Author: goldbesa

Week 7

October 13, 2015 / goldbesa / 0 Comments

Gross’ Neighbors and Pawlikowski’s Ida both examine the legacy of the horrors of the Holocaust in Poland, albeit in different ways. In the film, Ida and her aunt look back twenty years after the massacre of Polish Jews to determine the fate of Ida’s family. Ida and Wanda must act like historians, pursuing the testimony of her parent’s neighbors and examining these primary sources critically for bias and incentive. Similarly, Gross performs a more traditional historical analysis as he too pursues court documents and other remnants of this era to discover the true role of the Polish in these massacres.

It is helpful to use some of Gaddis’s concepts in The Landscape of History to compare these two works. Neighbors and Ida demonstrate the concept of self-similarity across scale; although Gross is looking at an entire town and Pawlikowski’s focus is on a single family, the incentives and behaviors at play are very similar. While the book has a much larger scale, the two function as complements because a greater understanding of the individual experience is crucial to making sense of the larger phenomenon. Similarly, the context of the largely phenomenon is an important part of understanding the significance of these small-scale stories. While the message and research behind Ida and Neighbors may differ on the surface, both are historical accounts of the same historical period that reach parallel conclusions.

Week 6 Reflection

October 7, 2015 / goldbesa / 0 Comments

John Lewis Gaddis’ The Landscape of History reads like a vindication of the discipline itself, a retort to the arrogance of other academic pursuits that deride historical research for its lack of definitive methodology. Gaddis’s defense is most interesting when he compares the methodology of the disciplines across subject matter. His scathing review of the social sciences posits that these disciplines suffered from methodological fallacies that consequently discredit many of their conclusions. Social sciences aim for the scientific research ideals of an earlier era, when the discovery of set natural laws were the ultimate goal. Consequently, the social sciences use reductionist methods to isolate independent variables and draw definitive causal conclusions. The prioritization of theory over reality therefore distances their representations from what actually occurs in real life. In contrast, the modern hard sciences have embraced a new understanding of chaos and complex reality, analyzing rather than obscuring when data does not fit into neat parameters. For Gaddis, the virtual laboratory of non-replicable hard sciences is most similar to the methodologies of historical research; the generalization of particular realities found in the social science therefore serves as a foil to Gaddis’ discipline.

I found these comparisons particularly insightful because my own academic experiences allowed me to draw comparisons between the disciplines. At a liberal arts college like Dickinson, almost all students come into contact with a variety of discipline-specific practices; as someone who almost majored in political science, Gaddis’ scathing review of this department’s methodology was useful for understanding the differences between these two very separate academic worlds. While I had previously thought of my political science courses as perhaps most similar to my history courses, I now see new parallels between history and the classes I took in the environmental science department. As Gaddis points out, the non-replicable representations of complex, multicausal worlds is true of both subjects, despite their very different topics.

Week 4

September 24, 2015 / goldbesa / 0 Comments

While my approach towards research varies by topic and assignment, the methodologies I have developed are largely intentional. If I do not know much about a subject, my first strategy is to use a search engine like Google to gain some basic contextual knowledge. While most of this information is not necessarily academic-quality, it allows me to develop keywords to search for in the next step of the process. After I feel that I have an adequate understanding of the scope of my research, I use this knowledge to search for information in the Library database as well as online resources like JSTOR, MUSE and Google Scholar. These searches allow me to understand what arguments have been made about the topic, as well as get a handle on any major disagreements or dialogues in the field. While I will cite the scholarly academic sources I find from these steps, I then also use the footnotes of these works to find primary source materials.

While the reading in the workbook was mostly review, the questions for critiquing primary sources were very usefully articulated. Often by the times I have found primary sources, I do not necessarily use external and internal criticisms necessary to determine its authenticity, bias and relevancy. As we do further research with primary sources in the archives, I will definitely use these questions to better my research habits.

The Archives and Nationalist Narratives

September 16, 2015 / goldbesa / 0 Comments

In their selection and preservation of certain documents over others, archivists act as the gatekeepers of history. As these individuals determine which records are worth keeping, they must judge what will be of historical value. While certain standards apply, archivist’s judgments are still subject to bias. Because archivists are naturally more likely to collect and promote the documents that support their familiar and comfortable narratives, they foster the telling of a history that is shaped by nationalist principles. By limiting the histories that can be told in their regulation of source material, archivists produce and restrict the creation of national ideals and myths.

Ghosh illustrates the impact of these archivist biases as she recounts the dissimilar attitudes of British and Indian archivists. In the Indian archives, Ghosh’s exploration of interracial relationship between Hindu and British colonists provoked condescension and disgust. Her line of research challenged a cultural identity of purity among Hindu women and was consequently poorly received by the archivists, who directed her towards scant collections of historical novels and unorganized records. In contrast, her research in the British archives prompted positive reactions from her English colleagues, who were happy to subscribe to a cultural narrative of familial harmony and multiculturalism during colonization, rather than oppression. Consequently, British archivists led Ghosh in a starkly different direction than their Indian peers. Ghosh’s experience in the archives reveals how the nationalist biases of archivists affects the quality and type of research materials available to historians, and thus shapes national historical narratives without necessarily producing formal history.

Milligan similarly emphasizes the importance of an archive to the national interest, explaining that the purpose and use of an archive reflects the social contract of democracy by giving access to knowledge to the public. Examining the history of the Archives Nationales in France, Milligan demonstrates how the institution has served as both an instrument of changing governments and also as a mirror of political ideals in flux. For example, the case of the duc de Praslin forced archivists to weigh ideals of the public good versus the rights of private interest. Their decision to preserve even controversial material like the court documents from this particular scandalous case set a precedent for the values system of the nation’s government. The weight of this decision shows the potential power of Archives even in the present day for shaping the nation and its cultural and political ideals.

While Ghosh and Milligan are writing about national archives, even a more locally based archive like the collections at Dickinson can help create a nation. By choosing which donations go through the process of being inventoried and preserved, by organizing certain items together as collections, and by displaying some portions of their vast materials in public, Archivists shape cultural narratives in their choices. The materials we find in our Archives therefore represent the vision of the Archivists for the nation, and for the more local community. For example, the Archives houses an extensive collection of documents and materials from the LGBT community in Central Pennsylvania. In their decision to dedicate their time to preserving these materials and granting them valuable shelf space in the stacks, they assert that the voices of these individuals are worth highlighting. The elevation of some voices over others therefore helps shape the ideals and narratives that form our country and community.

Detection and Historical Research

September 9, 2015 / goldbesa / 0 Comments

Reflection by Sarah Goldberg

As Scotland Yard inspector Alan Grant investigates the slanderous murder accusations launched against Richard III in The Daughter of Time, his inquiry into the past blends historical and detection methodology. Borrowing from his own professional background and collaborating with a historical researcher, the bedridden detective seamlessly fuses the disciplines in his rehabilitation of the maligned king. In many ways, this methodological conflation seems like a natural combination: both detectives and historians examine the past to recreate actions, illuminate patterns, uncover motives, and ultimately present a version of events. Moreover, the two disciplines rely on similar tools. Just as historians use primary source documents, detectives also build their narratives off written records from the time in question, as well as first-hand accounts from eyewitnesses. Both forms of research also require intentional source criticism, acknowledging the inherent biases of reporting. Crime scene analysis draws further parallels with the practices of historical materialism; just as a historian might draw conclusions about ancient societies from objects found in an archeological dig, detectives must look for objects as clues to a bigger picture. Detective work also faces many of the same pitfalls as historical research. As subjective investigators, the recreation of the past necessarily reflects a historian or detective’s biases. Grant’s amalgam of detective and historical research reflects the many similarities between the two disciplines.

However, while the investigator’s blending of these methods might have allowed him to uncover a centuries-old conspiracy, the process of thinking like a historian and thinking like a detective is hardly interchangeable. In his line of work at the Scotland Yard, Grant must use limited evidence to uncover an absolute truth, proving that his recreations of the past are the sole objective facts in a court of law. In contrast, historical research takes an infinite number of data points and seeks to generate a novel interpretation of the past. Historical narratives are inherently inadequate, and thus historians contribute to a collaborative dialogue about the recreation of the past. Arguments equally supported by evidence can diverge into conflicting perspectives, as historians work with not only primary but also secondary sources (a tool reduced to “hearsay” in the world of detective work). In historical research, complexity in cause and motive is a staple of a reasoned argument, acknowledging that human motive especially on an institutional and social scale is varied. In detection, investigators seek out simplicity and clarity, a feat far more achievable with a focus on the individual. While Investigator Grant employs some historical research techniques in his own analysis, his disgust with historian’s interpretive efforts and desire to land on a singular truth reveal his loyalty to methods of detection. While historical research and detective work both collect clues in search of a narrative of the past, the disciplines ultimately diverge in their fundamental objectives.