how have different historians approached the question of of objectivity and evidence in historical practice
- Created by: Gracelynne
- Created on: 29-05-24 10:51
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- how have different historical thinkers approached the question of 'objectivity' and 'evidence' in historical practice?
- rocks < 3
- a different way of approaching evidence
- particularly important to recognise the interrelation between human and nonhuman things - Donna Haraway 42
- peak document - that the utility from written research has ended - shows africanisation of hsitory bcos aDNA = learning about cultures with less doc, help illuminate undocumented areas of the world e.g. LiDAR and lookinig at teeth etc - JR McNeill pgs 5-8
- "to reconstruct the past from rocks rather than written records" - 2 - "we are often told how technology will revolutionize the future. I wonder how it will revolutionize the past" - JR McNeill - 3
- to learn about the more distant past: aDNA and an analysis on where the black death originated, graves from the spanish civil war, archaelogists, - JR McNeill - 9
- "As we historians often point out, texts are likelier to offer the voices of the powerful than the powerless" - McNeill -11
- to learn about the more distant past: aDNA and an analysis on where the black death originated, graves from the spanish civil war, archaelogists, - JR McNeill - 9
- "to reconstruct the past from rocks rather than written records" - 2 - "we are often told how technology will revolutionize the future. I wonder how it will revolutionize the past" - JR McNeill - 3
- a different way of approaching evidence
- ranke and 19th century thinkers
- Bonnie G Smith - authenticity and rigidity 1150
- an emphasis on methods - objective - seminars and fact collecting, investigating primary evidence
- a focus on the archives and facts bcos science and want professionalisation - Bury - to distinguish history as its own discipline - BURY
- "scienticity was the hallmark of the modern and the authoritative" - Peter Novick - 21
- an emphasis on methods - objective - seminars and fact collecting, investigating primary evidence
- "she is herself simply a science,, no less and no more" - Bury 42
- he claims that no historians' primary aim was not to present an objective account of the past - Bury inaugral lecture - pg10 (no longer true?! - links to Hartman)
- Ranke: a belief in a single verifiable version of the past, doesn't like narrative at the expense of facts (wk2 lecture notes)
- "wie es eigentlich gewesen" - a strict reconstruction of the past through a critical examination of the facts without moral judgements - Georg G Iggers - 43. a strict presentation of the facts - but eurocentricism - 48
- Bonnie G Smith - authenticity and rigidity 1150
- move beyond evidence and objectivity
- saidiya hartman
- counterfactual history to address gaps in the archives - Lose Your Mother - the 'Dead Book'
- "to save the girl... from oblivion" pg9
- isaiah berlin - history deals with facts but when deductive science not enough, need to be inductive - filling in the gaps "in the absence of concrete factual evidence" - 7
- Alun Munslow pg63 -> “This means that history is always the end product of the historian’s selection of evidence and choice of appropriate sources” - inferences from evidence available - 66 (means an increasing recognition of the role of fact selection has)
- saidiya hartman
- INTRO: during the professionalisation of history as a discipline, emphasis on science for cudos etc - largely relying on documents and primary evidence to supposedly reach objective answers
- however, no longer that simple - a recognition that objectivity and evidence - in the form of documents - not necessarily the best way to approach history. will firstly analyse 19th c focus on facts and evidence, then use of rocks etc, then a move beyond objectivity all together - seeing faults in the archives
- objectivity at the expense of diversity and inclusivity? - and what kind of objectivity - from the archives - colonial and eurocentric
- rocks < 3
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