Professor Richard Kagan has earned a reputation among students as an enthusiastic and self-labeled "theatrical" professor of History and Romance Languages in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. Since he came to Hopkins in 1972, Kagan has authored four books, written and edited numerous articles and taught as a visiting professor and faculty member at eight universities around the world.
The News-Letter talked to Kagan about his academic journey toward becoming a renowned Spanish history expert and how his experiences as a student have influenced his approach to teaching.
Kagan's parents originally migrated to the United States from Russia in 1912. Kagan himself was born and raised in northern New Jersey. His father, a wire manufacturer, urged and expected his two sons to grow up and take over the family business.
It was Kagan's father who, after a business trip to Latin America, originally suggested he take Spanish rather than French or German so that he could help his business tap the growing Latin American market.
As a result, when Kagan began his undergraduate studies at Columbia University, he was one of the few students who chose to study Spanish while pursuing his passion for history.
Kagan credits his interest in history, and more specifically art history, to his frequent visits to museums while studying in New York City as well as to the influence of his mother, an art connoisseur. For Kagan, museums were an extracurricular class, a place to experience culture and "a great place to pick up girls and to have great conversations."
The market for the new field of Spanish history was one of the factors that drove Kagan to continue his studies. He viewed it as "a new frontier of knowledge." Kagan was approached by intellectuals across the spectrum encouraging him to explore the new area of Spanish history.
Convincing his father to support his academic pursuits, however, was a more difficult task. It was not until Kagan's father attended a lecture at the National Gallery of Art that he realized there was a market and commercial basis for what he was pursuing.
In Kagan's senior year at Columbia, he took a senior seminar in Spanish history at the suggestion of his adviser, Dr. Orest Ranum. Ranum then took Kagan's senior thesis paper without Kagan's knowledge and sent it to Sir John Elliott at Cambridge University. Elliott, impressed by Kagan's potential, offered him a position as a graduate history student at Cambridge University.
Kagan was faced with a tough choice: pursue his passion at Cambridge and leave the United States for the first time in his life, or remain in the States and begin work in his father's company?
Kagan looked to the important people in his life for advice, one of whom was his uncle, a political scientist at University of California at Berkeley who asked him, "Are you sure you want to do history? Are you ready to teach in Iowa?" The answer was "Yes." Kagan joked, "I landed in Indiana, which by my geography, is not too far from Iowa."
Kagan soon discovered a renewed passion, and a new challenge, in what had been his original goal of teaching. While working at his first teaching position at Indiana University at Bloomington, he was faced with the difficulty of teaching disinterested students from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. He felt challenged to grab their attention and hook them so they would learn the material.
Kagan described his early lectures as "theatrical," admitting, "They still probably are, but that's what gets the interest."
Although Kagan no longer needs to teach larger survey courses and has moved from the "department store to the boutique" of classes, he hopes his energy and enthusiasm for his subject ensure that his students learn the material.
Kagan observed that teaching history has changed since he took history courses at Columbia University. "History now encompasses culture and society, not just politics," he said.
Kagan teaches history and writes books to appeal to a greater audience. When he writes about museum exhibitions in books, he wants whoever picks it up, whether it is a historian, a child, a mother or a student, to enjoy it and immerse him or herself in it.
Kagan had one last word of advice and encouragement for Hopkins students, saying, "You have a lifetime of learning; It's never too late. If you're interested in it, pursue it!"
