I wish to pay tribute to Kurt Danziger by taking up one of his more recent works, namely, his paper entitled "Does the History of Psychology Have a Future?" (Danziger, 1994). More specifically, what I wish to do is to pick up on one aspect of this paper in the hopes that we may gain a richer understanding of Kurt's position and pursue it further.

Kurt first presented that paper as an invited address at the CPA meeting in Quebec City (Danziger, 1992). Since then, it has been published in a revised form in Theory and Psychology. It is Kurt's CPA paper that I wish to address. I was at that CPA meeting in Quebec City, and I heard Kurt deliver the paper. I remember walking away from that session thinking that it was a very thoughtful response to a timely question. I also remember being very much in agreement with the position Kurt took.

In preparation of this tribute, I spent some time re-reading that paper, paying particular attention to some of the questions Kurt raised in the first part of the paper wherein he approached the question of the future of our sub-field as if it were an institutional question.

I am working with the assumption that everyone is familiar with that paper, but for those who may only have a vague memory of this work let me try to provide a rough outline of the pertinent part. The first question which Kurt raises is as follows: "Where does the History of Psychology belong, does it belong with Psychology, or does it belong with History?" (1994, p.2). The question appears on top of page two of the manuscript and for the next two pages, Kurt follows it up by pointing out that this question can be raised about any kind of disciplinary history, and the kind of answer obtained will depend on the discipline and the historical period at hand. This is not a problem that is unique to psychology; it is relevant to all disciplines. As such, it may be useful to look at the ways in which it has been worked out in other disciplines. Accordingly, Kurt points out that the physical sciences provide us with one kind of a model. The social sciences provide us with another, where economics represents the extreme case. Between these two models, we can find mixed models represented by biology and psychology. He then states:

He concludes with the following:

In re-reading this first section of the paper, and paying particular attention to the questions Kurt raised, I got the distinct impression that implicit in all of this is the idea that we have a choice in the matter; that it is up to us whether we wish to do critical history from the inside. I am not convinced that is indeed the case. It seems to me that the institutional arrangements that currently exist are such that it may in fact preclude any choice in the matter.

I think in a number of important respects, Kurt represents a privileged voice. Kurt has tenure. More than that, he turned to doing history relatively late in his career--after getting tenure, after being promoted to full professor and after he had already established a reputation as a first-rate scholar among an international community of psychologists. I am speaking in a different voice. I am a graduate student who turned to work on the history of psychology mid-way through my graduate studies.

In order to lay the ground-work for the position I wish to take, let me just say a few words about my personal journey through graduate school. I entered the History and Theory Option at York University at the Ph.D. level for a variety of reasons not the least of which was the fact that I had heard about Kurt, and from all accounts he was an outstanding scholar. In addition, during our first meeting, I found him to be incredibly supportive of my desire to do my dissertation on the history of Canadian psychology.

Prior to my switch, I was doing my master's work in the Social/Personality Area doing experimental work among other things. Mid-way through my masters degree, and largely due to the influence of David Bakan, Raymond Fancher, and Canadian political historian Paul Stevens, I began to entertain the notion of switching to the History and Theory Option. During this time, I consulted several faculty members affiliated with the Social/Personality and Experimental Areas. One professor, who had taught me a course in methods during my first-year of graduate studies, was not at all pleased to learn about my new-found interest and the direction I wished to go with my studies. He assured me that: "History is something you do when you are old and when you have run out of research ideas. It is not something you should be considering at this stage of the game." Of course, there were some faculty members I consulted who understood the importance of doing the kind of work I wanted to do, but they too, without exception, discouraged me. Their position was summed up in that often quoted caution: "You will never get a job!"

Needless to say, I did not let their advice dissuade me. Perhaps my youth and my confidence at the time served to bolster my resolve. Looking back now, as I enter my final year of doctoral studies, I can say that all things considered, I do not regret the decision I made. I have had the extraordinary good fortune of working with the best minds in the field. Nonetheless, my journey as a history and theory student has not been easy. Certainly, not as easy as it would have been had I remained in the Social/ Personality Area. Despite my hard work and my many accomplishments, I have worried constantly throughout this period about my future in trying to work in this area.

This is not an insignificant matter, and as a graduate student in the History and Theory programme, I certainly am not unique. While my fellow graduate students in the programme decided to make the switch to the History and Theory Option for reasons undoubtedly different from my own, they too have many of the same concerns about their future as historians of psychology.[2] I know this, because over the years we have spent countless number of hours talking amongst ourselves--sharing our many worries.

We worry whether we will be able to secure a job as historians of psychology, in a department where we would be able to do-nd by this I mean not only tolerated but actively supported in doing--the kind of work we are trained to do. None of us wish to work as closet historians, pretending at all times to be something we are not and doing research on problems in which we are not particularly interested. We worry that even if we secure academic positions as historians of psychology in departments where we have the support of our colleagues, we may not be able to secure grant money to fund our research. We worry that even if we are fortunate enough to get grant money, we might not have the opportunity to supervise students who wish to work in this area.

The kind of things we worry about are not confined to graduate students specializing in the history of psychology. I know of others who turned to doing historical work at the post-doctoral level or in the first years of their tenure-track appointments who share some of these same concerns.

This problem becomes particularly acute when those of us who have taught a course on the history of psychology are faced with an undergraduate student who wants to work in this area. I remember teaching a course on the history of psychology and having one of my students approach me towards the end of the course to inform me that she found the material "really interesting." She then asked whether I had any advice as to where she could go to do this kind of work at the graduate level. I remember this moment well because I found myself in a moral dilemma. On the one hand, I was very pleased that I managed to get a student so excited about the subject that she was prepared to pursue the field. On the other hand, I had to consider whether I wanted to encourage a student to take a path that I know is fraught with so many obstacleswhen in the end she may never get a job.

Getting back to the main point, I do not wish to suggest that Kurt is unaware of what it means to be working in this area under the present conditions. He acknowledges this in the very first paragraph of his paper:

And he does acknowledge that his students do not have this option. He notes:

That he acknowledges our very difficult position is further demonstrated by the fact that Kurt has always encouraged his students to develop skills and expertise in mainstream psychology. He has, for example, encouraged his students to master statistics as a way of being able to make themselves more attractive to psychology departments. He has also encouraged his students to do some clinical work to ensure that they have the means to support themselves.

Kurt is aware of the institutional arrangements that make it difficult for historians of psychology to do their job. We are in agreement on this point. Our difference concerns the amount of weight we attach to these considerations and therefore our general optimism about the future of the history of psychology. And I think that is largely a function of the difference in our status: tenured faculty versus graduate student. From my vantage point, the future of the history of psychology looks dim. Given the present conditions, I cannot but imagine more than a handful of students opting to specialize in the history of psychology. At best, I think we will continue to have a small number of tenured psychologists, some of whom will acquire the appropriate training in historiography to do fine historical work but this will necessarily be a small group. The future of the history of psychology will depend on the young historians, those with specialized training devoted first and foremost to the field, and not on those who choose to do historical work as a second or third career. As such, I think that we need to spend a little more time and give a bit more thought to the institutional arrangements we now have and think of ways in which the younger members can effectively position themselves within the discipline in order that they may be able to do the kind of work they are trained to do -from the inside.

1. The title of this paper is meant to convey a double meaning. First, it is based on the fact that Kurt and I share the same initials and is meant to convey my take on Kurt Danziger's work. Secondly, it is meant to convey Kurt Danziger on Kurt Danziger, for the position I take is largely informed and influenced by Kurt's own work.

2. To the best of my knowledge, most of the students who specialize in the history of psychology in psychology departments come via psychology. At York, I am aware of only two students who have come to it from the outside--history of science programmes--and the only reason they did so was to work with Kurt who happened to be situated in a psychology department.

Danziger, K. (1992). Does the history of psychology have a future? Invited address presented to the History and Philosophy Section of the Canadian Psychological Association, Quebec City.

Danziger, K. (1994). Does the history of psychology have a future? Theory and Psychology, 4, 467-484.

Katalin Dzinas is currently working towards completing her Doctoral Dissertation on the role of Canadian psychologists in the country's war effort, 1939-1945 under Kurt Danziger's supervision. She has been a member of the editorial board for the History and Philosophy of Psychology Bulletin since 1991 and has recently completed serving a three year term as an elected member of the Review Committee for the International Society for the History of the Behavioral and Social Sciences (Cheiron).