History Bump

History has the ability to set us free—it prevents us from being simply manipulated by institutional versions of the past created in order to construct a model citizen who will work hard and question her lot only in ways that are socially acceptable and do not interfere with the status quo. In this sense, White’s frame is essential—the purpose of history is to challenge accepted versions of the past by re-reading voices that have been erased in the record, because they could not survive the alleged rigors of historical method. And we don’t do this because it is ‘nice.’ I’m thinking of J. Royster’s Traces of a Stream that at least some of you will have read. Royster presents African-American women rhetors of the 19th century. She fills in gaps and spaces in the historical record boldly with “imagination” (83). Such rereadings are able to challenge constructions such as ‘the cult of true womanhood,’ ‘Orientalism,’ and the ‘vanishing Indian’ that inform and distort present-day ‘common knowledge.’ I think that historiography always does have “immediate, contemporary application” intended or not. The high school textbook that we read in American history class, as if it is objective, comes to inform our un/sub/conscious worldview.

when i read this, i thought white was being facetious, was re-stating what he saw as someone else's question (schopenhauer & sartre) that he immediately proceeded to answer in the affirmative:

"the function of history...[is] to provide a specific temporal dimension to man's awareness of himself"; and the ultimate purpose of the "historical imagination" is to "provid[e] a ground...for the celebration of man's responsibility for his own fate" (48).

i thought of royster too, although gale beat me to the punch--i guess "imagination" is going to do that for us. of course there's a point... if we look at history only in terms of its present-ness, each present doing the looking is going to make of history nothing but a mirror for itself--and while it has value as that mirror, that's not enough.

When I read (and reread) this section, I interpreted White as being critical of Sartre and existentialism, which attempts to pull everything into the immediate, and if the immediacy of a thing isn't readily available, to discard it. History, at least the history that White locates from 1800-1850, seems to indicate something else altogether, "the ability to provide specific temporal dimension to man's awareness of himself" (48). The idea that there is a past, present, and future (temporality) is crucial to providing a sense of purpose to history. Some ideas are bound to the past (as Gale's example indicates), just as our interpretations are bound to the present and are directed toward shaping the future. I know, I know, it's a progress narrative, at least on the surface because I'm not willing to admit that we are using the past to make decisions in the present that will benefit our present or lay productive groundwork for the future. To sum up, White’s framework for history hinges on these ideas of temporality, which demonstrate “the fundamental fact of change and process,” as Goggin shows in her study of the undulations of editorial decisions in major scholarly journals (48).

When I think of history, what comes to mind is “public diary.” But it is not so much who reads it as it is who writes it that I have concerns. See, what one individual records at a specific time and place concerning an event or theory is not always written from a non-bias perspective, but when published, it becomes public knowledge (depending on who is able to access the work). Anyhow, reflecting on history allows us to chart a new course, and although we constantly create a present history, isn’t an event rendered historical only if it is written (via medium) or etched in the memory of those who were witness to the event? If no one is around to witness a tree falling, only when we see that it has fallen (or read about it falling), can we make assumptions about how it could have fallen.

LaFevre’s work, Invention as a Social Act was written based on information derived from historical documents (historical because they captured a moment that was either witnessed or theorized, but written). And because LaFevre was able to utilize history, she was able to compare past to present and affirm that rhetorical invention lives and thrives (even now) because of social input.

There seem to be several questions here, so let me begin with the specific question of studying history for its pastness. I think the value of such a study is to place history in its moment, and by that I mean to learn the lessons of that moment in the history produced, without immediately trying to superimpose the present and its structures on that period. I couldn't help thinking of Walter Benjamin and the "Angel of History" in reading White's account of the various philosophical and literary responses to history. I think an additional benefit of studying history for its pastness is that it allows a certain sense of distance from it, a way of being liberated from the "burden" that history will repeat itself or otherwise overdetemine the present or the future.

Having recognized the value of studying a moment in its moment, I also recognize that we must interpret history and apply it both to our present and to our efforts toward the future if there is to be any actual progress.

I agree with White—there is little reason to study history as a fixed and/or isolated event in the past (scientific), or even a neatly created (mythical) story with particular heroes and heroines. I am not even sure what kind of purpose that would serve, unless of course it would merely be to carry on the façade that we can objectively/scientifically capture facts as they occurred (according to a few people’s epistemological biases). The frame White suggests ties directly into my interests and notions of the purpose of history—to create multiple views of reality from the past to work towards a more ethical/democratic future. This view works incredibly well with Composition—a field which assumes a liberatory function, and yet, historically has silenced particular kinds of bodies and the alternative knowledges they construct.
Adam’s book begins to answer these questions of history insofar as it insists that those coming from a literary tradition need to re-vise their monolithic history (constructed through influential but not necessarily historical/archival texts) Adams creates a revisionary history to more sufficiently account for the vast numbers of women entering American colleges. Their experiences, according to Adams, pave the way for future professional women through collaboration. In addition, they worked to redefine the general category of what it meant to be a writer. It is important to note that her work has immediate and future implications—especially for feminist pedagogies. White would be delighted! (at least at her purposes—not too sure about her methods/methodologies, especially considering the tradition from which she writes).

For me, White's comment speaks to the heart of the methodological quandary inherent in history. We are in the present, and any history we read will be filtered through the narratives and biases of someone living in the present. So it seems that it is impossible to see history as a past-ness or a present-ness in isolation from the other. In other words, history , by the sheer nature of the fact that it is not immediate experience being articulated, will always be both present and past.

Once that recognition is made, it seems that the historian has two options: 1)the option of trying to highlight the past over the present by just reporting facts; or 2) presenting a history that proves itself cognizant of previous histories by challenging them or revealing what is missed. According to White, however, the historian can never really achieve either of these options cleanly because there is always that flow between past and present that seeps into the work. And that is the site that White is really interested in. The place where the past and present become indistinguishable because they are completely intertwined in the discourse created (or used) by the historian. And I do agree with White that this is the interesting place to look because of what it can reveal.

like tyra and gale, i thought of royster and logan and other revisionist histories that i've read. it's easy to question the usefulness of looking backwards when your experiences (past and present), your perceptions of the world have been used to contextualize, make sense of language, science, art, etc. for folks operating on various margins, the ability to look back and understand from whence they came is necessary for any forward movement. and since comp has also operated on the margin, can we afford not to look back, not to analyze our supposed break from english departments and contested divorce from rhetoric? i'm wondering can we even begin to analyze our "present-ness" without knowing our "past-ness?" and that move is complicated, too because, according to white, questions construct facts, right? facts do not exist and are not waiting to be discovered.

white believes that history has the potential to change. to use history as a tool for challenging categories of knowledge (royster and logan) is what white requires because "only a chaste historical consciousness can truly challenge the world anew every second, for only history mediates between what is and what men think ought to be with truly humanizing effect" (50). if we were doing a rhetorical analysis (like my WRT 205 students), we could look at white's language decisions and make other connections to how he sees and who he thinks makes history, but that's another conversation for another blog.

The thought that keeps haunting me regarding should we study "past-ness" as opposed to "presentness" is that different ideological structures shape and determine events, not only the historical event, but the ideological bias of the historian responsible for the recording. RESPONSIBLE seems to be a key word here. Yes, I think "past-ness" is important if we also keep in mind the ideology of the times and the times the historian is recording within... I am struck with how much the historian is not a machine, but a person with fallicies and prejudices, etc. that we can not possibly hope to know. There can never by an objective recorded history, as long as history is recorded through the human mind/ body. We can only hope to approach an echo, a shadow, some illusion of "truth". If we come to the table with this awareness, however, and recognize the multiple interpretations based on various forces, perhaps we can read history with more knowledge, more awareness, increased fairness.

Another thing that keeps coming to mind is the saying "we learn from our mistakes". How can we learn from our mistakes if we ground them only in a "present-ness" that doesn't try to understand the "past-ness" under which such mistakes occurred? Ideologies are stubborn and fluctuating. Unless, we try to get a handle on the beliefs that pervade society unchecked, we can expect the rape of women, hate crimes against homosexuals, the slavery of Blacks, the persecution of Jews and, from another perspective, terrorists acts against the United States. Getting a handle not only on history, but the ideological underground which shapes and informs it is essential if we are ever to rise above repeated mistakes which are assumed to be "human nature".

This selection makes me think of two things:

1. “History is bunk.” - Henry Ford via Mond in Brave New World

2. “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.” - Orwell (quite possibly by way of Rage Against the Machine)

Vanessa’s mention of “echoes and shadows” reminded me of Baudrillard and how our history might be seen as one big simulacrum. As White points out – and as many have elaborated here – our understanding of history hinges on our present condition. Thus, the simulacrum is constantly shifting insofar as we perceive the “facts” differently (or different facts).

Cutting to chase: The thing I think I wrestle with in Derek’s question is my personal sense of history. Can I trust myself (should I worry about) not to draw the “line” of history to meet my needs? Of course, all of this is done with this sort of pomo sense of hyper-self-awareness that says, “But we’re all doing it…”

Consolation comes from knowing that it is a construct and that the construct can be reformatted to better serve something more than personal desires.