Postmodernism/Annales (1 Viewer)

[meh]

Hi guys!

Just a small quesition about the aforementioned subject. Do we actualy talk about specific postmodern historians (on which I have extremely low resources) or do we talk about postmodernism as a philosophy that has latered the study of history giving appropriate examples with historians? I'm a bit confused.

Also, do we do the same for the annales school? Because, unlike the detail I have on my other historians, such as Herodotus etc, there seems to be very little on how they wrote and their language, I can at best pick out their impact on the study of history and what those historians saw as the purpose of history. I seriously hope I am making sense.

Anyway, just to give you an idea of which historians I am using:
Herodotus
Thucydides
Ranke/Bede
Marx/Hobsbawm
Windshuttle/Reynolds
and hopeful some postmodernist and annales to add.

Thanks in advance (sorry about the long post)

Anna

 

[gloria*]

yeah i would suggest you refer to both postmodernism / post-structuralist views of history as well as a few thinkers on it-- i would suggest Foucault (genealogy & archaeology) and Derrida (deconstruction / linguistics / semiotics et cetera; you probably know how it goes) and through this you can compare to some mid or just earlier 20th century methods of looking at history (ie collingwood and methodologies such as re-enactment).

for the annales school you don't need so much direct reference to any particular historians, although because you essentially are always comparing interpretations of history ('purposes', as you mentioned), you should probably mention a few, ie bloch and braudel or someone.

 

[lazybum]

if you're doing postmodernism i would suggest Keith JEnkins as an historian. His artiicle 'What is history?' is the basis for our entire study in section 1

It's vital to note that if one of your points is that each historian is influenced by their particular era, and thus have INDIVIDUAL truths, that this is a postmodern perspective. IE Keith JEnkins notes that the past is only manifested in its historicised traces, meaning that the historian is the one who makes the past, thus makking the truth partiicular to him.

ANOther point is that every historian is influenced by the surroundings around hiim, but as an historian it is his or her effort to establiiish sources as true and thus objective. This is the traditional historian, but contemporary hiistorians such as Richard Evans go furhter and say that Objectiviity is never possible to the historian , but ultimate objectivity, and hence ultimate truth is possible . 'Cleo may be in posession of the whole truth and nnothing but the truth, but to the historian she may vouchsafe a glimpse.' Riichard Evans and Keith Jenkins contradict eachother, which is good to note in an essay.

In Annales, i have a problem, because it is too general and does not have mmuch of a philosophy other then it;s a social history, emphasising demographics, geography, and whatever. I initiially used Fernand Braude;s 'MEditerainenan' to show the importance of social sciences, but the 3 generations of Annales was so diverse i couldn;t really find a definit e commonallity, or any point that would shockk an examiner breathless, so i dropped it

 

[Katgurl]

From the markers notes from last year it would seem that it is important to know historians, so i would suggest that you introduce the historians and then talk about their various perspectives.
Just write in a way that makes you feel comfortable, so long as you mention names and seem to know what their perspective was you should be Ok.
Don't worry about trying to learn a whole lot of new historians at this stage, just raise a lot of questions about historical perspectives and their consequenses etc.

 

[meh]

alrighty then - thanks so much!!!

 

[amyb]

Yeah, it;s important to have arange of historians, both chronologically and perspective wise. You can use Annales to get into 19th C historians, but instead as an alternative, you can use Relatvist historians, modernists and then get into post-modernists. But like Katgurl said, i would not try to learn new historians now, it would probably turn out that you won't be able to know enough or remember enough on the day. Stick to furthering the ones you know, and learn an example of each type of historian as markers do like to see names.

 

[meh]

hahaha ofcourse i will be able to learn the new ones - u kidding!!!