Author: leonarde

Ida and Neighbors are arguably both complimentary and stand alone pieces. As compliments of each other, Ida’s story continues the timeline of events initiated in the story told in Neighbors. While Neighbors directly, and sometimes gruesomely educates readers of the physical horrors and torture that Jewish population at Jedwabne experienced, Ida follows up on the story and reveals to viewers that event’s aftermath did not end when the flames died out or last cries of victims’ agony were heard. By the end of the film, Ida is caught between two worlds; conflicted between a life with and without her nun’s habit. She staggers between two identities, one she once recognized without question, and other she never before contemplated. Neighbors’ Poles are arguably morphed to inflictors of violence that they most likely once did not want to be. Ida’s Feliks, once a murderous Pole, lives a relatively hidden and quiet life, but when Wanda, Ida’s aunt, seeks him out and reminds him of his violent past, he crumbles as well. Both Ida and Neighbors tell stories of individuals’ psychological and physical torment surrounding the events and aftermath of 1940s Poland.

Although Ida’s story focuses on the turmoil that ancestors of Jewish lost loved ones in World War II face, Ida’s personal story and journey throughout the film, involves both an identity epiphany and crisis. Anna, happily soon to be Catholic nun, suddenly becomes Ida a Jewish survivor of Polish violence in the Second World War. Naively happy in the convent, Ida’s world is suddenly shaken and stirred by her alcoholic, chain smoking aunt Wanda; a once famous prosecutor. After Wanda’s death, Ida takes pause and removes her nun’s habit for a night, experiencing what life would be like without a vow to God, but a vow to a husband and family (her epiphany that happiness does not have to come from a lifelong commitment to God). However, in the end, Ida dons the habit once again, but is no longer the same. Now caught between religious and secular, devout and sinful, Catholic and Jewish, Ida walks jarringly towards an unsatisfying life, cut off from the outside world and all the pain, but also love that it has to offer. Ida is between black and white, one life or the other, but are either of those lives as simple as black or white? What happens if to those that have experienced both worlds, like Ida; how are they went to chose one without ever being reminded of or tempted by the other?

Gaddis proposed several different ways to view history, whether it is the recognition that there is never a single independent variable in historical study, or a single cause of a war or catastrophe, social movement or triumph in history. The rule of thumb not to look to the future to understand history, or use history to definitively predict the future is another way we can “see” history.

Gaddis’ use of Friedrich’s painting, The Wanderer above a Sea of Fog, and Shakespeare In Love’s Viola are the metaphors he uses to explain historical study that stood out the most to me. Interpreting a piece of artwork, or predicting what lies in someone’s future relies on the same strategies as when analyzing a historical artifact. You can ask, what is the context? Why did the creator choice to create the piece that they did? What has the piece come to symbolize? All of it is a bit of a guessing game, with more than one answer. However, artistic interpretation, rather than scientific conclusion is what Gaddis suggests is the sound way to analyze history. And if history is meant to be approached with interpretation rather than by conclusion, than “seeing like a historian” means that there must be several different lenses to aid vision. For, no two historians are going to see exactly alike, just like one viewer may be watching Viola walk towards her future, or the wanderer brace for what is to come, another may be see her in the past, or the wanderer survey one last time, the land he has already conquered.

As someone who is drawn to art more than science, I find Gaddis’ use of art as metaphors particularly useful as an approach to my own analysis and study of history. I have noticed that during the past several weeks working with an Dickinson Archives collection that I have used a similar interpretative approach without realizing it until now, as I reflect on Gaddis’ thoughts.

Whenever I begin a research project, I tend to follow some first key steps in the research process every time. At first, I start with a general search engine, such as Google, and usually read up on the topics Wikipedia page for a general review of what I’m going to be researching (keeping in mind that Wikipedia comes with its flaws and mistakes now and then). Then I turn my focus to databases. Before beginning to search on the topic, I brainstorm several key words and phrases that I think may lead me in the right researching direction. As I find articles that work well with my focus, I look for the keywords section, often placed above the article, to see which words the author designated to represent and bring a basic definition to the article’s topic. When I come across a bigger concept or topic, especially if I find it mentioned in several articles, I will add that to my search to see how the secondary concept applies to my research. In the past this has helped me broaden my search, and I have been more successful in finding primary and secondary sources that address my topic.

The workbook outlined the difference between primary and secondary sources, and also gave several examples of primary sources that may side closer to being secondary sources then originally thought. For example, autobiographies, and often memoirs, can be considered primary sources because the person that they are about writes them. However, the author’s hazy memory, or reliance on friends and family to remember stories and the past, can take away from a single author’s voice being represented.

The workbook also discussed the complications that arise when making inferences about primary and secondary sources. I began to see how skeptically I needed to approach a source after doing the exercise in class where we debated the actual birth date of Benjamin Rush. This past week, while completing the exercises, I found myself picking apart each of the sources more and more because I felt that I couldn’t really be certain about any of them. During the one exercise of having to choose who I thought fired the first shots of the Revolution, I found myself trying to justify my answer by the number of American v. British sources, and other rudimentary details, but then stopping myself midway, realizing those were tendencies that would lead to a poor interpretation of the evidence. Instead, I now know to look at the author and his or her credentials, their connection to the topic, when they wrote and their choice of references. Although I am far from mastering the art of interpreting evidence, I feel that I have gained many tools and tips to improve my skills.

Archives, and the countless documents they hold can be considered the remains of the physical foundations of a nations history. Archival evidence is arguably the most well kept archaeological evidence of the past. But is it the most honest? Paleontologists who uncover bones and fossils are the first people to touch the artifacts for years; their bare hands don’t disorient the evidence until the evidence surfaces for the first time. However, as historians uncover artifacts in an archive, they lay their hands on documents and papers that have been sorted through and filed away by others before them who have sorted through and organized the evidence with more subjective viewpoints. Archivists, as organizers of history, are just as much the deciders of history as the historians that choose what they want to write about and how they want to frame it. Ghosh, in her piece, National Narratives and the Politics of Miscegenation, points this out in her comparison of the archives in Britain to the archives in India. The Indian archive attained bundle of unorganized documents that were unwanted by the British archives. Ironically, it was in these documents that Ghosh eventually found the evidence that she was searching for to complete her research.

As Milligan pointed out in her piece, “What is an Archive,” archives have limited power in telling the stories of history. Milligan’s focus on the debate between burning papers to quell a private family’s concerns or to protect papers in the interests of the archive and public access demonstrates how history can become more molded to the walls of an archive than we realize. In this specific case, the papers were protected and kept safe for future public access. In how many other cases though, were important papers disposed of upon personal and private requests? Milligan’s anecdote cites another example of how the actions taken by archivists have direct effects on the history that is told, remembered and tangible in a nation.

Dickinson’s story begins amidst the story of colonial America and the birth of the nation. It’s close proximity to key cities such as Philadelphia make for an interesting analysis of the college’s archives. Did Dickinson’s location influence what kinds of evidence were stored and how they were stored in the Dickinson archives? For instance, how was the history of the college’s beginnings organized? What is John Dickinson’s presence like within the archives? What is the presence of Native Americans who attended the Carlisle Indian School like? Perhaps story of our nation’s beginning that we recite today is missing a few chapters, or is longwinded at telling others. The answers to questions like these may add to our understanding of the relationships between archives and the histories we learn and teach today.