“A new generation of would-be scholars, raised on the shifting sands of the Internet and global media culture, reads history from a fundamentally different perspective than prior generations. The hard-won understanding that history is not and cannot be an impartial record of facts and events is, for such students, a commonplace. They understand that history is a complex and contested act of cultural memory. What they don’t know is what to do about it.” (Bial and Magelssen 2 from Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions)
This particular statement hits home for me. I was born in 1987. As a member of Generation Y—a Millennial—I grew up in the waves of post modernism, structuralism, post structuralism, the relativity of truth and the recognition that history was not a single error-proof story waiting to be discovered. When I encountered the idea that history was flexible, written by the victors, incomplete etc, I did not balk. Of course! I responded. And the question then arose, as articulated above, “What do we do about it?”
How do I respond and make assertions about something that is just as tricky and multidimensional as contemporary life? The question seems to me to be reflected in the title of my blog.
In regards to the uncertainty of meaning in writing, Della Pollack recommends to keep writing. For her it almost seems to function as a rallying call. My academic and written discourses have been a study in continuing to write—not as a statement but as a matter of course because I could not stop. Writing and having opinions, continuing to voice them does not seem to be as pressing an issue as how to be accepted into the conversation.
Bial & Magelssen’s quote brings up an interesting dynamic: that of the established to the up-and-coming, the experienced to the youthful, the ivory tower and the young novice. That relationship inspires an amount of fear. I have a fear that someone has already said what I have thought. I have a fear that the relativity that I take for granted will be used to discredit my own ideas. Some scholars have represented the academy to me as an unforgiving and stringent group of people. I am afraid that the only way to join the discussion is to be the best—but the set of rules are unknown. The discoveries about the shifting, constructed nature of worldview seem to be easily weaponized to keep out riff-raff (by whatever definition of riff-raff happens to have at present).
However, I also recognize that my experience has been quite the opposite in many ways. I have presented papers—thus entering the conversation—I have contributed to discussions about ideas and been responded to and received by professors, thinkers, writers, and classmates.
To answer: “What do we do about it?” I will side with Della Pollock and say that we keep writing. Though the examples in Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions, are open ended with more questions than statements. While the questions they asked and proliferated where helpful questions and the articles were very interesting, I couldn’t help but feel that the emphasis on more and more questions left the articles feeling breezy and light. I have to ask myself if it’s a hang-over from the old ivory tower club. If I am on the train to keep writing, I feel that I have to recognize that no amount of knowledge will ever be complete and then write what I have discovered. With a proliferation of questions in the articles, I feel that the authors aren’t comfortable with the fact that their texts will always be incomplete. They seem to be including the questions to prove to the new ivory tower that they recognize the questions. That idea brings me back to the Bial and Magelssen quote: because, yes, I do understand that the questions can and should proliferate, but I also recognize that if I only ask questions, it will not be enough. I have to have faith that my observations and ideas will be enough. That someone else will come along and correct me or fill in the empty places. That my hypothesis are valuable as hypothesis—not thesis. They are valuable as suggestions/theories. That those incompletions are not only weaknesses but also strengths because they are breathing room for exploration and ideas.
Perhaps that is the change that should be made in regards to the historiographic and historical essay: no longer thesis, but hypothesis.
And so I continue, writing about the more I don’t know.
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