Category Archives: Reading reflection

History as Inconceivable

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I first encountered Trouillot last semester in a course on the colonial experience in Latin America. The ideas he advances, while seemingly obvious in hindsight, were in many cases not concepts I had ever thought to consider or factor into my narratives before. I kept the book throughout the semester, and was quite pleased to have an excuse to buy it this time around.

One of his most interesting ideas as relates to Bryn Mawr’s history specifically is the notion that he advances in Chapter 3: that there is a kind of history that even after an event has happened remains incompatible with the current mode of thinking, and therefore is neglected or written in a falsified narrative because quite literally a historian cannot comprehend what has happened. Trouillot’s primary example is the Haitian Revolution, which defied entrenched Western notions of race and social order (82), but I think it could be applied to other examples he advances throughout the book: for example, the denials made by those who do not believe in the Holocaust because it is literally inconceivable to them that such a thing could have happened, and furthermore, because somehow those events do not matter (13).

Turning, then, to Bryn Mawr’s history, it makes one wonder whether some of the events that our historical narrative has obscured were denied because we did not wish to discuss them, or whether it was because we could not even conceive that they had happened. I think it’s probably a bit of both. On the one hand, Bryn Mawr’s exclusion of African Americans and general suppression of diversity is a source of great shame for this institution, which could make it something we do not want to discuss. On the other, I think that among many members of the student body, there is a sense that such a thing could simply not have happened here, in this institution that so proudly declares itself on the front line of women’s education. Bryn Mawr’s narrative as pioneering institution does not allow for a vision of a school which systematically denied many women the opportunities they deserved. Nor is it compatible with other aspects of the Bryn Mawr we know today: an institution that denies maternity leave to its professors, for example, or vastly mistreats its staff, both student and professional.

In light of this, the next logical step seems to be to change the narrative to fit the facts, but as Trouillot notes, change is rarely that easy to come by. It would require, for one, acknowledging that these events do matter. To admit the College’s shortcomings and present the school as an institution where everyone is consciously trying to do better and owning up to a racist past and present takes courage and the destruction of a more comfortable narrative. Still, it’s an effort that should be attempted if we want to move forward.

“Outsider” History-makers?

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Benjamin Filene’s Passionate Histories: “Outsider” History-Makers and What They Teach Us was an interesting, but intensely irritating read. Yes, he does spend part of the article discussing the merits of the methods used by those who work with historical topics without an academic foundation in history, which he calls “outsider” history-makers. However, he spends the vast majority of the article deriding and dismissing their focus and their work, lumping all such “outsiders” in a small handful of generalized groups, to the exclusion of many. My overall irritation stemmed from his assumed “right” to call non-academic enthusiasts “outsiders,” as if those without an academic foundation specifically in history could not possibly do their work with as much intellectual rigor as those with such foundation. Filene argues that “outsiders don’t particularly care about any of these standards,” such as “originality, evidence, and context.” (19) That is simply not true.

Take his discussion of re-enactors for example. He asserts that “re-enacting is driven by a fantasy” and their motivation is the same as the draw to Disney’s Main Street. (18) (Don’t even get me started on that point. Main Street U.S.A. was never meant to be a reenactment of anything; it was designed as an intentionally idealized homage to Walt Disney’s home town.) I have personally spent a great deal of time with a Civil War re-enactor. His, and his group’s, draw to the historical time period had nothing really to do with history. They were gun enthusiasts fascinated by the specific weaponry of a specific era. In contrast, I subscribe to a handful of channels on youtube, created by individuals that Filene would lump in the same category as the disparaged re-enactors, for re-enact they do. Just not on youtube. Instead, their videos describe ways of life, death, warfare, and culture during their chosen historical time period. The depth of their research is tremendous and their rigor is strenuous. Some of it comes from first-hand experience. You’re not going to find an archive document on why cloaks are so bloody useful, but you’ll figure it out pretty quick when you’re standing in torrential rain and are still warm and dry. The majority of their information, however, comes from research that would rival any academic historian.

While I do agree with Filene that academic historians have a lot to learn from the approaches taken by what he calls “outsider” history-makers, I bristle at his suggestion that academics can take those approaches and make them “better” or “correct” by applying academic rigor he assumes to be missing. While it is not present in all circumstances, he is doing a disservice to those non-academic historians who are putting in the effort and research. There is nothing wrong with a narrow focus, if it is taken in context and researched adequately.