Kevin Schultz did not intend to be a history professor. He was no history buff in high school—until his junior year American history class. The teacher, said Schultz, changed his outlook by making history come alive in the classroom.
“He turned the Ferris Bueller mystique of boring history that is just names, dates, places, memorization, and he turned it into a collection of stories connected to American history,” Schultz said.
That is exactly how Schultz, now the chair of the Department of History and an American history professor at University of Illinois Chicago, describes his teaching style as “playful, story-based and idealistic.” His optimism stems from his belief in his students and what they can accomplish.
Tom Kernan, a former student of Schultz’s and senior business manager in the UIC Department of History, says Schultz’s teaching style is fun and engaging.
“[His class was] so engaging and fun to be in, and it was still very challenging. I was blown away at how good an American history class was. It was the farthest thing from my interests, and it was due largely to presentation,” Kernan said.
Andrew Hartman, Schultz’s colleague and friend and an Illinois State University professor, said he initially was amused when he learned the subject of Schultz’s new book: “Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals): A History.” But he quickly changed his tune when he heard Schultz out.
“I laughed out loud—especially upon hearing the title. But the more I thought about it, the more we discussed it, and then once I read drafts of the book, I realized that Kevin was onto something profound,” Hartman said in an email.
The concept for the book grew from Schultz’s frustration with the polarization of the American political climate, which he says is the reason for the overall lack of forward movement in government.
“I was really struck by how dangerous this was and how frustrated I was that while there seemed to be a general agreement in the American population about certain issues, the politics have been so polarized that our government wasn’t then able to address what the majority of Americans wanted,” Schultz said.
When he dove into American political language, Schultz noticed a trend of people being less likely to describe themselves as “liberal” beginning in the 1970s and 1980s.
“The attack turned toward liberals and their personal foibles. They were ‘smug,’ they were ‘elitist,’ they were effeminate. You know, ‘coastal elite’–these code words for antisemitism. So, I wanted to sort of tell the story of where this hatred of the center came from, and I found it by people attacking liberals,” Schultz said.
Those personal attacks did not come from one direction, said Schultz, and left a devastating mark on American political rhetoric.
“There’s been this huge impoverishment of our language, and it’s really left the center and the center-left tradition undefended in America,” Schultz said.
Hartman described Schultz as “one of the most intellectually curious historians” he knows.
“[Schultz] is best at writing about people, so readers of his work come away knowing that ideas are not free-floating entities but are created by humans who have lots of good and not-so-good reasons for creating them,” Hartman said in an email.
Read more about “Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals): A History” here.