For those who are engaged in the writing of history a preliminary consideration makes it important to approach the task with an eye cast on the topic to be chosen and an awareness of how and where the soon published work will 'fit' within the body of published works. The second, historiographic issue bears with it a question of responsibility that some historians often overlook or pay only cursory attention to. Still others, accept a sense of historiographic 'placement' yet do so with an ancillary question of responsibility; how important is their responsibility and to what degree should the historiographic obligation be? Is it a trivial duty superseded by the topic and argumentation of the writer because it is for all intents a matter of the historian's interests. And if this course should be chosen and the historian becomes more of a writer in that s/he produces a work that fits squarely within the confines of accepted knowledge instead of representing a fresh or innovative text that extends the established doctrine into an area that few if any readers and practitioners of history have little or any understanding of? Is it just in the end a matter of meeting publication requirements for someones CV?
In other words, are the topical interests of the historian sacrosanct when viewed against the backdrop of history as a professional body that operates within a defined set of historiographical principles. The question of a community of historians having the authority to oversee topical distinctions thus taking those criteria away from individual historians working an assumption of what is simply interesting. A group think approach would point directly at an assumption of responsibility that could go so far as to point out an obligation raised by historiography that would make it incumbent upon authors to provide historiographic justification for their work.
It could also be argued, apart from the 'dictatorial powers' gained by historians as a community over an individual historian, that such a proposition would introduce a new and valuable sense of vigorous critiques and force new standards of fairness of the critical exchanges to be established which would reign in uncontrollable unprofessionalism and introduce a new civility in historiographical debates based on a welcomed critical sensibility.
The most obvious problems with such a 'standardized' approach would be to take history writing from the masses and further embed it within a specialized and separate body of individuals who would be answerable to no one but themselves that would create an elitist approach to the dissemination of history. What would become of public histories based on the interviews obtained from common individuals relating their own experiences as demonstrated by the fairly recent growth of oral histories and their attendant broadening of the scope of collected history from a bottom up perspective? Gone would be any possibility for history to be gained from a non-elitist perspective from the unprofessionally sanctioned and lowest members of society.
The professional historian, with considerations of historiography dominating his approach to history is professionally bound to consider establishing the ideal of establishing and maintaining historiographical balance, which takes into consideration the task of historiography viewed through the contributions of individual historical works to communicate important issues or questions. These issues or questions have endless potential. Such an extensive set of issues and questions necessitates a vigorous and ongoing historiographical interplay of possibilities to segment the issues and questions that historiography is intended to address by determining the proportion of what issues and questions would merit future attention. So in the end, it is criticism that determines which approaches to research and writing that address the needs of historiography.
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