After reading Gross’ Neighbors and watching Pawlikowski’s Ida, I believe that the pieces of work compliment each other while sharing two different stories related to the horrific events that occurred during a time in history. While sharing two different stories related to World War II Poland, each work is able to share different details from different perspectives. Although both Neighbors and Ida give a fresh perspective to the horrors of World War II Poland, Neighbors seemed to read more like a secondary source to the events of the Jedwabne massacre. After explaining the events that took place leading up to the massacre, Gross proposes the argument that the Jedwabne massacre was committed by the Polish against their neighbors, the Polish Jews. Gross is then able to defend his argument with details of the massacre that he discovered through his historical research. In Ida, Pawlikowski uses the main character to reflect the effects of certain events like the German occupation of World War II on an individual. In the film, Ida is a young woman about to take her vows as a nun in the Polish Catholic Church in 1962. Before she becomes a nun, she must locate her aunt which takes her on a journey to locate the graves of her Jewish parents that were murdered during the German occupation of Poland. This journey of discovery leaves a long term effect on Ida and her identity. Although Pawlikowski’s Ida is more fictional and focuses on the story of one girl, I believe that it reflects the similar stories of the struggles of the small group of Poles affected by World War II Poland. By reading Gross’ Neighbors and watching Pawlikowski’s Ida, I am able to gain a more historical context on World War II Poland and the causes of the Jedwabne massacre while gaining a more personal and individual context on the effects of these events.
Author: braxtonc
In The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, author John Lewis Gaddis explains the many ways to effectively interpret history, while presenting a critique of past methods. By taking his audience through the relationship between the studies of art, science, and history, Gaddis is able to expand on the importance of an effective historical method. Historical landscapes are then discussed when Gaddis refers to historical consciousness and states that historians must adventure into the future while reflecting on the past. Gaddis then explains the negative and positive aspects of his method of interpreting history. He believes that historians must do their best to look into the past because it is unattainable: historians cannot physically travel back in time to any event or period in history. Gaddis makes it clear that in order to see like a historian, historians must be able analyze multiple events in history through different time periods in order to draw conclusions.
The most interesting part of Gaddis’ text on seeing like an historian in The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past is the way that the author uses a comparison between the social sciences and historical methodology to reflect on what it means to be a historian. By using this comparison, I am able to understand his historical method from a different perspective. Gaddis puts emphasis on seeing like a historian in order to encourage his audience to reflect on their own work as historians. Throughout the text, Gaddis also gives many definitions of what it means to be an effective historian, which I found extremely insightful. These two important parts of the text encouraged me to reflect on the methods I use when researching a new topic or event. With my reflection, I realized that it is extremely important to research not only my topic or event but the time period that they are associated with. I also realized that by separating my personal opinion or bias from my historical research, my research will be much more accurate.
After researching for various assignments over the past week and reading the material in the workbook, I have realized that my tactics have transitioned from un-systematic to more intentional. When approaching a new history paper topic in the past, I often used search engines such as Google and Yahoo to prepare myself for more in depth research. By initially using these search engines, I was able to gather simple facts and information on my paper topic, which allowed me to develop a more comprehensive understanding later on. This strategy then helped me to draw a conclusion based on my initial research. My research method was un-systematic because when researching, I would simply record anything that I found important to my topic. After reading the material in the workbook, I now realize that there are more effective ways to begin to research a new history paper topic.
After reading chapters 10-12 of The Methods and Skills of History, it became clear that my tactic for researching was ineffective because I learned that events in history are susceptible to interpretation and that historians utilize two types of sources. Sources are categorized between primary and secondary and they can both be problematic when being utilized in a research paper. I then learned about author bias, which can also directly affect the quality of my research and paper. This workbook reading encouraged me to create a more intentional strategy in approaching a new history research topic because the importance of a credible source was made clear. The material in the workbook reading changed my understanding of the problems involved in historical research because I was not aware that sources can seem credible while being affected by an author’s interpretation.
I have learned to not only use the closest search engine to approach a new history topic but to utilize the Dickinson College archives and library database. After doing the many workbook activities in The Methods and Skills of History, I have learned to draw connections between each piece of research that I come across related to my topic. Drawing connections encourages me to investigate any relating events to my topic while analyzing the many accounts of the event that have been recorded. I have learned to properly organize my research while thinking about topic sentences, a thesis statement, and a conclusion. Through learning how to draw connections and organize information, I believe that I will be more successful in approaching a new history research topic.
After reading the articles by Durba Ghosh and Jennifer S. Mulligan, it has become clear that nationalism is often connected to archives while being central to the creation of a nation. Archives are used to reflect on knowledge that has been gathered throughout history. They also contain articles and artifacts written and collected by many different people with possibly conflicting viewpoints. Archives have become a way for scholars, authors, researchers to identify what is important to a nation on topics such as politics, culture, and society. These two authors make it clear that archives are an extremely important factor in promoting nationalism and the creation of a strong nation.
In Durba Ghosh’s article “National Narratives and the politics of Miscegenation: Britain and India”, the author goes on a search to the archives of Calcutta and New Delhi for information on Hindu women who had sexual relations with European men during the years 1760-1840. Unlike in the archives in Britain, there was a lack of information on the subject and it became clear that India and its nationalistic ideals had stepped in to erase this important part of the nation’s past. A connection between nationalism and the archives was made clear because India and its archives emphasize that Hindu women have been seen as pure and clean throughout history. The archives change the way that India is seen and understood by civilians and authors such as Ghosh. After reading Ghosh’s article, it became clear that archives can threaten the respectability and pure reputation of a nation. This explains why many have fought to guarantee that that respectability and reputation of a nation will never be tarnished even if it means that a part of its history must be omitted.
“What is an Archive”, written by Jennifer S. Mulligan, explains that archives contain foundational narratives, which can vary and cause central tensions within a state. The author focuses on discussing the relationship between a state and a society and how an archive can connect the two, while promoting national memory and identity if done correctly. Mulligan uses the Archives nationales of France as an example of how the archives can hold a large amount of power and authority. This article makes it clear that throughout history, the relationship between a state and its archive has been held closely.
Although Dickinson College is the first college that was founded in the United States after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, I do not feel that the archives here at Dickinson could also be connected to the building of a nation. I feel that all archives connected to the building of a nation should have a connection to a large number of people while having an extensive amount of articles and artifacts. If Dickinson had more of an international history and a larger connection to other signers of the Declaration of Independence, I could see the college archives being connected to the building of a nation. It is necessary to understand that the archives at Dickinson College are extremely important to the students on campus and to students on the campuses of other colleges and universities across the nation.
After reading The Daughter of Time, it becomes clear that there are many similarities between being a detective and being a historian. These similarities include the shared idea that history is an account of everything that has occurred including actions and events while searching through literature, lectures, and film. Both a historian and detective must also rely on records or artifacts in order to gather enough information on the past and reconstruct. History is often described as a reconstruction and the act of selecting, analyzing, and writing about the past. This becomes clear in the novel when protagonist Alan Grant decides to research the historical mystery of King Richard III. Grant decides to pursue this mystery because, after first reading about King Richard III, he is intrigued by his photograph. By the end of the novel, the audience sees Grant embody a detective. Throughout the novel, Grant also researches other events that happened around the same time period of his subject and found the case of the Princes in the Tower. At that section of The Daughter of Time, it became clear that a historian and detective must be familiar with other events that have similarities with the subject at hand because that can add additional clues in explaining the actions or outcomes of their subject.
The detection method is often compared to the historical method because detectives and historians must gather facts from unreliable sources and create their own account of what happened, who was involved, and what the outcome was. One difference between detection and history is that detectives handle incidents that occurred in the recent past while historians gather information from a much larger time frame. This is an important factor because detectives can work with crime scenes, which they use as evidence. Historians rely more on artifacts including books and previous accounts to help them get to a conclusion. The most important difference between the detective and historian method is that historians draw conclusions from an event that happened in one time period and will compare it to other historical eras in history in order to gain additional insight while detectives move from case to case individually, sometimes citing previous cases. The detection and historical methods are often compared because both methods have similar definitions and utilize the same strategies to reconstruct events that happened in the past.