Oxford University Construction of History and Historical Narratives Discussion

For this discussion, we are going to consider competing approaches to the construction of history and historical narratives, and have you weigh in on where you see your identity as an emerging historian. Live links appear here as well as in the Week 7 Readings:

Gertrude Himmelfarb, “Some Reflections in the New History” http://www.jstor.org/stable/1873752

Joan Scott, “History in Crisis: The Other’s Side of the Debate” http://www.jstor.org/stable/1873754

*These two articles are clearly related to each other. Himmelfarb’s original article was in response to the type of history that Scott was proposing, and Scott’s article was written in direct response to Himmelfarb’s critique.

The purpose of this discussion is to get a better sense of the some of the debates that exist within the historical profession regarding who or what is responsible for historical change (or what we call causality – see the video “Historical Thinking” from Week One if you need a refresher), and how we define what history should look like, who should be included, etc. In many ways, we are coming full circle from our first discussion of the semester, where we defined what history is. This discussion will be very helpful to you as you put together Reflective Paper #2 (due at the end of this week), as well as get you started on the necessary review of the historical approaches that you need to do for the Final Paper (due at the end of the class in two weeks).

As you have studied this term about the value of interpretive approaches to understanding the historical past, by the 20^th century historians were finding inadequacies in the limitations of Empiricism, and aimed to include new groups into the historical narrative (beyond the traditional focus of elites and high political/military history). They were interested in the lives of the working classes in particular, but also aimed to try to understand how structures (like economics/work, the family, communities, etc.) impacted historical change. These new approaches introduced new debates about the intrinsic value of certain types of history, and whether or not we should put more emphasis on certain historical experiences over others. It started with Historical Materialism (Marxism and Social History/Annales School) which sought to understand the material conditions that people lived in in the past. Then the influences of the Social Sciences emerged (Quantitative History) to try to identify and explain patterns in historical action. More significant changes came with the New Cultural History, Gender History, and the Posts – which all sought to move away from structures to the thoughts and ideas of the people themselves. These latter approaches looked at primary sources in novel ways, and argued for a deeper reading of these sources (called deconstruction) to try to get to their multiple meanings.

What the conversation between Himmelfarb and Scott (this is the same Joan Scott from the Gender week) tries to set up is a debate that exists in the historical profession about which approaches to history should be prioritized over others. You will want to try and understand what approaches each historian advocates – and why Himmelfarb is critical of Scott’s argument and vice-versa. Toward which side of the debate do you lean?

So…For this discussion consider and answer the following questions in your initial post:

1. What approaches to historical study does each historian advocate for? What produces the best kind of history, according to Himmelfarb? What produces the best kind of history, according to Scott?

2. How does Himmelfarb critique Scott, and vice-versa?

2. Connected to historical approaches is the idea of the direction of historical narratives, and historical understanding. Some, like Himmelfarb, argue that there should be a single direction for all historical research so that every product will aid in our construction of a master narrative for history, while others, like Scott, support a more diverse and deconstructed approach to topics and methods. The critique of Himmelfarb is that her approach is exclusionary, while the critique of Scott is that her approach limits a holistic approach. Do you think that history should remain holistic even if exclusionary, or is history better in a deconstructed version that is more diverse? Essentially the question is: Do you think that it is better to have a single, unified vision for history, be it either political or social history, even if it omits many subjects, or is a broader coverage of subjects desirable even if the diverse subjects researched and methods used produces a “fragmented” history, with no single topic being deemed the “most important”?

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A Few Key Points:

-First, this discussion is about historical approaches, not politics. The debate is about two things.

–Is political history somehow superior to social and cultural history, and vice-versa, and

-Should the efforts of all historians be oriented toward producing a single, neat historical vision, which could be either political or social and cultural, or is diversity in research topics and methods more desirable, even if it produces conflicting and sometime contradictory understandings of the historical past?

This is in Chicago style formating