In Fall quarter (2019), a Sikh American student born and raised in Whatcom County, WA refused to do a reading for a college history class because she has already read about the topic in her temple/religious school. The professor/Dharitri Bhattacharjee is confronted with the question, "What are the limits of academic history—of history as a discipline?" The pursuit of the question and conversations with more members of the Sikh community led to the making of Limits of History (LOH, English language, 40 mins). LOH traces the walls built around the discipline of history from the outside, by non-academics; and from the inside, by historians themselves. It is in the spaces between these contrasting walls that academia must constantly reinvent itself to remain relevant.

Faculty typically teach history courses over 10 to 15 weeks. If they are not methods or theory classes, faculty struggle to teach the "field" from the "discipline." This experimental session will first screen LOH and then pivot to a short discussion by academics on what they feel lies ahead for the discipline as they continue to teach as historians and how to use LOH to make students build on what they know instead of making unlearning a prerequisite. The panelists, a diverse group themselves will also talk about the diverse student bodies they teach in their universities but also comparatively between Washington, Texas and Massachusetts. They will discuss what knowledge of history and histories their students bring to class and how teaching proceeds from those various starting points.

LOH touches on a discursive array of ideas and themes and the presentations will amplify them but from different perspectives.Through his work on social movements and power, Daniel S.Chard will discuss challenges to teaching political violence in recent U.S. history, particularly in regards to the Black Panthers, Palestine/Israel, and 9/11.Sarah Zarrow will speak about the assumptions with which students, community members, and other faculty approach the study of Jewish history. Rachel Ozanne will talk about her courses, “Unbelief in America” and “Thinking Like a Historian” and share her perspective on how history and faith intersect and how she teaches that intersection to students. After Bellingham and Austin, the panel ends with teachers from Boston. Malcolm Purinton will talk about teaching and doing history as a public historian. Michael Thornton will conclude by reflecting on how his experiences teaching East Asian histories to international students from East Asia, as well as to Asian-American students, inform his approach to historical literacy and course design.

The audience for this experimental session will be curious about how to talk critically about academic history and its limits to those outside of academia. They will also be interested in a conversation on how academic history can reinvent itself to remain relevant in contemporary society. Finally, some early-mid career historians will hear the perspectives of session participants -who have had a chance to see the documentary and think about it -on how LOH or the questions it raises can be used in the classroom and beyond.