School of thought: Postmodern
Text: Critiquing conventional view of history
Scholars from same school (mentioned in the book): Hayden White, Michel Foucault, David Lowenthall, Lyotard
Summary:
Jenkins compellingly argues that the conventional view of history in academia is greatly flawed. Coming from a postmodernist school, Jenkins argues that there is no 'one' history, but there are many histories. Even well trained historians' methods when analyzed through postmodern methodologies reveal that no person can objectively write about the past. He terms history to be a narrative, or a collection of stories. he denies that there is anything called a historical fact, and argues that everything in history is fiction to varying degrees. History, for Jenkins, is a textual and linguistic construct. It is written by 'salaried' historians who narrate (make) histories as a part of their job. Since the gap between history and the past is ontological, there is no way for a historian to have any methodological objectivity, free of bias and prejudice. "History is always for someone. History always has a purpose. History is always about power."
"History is a shifting, problematic discourse, ostensibly about an aspect of the world, the past, that is produced by a group of present-minded workers (overwhelmingly in our culture salaried historians) who go about their work in mutually recognizable ways that are epistemologically, methodologically, ideologically and practically positioned and whose products, once in circulation, are subject to a series of uses and abuses that are logically infinite but which in actuality generally what history is 31 correspond to a range of power bases that exist at any given moment and which structure and distribute the meanings of histories along a dominant-marginal spectrum." (p.31)
Text: Critiquing conventional view of history
Scholars from same school (mentioned in the book): Hayden White, Michel Foucault, David Lowenthall, Lyotard
Summary:
Jenkins compellingly argues that the conventional view of history in academia is greatly flawed. Coming from a postmodernist school, Jenkins argues that there is no 'one' history, but there are many histories. Even well trained historians' methods when analyzed through postmodern methodologies reveal that no person can objectively write about the past. He terms history to be a narrative, or a collection of stories. he denies that there is anything called a historical fact, and argues that everything in history is fiction to varying degrees. History, for Jenkins, is a textual and linguistic construct. It is written by 'salaried' historians who narrate (make) histories as a part of their job. Since the gap between history and the past is ontological, there is no way for a historian to have any methodological objectivity, free of bias and prejudice. "History is always for someone. History always has a purpose. History is always about power."
"History is a shifting, problematic discourse, ostensibly about an aspect of the world, the past, that is produced by a group of present-minded workers (overwhelmingly in our culture salaried historians) who go about their work in mutually recognizable ways that are epistemologically, methodologically, ideologically and practically positioned and whose products, once in circulation, are subject to a series of uses and abuses that are logically infinite but which in actuality generally what history is 31 correspond to a range of power bases that exist at any given moment and which structure and distribute the meanings of histories along a dominant-marginal spectrum." (p.31)
No comments:
Post a Comment