Mark Leff, PhD
Title: Associate Professor
Department: History
College: Liberal Arts and Sciences
Interview
What classes do you teach?
- U.S. Wartime Social Change
- U.S. Civil Liberties Crises since WWI
- History of the United States, 1877 to the Present
What do you enjoy most about teaching at Illinois?
Hearing what my students have to say. Conventional wisdom is often an excellent classroom foil: to encourage citizenship not cynicism, as students learn to question their own assumptions; to value debate and to develop the tolerance, mutual respect, and analytic sophistication to benefit from it; to take a stand and defend it, but to value the flexibility and discipline of mind that allows them to refine those opinions.
Do you have a unique teaching method or project you assign?
I feel there is no better way to confront issues of tolerance raised in the post-9/11 world than by debating the torture response to charges of faculty disloyalty at the University of Illinois in World War I, or by assessing the techniques of a WWII propaganda film's defense of the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans. This orientation will serve my students through a lifetime of changes in intellectual fashion and perspective.
Describe your greatest professional accomplishment.
Earning the Professor of the Year for the State of Illinois award for 1998 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
What sparked your interest in your field of study?
It was probably growing up around the politics-soaked environment of Washington, D.C. Or maybe it was my belated recognition as an undergraduate economics major that if I ever saw another graph, I'd implode.
What's your favorite aspect of life at Illinois?
I truly appreciate the scholarly worlds that I've glimpsed through my role as chair of the committee overseeing the University's Millercomm Lecture Series – lectures by art historians and animal scientists, poets and political activists, geneticists and journalists, environmentalists and economists, physicists and philosophers, and so many others who bring together the University community in its inspiring multiplicity.
What book, related to your field, do you recommend reading?
Let me showcase how far short I fall as an intellectual, and instead recommend a film that to me best captures both history's diverse perspectives and the importance of taking stock of the history that we carry with us (whether we like it or not). Check out the DVD of Lone Star (1996), which was written and directed by John Sayles.
Do you have any advice for entering students?
Yes – not to take advice from the likes of me. Otherwise, do what you can to personalize the University; join with other students to make it a smaller place; give your professors a chance to get to know you better by visiting with us during office hours; take Jimmy Buffett's advice to make the world go round and not just watch it turn – make your own history.