The overwhelming body of written stuff [I want to read]

 My curiosity often seems fairly boundless to me.  There are so many things I want to explore and I never will have time to read even a quarter of it.  My interests are pretty wide: various fields of science, current events, virtually every location and era of history, and countless tales, fables, stories, and poems all fascinate me.  Every day could be filled with reading the various articles of interest from my Twitter feed alone.  I could very literally spend an entire day reading through it.

It would help if I read faster than I do–it would have helped in grad school, too.  But, puzzlingly, I am not particularly speedy when reading the written word.  Sometimes I get bogged down in hard thinking over the reading, or thumbing through the filing cabinet of my brain seeking a dialogue with some other text (or several) that my current subject provokes.  That latter scenario is often when additional texts, articles and notes start piling up around me at my desk and next to the couch, on the night stand and on the already stocked shelves an arm’s length from my side of the bed.  The former scenario usually leads to mad scribbling in various journals–maybe its the journal I use for possible projects, maybe its the more personal journal in which I record my more personal thoughts.

This extensive curiosity is one major reason why I stopped at the Masters of Arts in history, unsure of how to proceed to a dissertation that would focus my energies  for a number of years on one particular problem–completion of my Ph.D. seemed unlikely to occur in an acceptable time period.  It is also why freelancing was so appealing, I could work on longer projects that require long-term focus, but pick up smaller projects of other interests along the way.  Ideal really.  (Homeschooling my daughter has ended up filling in most of those smaller projects for the time being, but we don’t plan on homeschooling her for college, too.)

Another challenge I have is the cultural literacy I have developed that has given me access to many stories despite the fact that  I haven’t read all of them.  To this day, I cannot remember if I have read Romeo and Juliet in its entirety, from start to finish, or if I have only read various excerpts and seen it a hundred times in a hundred ways–I can probably quote more lines from it than any other of Shakespeare’s plays, but I am still not certain I ever read it.  I still haven’t seen Hitchcock’s Pyscho on a related note, because I already know the plot and have seen the most famous scenes from the movie.  It’s not my intention to avoid these classics–quite the opposite I assure you–but it is difficult to prioritize my reading when there is such a long list and such tall piles waiting for me.

When it is time to start a new book or story, I often suffer from option paralysis because the stacks are so many.  Not only that, but I often try to “schedule” reading certain books before others when I know that there is an open dialogue between texts A and B, and the author of B largely relies upon the fact that I, the reader, have already read A.  Plus, there is the self-experienced truism that many of the greatest works offer something more in each new reading, and I hate not returning to the great works.

It really isn’t a bad problem to have, but sometimes I get a little depressed when I consider just how few of the many books, articles and papers I want to read will actually be read.  As a historian, my work is reading and writing.  I just finished explaining to my students in the 101 history course I am teaching this semester that a historian wants to consult as many sources as possible to engage a particular event and really understand and interpret it.  This is much easier to say in a 101 course, for which we have so comparatively few sources and the authors’ existing canon is fairly limited and well-known by comparison with the early modern era and the increasing proliferation of sources, expanding with increased literacy and technology.  Even comparing a research project of the American Revolution with one of the Norman Conquest reveals a laughable gap in the available sources, though knowledge of Latin is far less necessary for the Americans.

This holiday season, I will be traveling–hours in a car and in a plane mean I will get some reading done, but not a ton.  It also means I will, much to my pleasure, acquire more than a handful of new reading materials, both as gifts for the holidays and as the result of my travels.  In other words, my list will only grow.  That’s ok.  If nothing else, it means I should never be bored, and I always have something to look forward to as  I get tied up in one project or another, building book castles all around my abode.  Although, I will always be grateful that I live in the 21st century and am thus not likely to become a historian of the era and all the many, many multi-media sources it will produce!

History vs. Journalism, a problem with sources

Where have all the reliable sources gone?

I love reading a well-written piece in magazines such as the Smithsonian.  These cultural catch-alls are entertaining and usually skillfully crafted prose, often adorned with fantastic photography or artwork.  Still they are not written from an academic perspective, nor typically for an academic audience.  The sources are frequently limiting in their perspective and infrequently fully disclosed.  As a historian I read many pieces with a certain sense of frustration, usually related to the author’s method.  (As a high school student, I recall being particularly fired up after reading a National Geographic article on Ibn Battuta, the African Muslim traveler who covered way more turf and sand than Marco Polo, but NO sources were provided.)  I am not entirely sure how this is played out for other academic fields, but in the field of history there are demands for disclosure of one’s sources that are not required of journalists–in fact, journalistic codes often require just the opposite: protection of one’s sources.

An "Indelible Image" in Smithsonian Magazine, a regular edition that typically interviews the individuals in the photo and the photographer about the picture.

A few years ago, I sat in the Dirkson cafeteria on capitol hill with a fellow colleague of the Close Up Foundation.  He was also working part time at one of the big box book stores and taking advantage of a book loan program they had for their employees.  Sadly, I cannot recall the title or author of the particular book he was reading, but I do recall that it was about the Bush administration’s decision to go to war.  When I asked him about it, he said it was rather odd: it was written by a journalist and had sections of dialogue in it.  Actually, it was like a running transcript of a discussion supposedly held in the Oval Office by Bush with Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell.  According to my friend, there was no citation or explanation about where the script came from.  WHAT??!?  Don’t you have to at least tell me that you got it from a source you can’t tell me about?

Admittedly, journalism has changed–look at what I’m doing; journalists do it, too–but, the whole approach was always different from history.  If journalism requires investigations into current politicians, corporate heads and international politics, than sources need to be protected so that they may speak freely.  That is the theory, anyway.  I respect that, although, when the news contradicts itself as much as it does, today, it is really hard to know what is actually happening.  Historians do not need to worry so much about their sources feeling reprisal since all parties are often dead.  In fact, it is quite the opposite approach.  Everyone should have access to the source!  As I read a historian’s work I am not only at liberty to check his interpretation against the sources he used, but am encouraged to follow his sources to develop my own theories and ideas and build on our current understanding.  This is an essential feature of  the field.  It is frequently not possible with journalistic writing.  When I would desire to check a random assertion, I am left without a footnote and my only recourse is to see what others have published.  It is often difficult to get to the primary sources, because no one wants to divulge them.  All I can do is trust the journalist’s integrity and judgement!

Journalists forgetting their press badges are not "backstage passes."

It is thus difficult to do one’s due diligence.  We have an undesirable situation compounded with the withering of the newsprint industry.  Instead of reading a lengthy story with explanations and a trail building to a conclusion, most people have chosen short blurbs on TV media or snappy online sources.  I tend to ignore tweeted news without an article attached to it.

Twitter killed the newspaper star?

That explains my frustration with current news media, but it also explains one’s irritation when reading journalist-written histories.  The training creates significantly different products from a journalist than it would from a historian, but it often gets read more, promoted more and discussed more outside of academic circles.  To add insult to injury, journalists with insufficient knowledge or training often review academic history works in popular publications.  What a mess!  I don’t really have it in for journalists, but I do get frustrated with them–they aren’t historians, but they sometimes play historians in the media!

A metaphor to explain what historians do

An Introduction for history classes

Each week when I teach Western Civilization 101 or 102, I pair a question with the material for that week’s unit.  This question is designed to introduce students to the field of history using that week’s content as a way to teach how historians do their thing, as a way to drive the methodology point home.  (I do this both to introduce students to historical method and to introduce students to the fallibility and controversy of the field–something lost in most history textbooks, museums and documentaries, but useful for citizens in the U.S. where there is an information overload.)  For example, in the week we study the Greeks, I ask, “What are a historian’s sources?”  Thus, I can introduce the literate society of the Greeks that recorded earlier oral tradition and really introduced history, drama, philosophy and political discourse to Western Civilization.  In so doing, it is also possible to introduce the methods historians apply to these different primary sources types.

I begin with this concept on day 1, where I introduce the course with the question, “What is history?”  The purpose being to introduce methodology to separate history from other studies of the past.  We read a brief excerpt from Sam Wineburg (Historical Thinking) about the importance of studying history, in an ever-shrinking world, where one is taught the skills to recognize that the context of a document may be foreign and require research and careful consideration ahead of assumptions.  (Note:  Whether Wineburg is read in class actually depends on the class format–it is hard to fit him into a 50 minute class!)  We also read a brief excerpt from Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier’s From Reliable Sources in which they explain that history is something people write about the past–it is constructed and requires reliable sources to be reliable, itself.  This is the point where I generally introduce a metaphor to help students understand what a historian does and what those sources are.

The Detective

Today, on TV you can watch fictional detectives at work every night: NCIS, CSI, Law & Order, Castle, Criminal Minds, Cold Case, Bones, etc.  The popularity of these shows has contributed to reality TV shows and regular shows dedicated to following actual criminal cases.  So, people, including our students, are acquainted with the methods (more or less) by which detectives collect evidence to build a case against criminals.  Using this fairly common “knowledge”, I set up some comparisons to explain how historians do their research, such as seeking clues from witnesses by reading primary sources.

DETECTIVE WORK

• Investigation
• Crimes
• Interview witnesses
• Training and experiences
• Evidence
  • Clues
  • Observation

HISTORY RESEARCH

• Research
• Questions
• Read primary sources
• Secondary sources
• Evidence
  • Realia
  • Names, geography
  • Events

The Prosecutor

Just as detectives investigate in order to build a case for the prosecution (or Matlock!), so, too, do historians investigate in order to build a case for a paper or book.  So, where the historian’s research is to detective work, the historian’s written argument is to the prosecutor’s court case.  The publication, the written case, is the presentation of the evidence that has been gathered to convince a jury of one’s peers about what actually happened, and why one’s sources are most reliable and should be considered in a certain light.  It is remarkably similar to the process the prosecutor follows–even needing to consider other points of view and address critics, just as the prosecutor must do with the defendant’s case.

PROSECUTOR’S CASE

• Opening statement
• Interviewing witnesses on the stand
• Presentation of physical evidence in exhibits
• Closing statements
• Oral arguments
• Rebutting the defense’s case

HISTORY ARGUMENT

• Introduction
• Citing primary sources in your text
• Citing archaeological evidence
• Conclusion
• Written arguments
• Taking into account critics and opposing view points

The Workshop

For each week we spend a class (or in accelerated courses and once-a-week courses, a portion of class) working specifically on the content that helps demonstrate the point that the question is teaching.  This typically means looking at specific primary or secondary sources.  For example, in Week 3 of Western Civilization 101, the question, “Is research the story of the victors/elite?” is asked.  This week’s content is Egypt and to a lesser extent the Hittites.  When considering this question, we look at the monumental evidence left behind by the Egyptians–covering a general history of the culture.  The homework includes reading excerpts from The Book of the Dead, so we discuss the Egyptian afterlife.  The PowerPoint ends with a look at the archaeology of the tombs and worker cities built around the tombs.  The rest of the week, the content continues to circle back to this question and demonstrates how the losers and lower strata of society can be found and accessed by historians (and archaeologists, too), while also showing that it takes a slightly different approach in order to get there.  This helps to provide some context for the students so they can try their hand at some of the detective work.

The Practicum

The practicum is either done on Wednesday, or in the middle of class (again, depending on format).  This portion of class is dedicated to working with sources to investigate a particular aspect of the culture.  It is a specific attempt to get students to try their hand at the detective work.  We will often draw up outlines, initially as a class and later in small groups, to begin practicing building and presenting a case.

The Discussion

The week ends with a discussion that, it is hoped, will help students retain and be more capable with the skills and content that historians use and learn.  It is the opportunity for students to practice being the prosecutor, often by presenting cases that were built in small groups during the practicum and other times discussing and debating controversies.

* * *

An additional wrinkle that I will be testing this semester is a homework assignment to bring in three documents.  The point is to try this detective work with a familiar context and to get to know each other a little better.  Examples of appropriate material includes a birthday card from a relative, a certificate of achievement, an e-mail or a to-do list.  (If you try this, be sure to also be very clear about what is not appropriate for the assignment.)  The metaphor, thus, introduces concepts of historical method in a recognizable way that is reinforced weekly.