Thinking out loud: The ethics of scholarship
If you are researching White Rose resistance, this is a must-read post. If you enjoy reading books about White Rose resistance, this is a must-read post.
I’ve updated the Historiography collection post, along with the way our History of the History will be managed.
Instead of writing about White Rose scholarship by two-to-five-year intervals, or even a year at a time, new historiography posts will feature book reviews only. I’ve already revised the Collection post to include all White Rose scholarship of which I am aware at this writing. Links will be inserted as new book reviews are added to our Center for White Rose Studies book review page.
This cannot be said often or loudly enough. If you are reading a nonfiction, “scholarly” book about White Rose resistance, check the bibliography. If you’re a professor reviewing a student’s draft thesis or dissertation, check the bibliography. If you’re an editor at a publishing house, tasked with editing a new book about White Rose resistance, check the bibliography.
Does it include everything on this list, at bare minimum? If not, ask why. You don’t even need to read our reviews. Find out why the author left crucial literature off the list of primary and secondary sources they consulted.
Over the past few months as I have worked on this historiography, I have been struck anew by how much sloppy scholarship exists on the topic of the White Rose. I’m finding plagiarism, sometimes of my work, sometimes of the works of scholars I’m well acquainted with. And it is as if no one proofreads. Grammar and orthography often are ignored, even by well-respected authors and their editors. [Now watch me have three unforced errors after saying that!]
Working on the speech for Munich, I’m baffled that professors at presumably prestigious universities have signed off on papers, books, dissertations – signed off on works that represent minimal effort and flawed conclusions. Writers take one sentence in a secondary source out of context and construct entire theories on shifting sand. They don’t address researchers who have gone before them who have a different understanding of a topic.
Once other writers use those flawed secondary sources as their authorities, it becomes like the child’s game of gossip or telephone. I find myself asking, “Where did THAT come from?”
I and my colleagues at Center for White Rose Studies and Exclamation! Publishers firmly believe in collaborative projects. We won the Social Media Leadership award (Wharton Business School, Philadelphia) in 2012 for a “social” approach to collaborative research. Despite the plagiarism and poor research I see, I still believe in the collaborative approach.
None of us can know everything. Every time I get fresh eyes on something I’ve written, I learn. I can have strong opinions about the interpretation of a primary source. It means a lot when someone reads that same primary source and asks me, “What if?”
It’s those what-iffers who bring progress, who deepen our understanding of a matter. What-iffers make us chase rabbits and follow Alice down the rabbit hole. Some of my best AHA! moments came after Armin Ziegler asked an “innocent” question. Not all what-ifs are “why” questions. Some are “how” or “wha-at?”
For those of you who are attorneys or who have played one on TV, think of it this way. For a good defense attorney to successfully defend their client, they must understand the prosecution’s case from the inside out. Or vice versa, for the prosecutor. There must be an answer to every attack. Parry, riposte, feint – the reflexive actions of fencing should be part of a scholar’s quiver. All right, mixed metaphor. Sue me.
Or seen another way, a good scholar and researcher must be downright Talmudic. Minority opinions may not win the consensus, but they’re written in the margins for all time.
In short, the historiography is critical because to write anything meaningful requires knowing what has already been written. Otherwise, we’ll get what we’ve gotten so far: A bunch of Scholl-centric, smarmy texts that fail to put forward anything of value.
I hope you also share my joy when you see reviews of books that add meaning to our understanding of what these friends accomplished. Otl Aicher, Lothar Drude, Lieselotte Fürst-Ramdohr, Clara Geyer, Hildegard Hamm-Brücher, Eckard Holler, Inge Jens, Rudolf Lill and his contributors, Arno Klönne, Hermann Krings, Silvester Lechner, Gisela Linder, Ruprecht Poensgen, the editors of the Christoph Probst anthology, Hinrich Siefken and the people he brought together, Kerstin Sonnenwald, Christian Tilitzki, Johannes Tuchel, Klaus Vielhaber, Hildegard Vieregg, Jost Schätzler, Anneliese Knoop-Graf, and of course Armin Ziegler – these people have enriched our perception of personalities, places, connections, character, events, and environment. They bought shovels and used them. Used them to dig for new facts, used them to bury legends.
I want more people like this. They may wear me, you, us out with what, how, when, why, where, but that is what we all are supposed to be doing. If you accept things at face value, you would not be happy working with us. “Face value” rarely is fact, much less truth.
We’ve already developed our Ethics of Holocaust Scholarship. Before January 1, 2024, we hope to have our Ethics of Scholarship in place, defining the minimum standards for works published by Exclamation! Publishers or sponsored as collaborative effort by Center for White Rose Studies.
We won’t create it from scratch. I like Hampshire College’s approach. American Psychological Association expands beyond cites and bibliography to ideas. University of Connecticut pairs ethical responsibility with academic integrity in its ethics discussion. Kathy Hytten of UNC Greensboro challenges academics to “slow down” and not succumb to the publish-or-perish frenzy.
I hope our historiography is useful to you in your own research and scholarship.
As a reminder: Here’s our Call for Papers. There are probably a good 30-50 new PhD dissertations on that list.
Hmm for my CWRS team: Perhaps starting in 2024 we should have an annual Golden Shovel Award? To incentivize digging for new facts and stories, and the burying of legends? Just a thought.
© 2023 Denise Heap. Please contact us for permission to quote, or with questions.
“Unforced errors”... love that!