This workshop will seek to break through this impasse.  Over the course of one-and-a-half days, graduate students, professors, and non-academic professionals with university training will join in conversation to take stock of the place of historical thinking in public life and assess the roles and responsibilities of the historian today.  Through five panel discussions, a keynote address, and a concluding small-group exercise, we will explore the role history plays for non-university publics and interrogate the character of the historian in today’s society.  Our final plenary session will be an opportunity to build on what we learn in our panel discussions through a group brainstorming exercise to generate concrete initiatives to supplement historical training here at Columbia.