thoughts on scholarship

In the last few weeks I've had to read (or skim) quite a lot of academic books written on various historical topics. What brings most of them together thematically is how poorly they're written. Most are composed of long paragraphs that argue nothing but quote extensively (sometimes multiple blocked quotes in a single paragraph) and list list list different things. They read like extensively annotated bibliographies, and often that's the most interesting thing about them: the primary sources they point to and, occasionally, other secondary sources. I've been surprised by how unconscious many of the writers are about their own methodology, the theory undergirding what they're doing, and how sparse their arguments are. Some of that might be surprising because most academic work I've read has been literary criticism or theory, and the argument is much more central there, theory much more common. Anyway, I suppose the quick retort is that I haven't accomplished anything good, so I should be quiet. Maybe so.

I did read an article by F.R. Ankersmit the other day, where Ankersmit was talking about over-production in history, and how historians need to stop investigating the past and start thinking about it. That's very appealing to me, even though uncovering new sources or discovering obscure sources also has its appeal.

other countries

First things first: due to demand, I've created an email address for my biographers. If you'd like to contribute to their efforts, please send images, stories, and memories to apm.biography@gmail.com. Your work will not go unnoticed.

I was reading earlier in an article on the heritage industry by Robert Hewison: "Steam is now safely part of the industrial heritage, let nuclear power adopt the same camouflage." This is something that's been on my mind lately, not so much energy, but the ways in which commodifying history hides the present, so that going on tours of 18th century prisons hides the presence of incarceration in our present states; touring Victorian warships disguises the ways in which the British (or American) military is being deployed around the world; displays of dead states hide the real and present states. This isn't my feeling about history as a discipline, not at all, but I do feel that way about the different exhibits I've gone to here. And I am really blind to the present, I have no idea about prisons and the justices or injustices that are taking place in them.

And yet I wonder if that's a fair dichotomy to make, between commodified and uncommodified history. If there's a history article, journal, or book that I'm reading, it's because its publication was considered to be economically beneficial. This isn't to say that the writers are making a ton of money, because they are certainly not except in rare cases, or even that publishers are necessarily making a ton of money (I'm guessing, but not sure, that academic presses make less profits than popular presses). But, I would be shocked if anyone published what they thought wouldn't sell, and what would have no demand (hence, books go out of print). History, like everything else, has to be juicy and commodified, or it will never become public (unless the blogosphere erupts with historians). I'm not necessarily comfortable with thinking about everything in these terms, but I am becoming much more fascinated at the intersections between money, power, and knowledge, in all areas of knowledge (replace 'history' with 'science' in this last paragraph, and it would probably be able to stand up unrevised, for instance). Maybe for that reason, I'm becoming really interested in the publishing industry throughout its existence. even before the publishing industry, what has been considered to be worthy of replication and dissemination.

time is on my side

If I were to become a historian, and I almost certainly won't, I would be interested in writing history totally without references to dates or years, or calculated divisions of time. From there, I would refuse to call anyone by their 'name,' although this would lead to even bigger problems of reference and narrative. I'm more interested in time, and in writing history in this way as an experiment, to find how substantially different it is. Hundred Years War? Never happened.

Ironically, I have an acute sense of time and narrative in regards to my own life, and perhaps organize events primarily according to the year in which they happened. It always startles me when other people don't. I have no idea how other people organize memories.

In other news, I've been thinking lately of how disconnected I feel from 'the news' or world events at large, even more so than I did in the states. Over there, I may have only rarely read the papers, but I at least processed them at work, saw the headlines, heard other people talking about things. Here, I never even see newspapers, or anyone reading them. In London, they were more common, but it all looked like more tabloid news than news I'm interested in. It's not something I'm entirely comfortable with, but the chances are slim that I'll do anything to change it anytime soon.

Herman Melville wrote this in a letter to Hawthorne after finishing Moby Dick: "I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb."

I never feel more at peace with God than when I am blaspheming him.

I have been meeting a lot of new people lately, and making a lot of jokes, which is pretty typical for me. It's always interesting to see which people get when and why I'm joking. Generally comments I make about the nature of reality, truth, identity, language, and knowledge are thrown out as jokes, to make people laugh, but are pretty serious. Ditto when I make jokes about being Jesus. This has been my habit for years and years.

Apparently I essentialize the self as a joke.

biography

I've been thinking about my biographers lately, and wondering what sort of materials they will have at their disposal to write my life. The internet makes archiving things so much easier, but it's also so much easier to erase things totally (at least I think it's easier to click a button than to burn or throw something away). Out of sympathy to my future biographers, I promise to never delete another email, or throw away any note or notebook or photo, never throw away anything that I've owned. Keep all receipts, bills, and bank statements.

This blog isn't about me, it's all about my biographers.

artifacts

Yesterday, I went to the British museum and looked at artifacts. There were many ancient things from all over the world but, to me, the most interesting artifact was the museum itself. Arguably, this is actually what's most important to everyone who goes there, who don't go to see Celtic spoons or Turkish tiles, they go to see the museum itself, and to be able to say that they went there. Viewing every gallery, the entire museum, is more important than any of the individual displays.

But, maybe that's just me.

Of the actual displays, I particularly enjoyed the pieces from persepolis. But, along with most of the other artifacts on display, I couldn't help but see on these objects the traces of imperialism and colonization.