By Brandon Storlie, Graduate Student Co-Liaison, University of Wisconsin-Madison, bstorlie@wisc.edu

Dr. James Kates is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s College of Arts and Communication, where he teaches classes in media history, media law, digital journalism, writing, reporting and editing. A longtime journalist with degrees from both Michigan State University (B.A.) and the University of Michigan (M.A.), Kates served in editing roles at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Philadelphia Inquirer before earning a doctorate in Mass Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1997. His primary research interests include natural-resources conservation and environmental issues.

Kates published the book Planning a Wilderness, a historical account of the crusade to restore the Great Lakes cutover region, in 2001.

We recently chatted about his most recent project, the roots of his research interests, and his advice for junior scholars.

Q: What is the most recent research project that you’ve been working on?

A: Well, actually, I’ve got an article in press right now, and I should be seeing it any day now. It’s going to be published in a journal called Historical Geography. So, I’m stretching the boundaries a little bit. It concerns the use of explosives in the Northwoods to clear land, which actually was very widespread, and Wisconsin did more than any other state. The states of Wisconsin and others would take war-surplus explosives after World War I – dynamite, TNT, other explosives – and use them to blow up stumps in the North Woods. This whole effort was aimed at clearing land for farming, and it went on from right about the time of the war until the late 1920s. I had just mentioned this, sort of in passing, in the book, and then, years later, I thought, “Well, gee, I wonder how much there is on this?”

Q: How did you come to your area of scholarship, more broadly?

A: Part of it is simply serendipity. You go to collections and you find something. Of course, some collections are better than others. You find these rich collections and all of a sudden, the opportunity presents itself. There was a little bit of a personal connection there as well for me. My grandfather on my mother’s side, a man named Albert Hazzard, was a very prominent fisheries biologist. He was a trout biologist, and he actually worked at Michigan and the Institute for Fisheries Research there for many years. So I started (with) just a few outcroppings in my grandfather’s work papers, stuff like that.

Then, when I came to Madison some years later, I was casting around a bit. All the archives of papers at the Historical Society in Madison are fantastic. I looked around a couple of days and then I discovered some conservation collections, and everything sort of clicked. The North Woods of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota is my favorite place in the world, and for me, it was the discovery of figuring out how this place came to be as a natural and, really, a man-made phenomenon, and how the North Woods was remade after the lumber era. And of course, because I am a journalism historian as well, the big thing is the key role of journalists.

Q: How does that research inform your teaching?

A: We look at journalism as a social force and journalism as a way that people understand the world, and journalism as a way that people understand why things happen the way they do. It is a platform by which people understand and debate. In my case, it’s the natural world and what we do with it and why it matters. It’s the way we look at and understand the world and the way it works and the way it ought to work, and the way, sometimes, in which it is broken. The idea of the environment and what we need to do to preserve and protect and develop and sustain it – it’s mutable. It changes. And journalism is a big part of that process. We learn over time how the environment reacts to human presence and what needs to be done to mitigate these effects. It’s a matter of ongoing communication, not only by professional audiences, scientists and the so-called experts, but also by people in politics, and citizens – ordinary people who look at these problems and say, “What can we do about it?” That is, fundamentally, a journalistic process. It’s a matter of defining the world and saying, “What can we do about this?”

Q: What advice do you have for junior scholars or faculty?

A: Find something that deeply resonates with you. The novelists say, “Write what you know.” And that’s become almost a silly cliché, I know, but I would say, “Write what you love.” Find something that deeply resonates with you. I went through a couple of topics before I found the one that resonated with me. I have told so many people, “Thank goodness I found a topic that resonated with me, or I wouldn’t have had the will to finish.” You have to love the topic. It has to be something, I think, with a personal connection.

Interview conducted by Brandon Storlie, a Ph.D. student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and AEJMC History Division’s Graduate Student Co-Liaison.