schools like Wesleyan play as a whole in trying to preserve that liberal arts environment in the face of increasing professionalism?

DSJ: I think Wesleyan does a great job. It’s an interesting school [that] wants to maintain the spirit of the liberal arts, and also be a university where professors do research. Usually, universities or colleges prioritize one or the other, but not both. So one of the unique contributions that Wesleyan makes is that balance. It’s a unique blend of academic research and humanistic teaching and learning. 

Leo Bader can be reached at lbader@wesleyan.edu.