More on the same

An article was recently posted on the New York Times Review on the new documentaries on US History by Oliver Stone. I personally only saw the episode on World War II. Before I read the article, I thought that it was an interesting take on World War II, neither particularly creative nor innovative. But as the review indicates, the purpose of the documentary is not to create new history, but rather to bring the ideas of revisionist historians to popular culture: "The real problem, they say, is that this revisionism has yet to penetrate the public schools, the mainstream media, and “those parts of America that cling to the notion of American exceptionalism.” Their version of history may not be untold, but “it has been almost entirely ‘unlearned.’”

The conclusion to the article is particularly interesting. The author of the article states: "Although the book by Stone and Kuznick is heavily footnoted, the sourcing, as the example of Wallace’s 1952 article suggests, recalls nothing so much as Dick Cheney’s cherry-picking of intelligence, particularly about the origins and early years of the cold war. The authors also devote many thousands of words to criticism of such destructive American policies as Ronald Reagan’s in Central America and George W. Bush’s in Iraq, but much of this will be familiar to readers of these pages, as will their objections to Barack Obama’s use of predator drones. This book is less a work of history than a skewed political document, restating and updating a view of the world that the independent radical Dwight Macdonald once likened to a fog, “caused by the warm winds of the liberal Gulf Stream coming in contact with the Soviet glacier”—but now more than twenty years after the dissolution of the Soviet empire.”

The key points in the review is this: the work, in spite of its engagement with scholarship is a skewed political document. This brings to an interesting point about what historians do, in fact, do. We are not simply reading books and create arguments. We consider sources in a holistic manner, trying to bring in as wide and array of perspectives as possible; we evaluate the sources by answering a particular set of questions; these questions allow us to look beyond coincidence, to look beyond personal bias and to craft novel arguments using theory. In principle, we should be equally critical both of primary sources and secondary sources.

This said, perhaps  Oliver Stone is being deliberately provocative… but in this case he is not doing history.

Reflections on the future of Academia- No Solutions Offered

If you are a Ph.D student in the humanities (I cannot speak for other disciplines), you must have heard the “doom and gloom” speech about the state of the job market in the profession. If you have not had your future career dismantled when it has not yet started, perhaps you ought to ask your advisor about what Ari Kelman has called “the ruined wastes of what used to be known as the job market” (reference below). The bottom line is this: most of us will not get R1 research jobs, and most of us will not get tenured: a fact, which in no way means that I will not try my hardest to get an academic job. This is simply the reality I am confronted with.

Considering the state of the market, it is natural to understand how it got there (and blame certain people, though I am not sure fingerpointing is a particularly useful exercise). Two blog posts by excellent scholars have had interesting perspectives. The blog of Historian on the Edge points to the conquest of the discipline by non-specialists, as well as the contempt of the media and other pundits of our profession, in that, scholars are not in any way remunerated for insights given to third parties.[1] Perhaps not, but Ari Kelman responds quite shrewdly that “if one wants one’s work to be made available to the public, one either has to do it oneself or find someone else to serve as a mouthpiece.  Personally, I’m delighted when journalists or popular historians want to talk about my work — though I do hope they’ll credit me with any insights they glean from the conversation.”[2]

From the few meetings we have had as a graduate community, as well as conversations with peers at various institutions, it appears that the humanities are faced with an important conundrum. First, as Ari Kelman remarked, in the cited blog post, on “the glut of Ph.Ds” flooding the market. This is a problem with which scholars involved at the graduate level are keenly aware. “Plan B” (alternatives to academia) solutions seems to be a new area of discussion amongst Directors of Graduate Studies.

So, if there are too many graduate students on the market, what can be done (and here is the conundrum part)? Accepting less is unfortunately a limited option. Graduate students are needed, not by the market writ large, but by the academic institutions. Large lecture halls require one professor, but two to three graduate students. The way things are at present, I can teach up to three sections of thirty students. The aggregate number of students is tremendous (grading papers takes forever), but what is most frustrating for me is the large class size. I simply cannot give the attention to the students that they need. So, how do you respond to the facts that a) there are too many Ph.Ds on the market, and b) the universities will not fundamentally be able to retain appropriate teaching quality while continuously dropping enrollment of graduate students. That is, graduate students are needed by the academia for a certain amount of time, but much less so by the market on the other side of graduate school (the professorial market, and the “real-world” market). By way of analogy, not everyone entering the military becomes a ranked officer.

At a very fundamental level, I will agree with a friend, also a Ph.D student from the less-than-sexy field of Medieval Studies (I like it, but hey…): “Will I get disappointed if I don’t get a job? Sure. But if you get in this field in order to get a job in that field, you are clearly in the wrong field.” Underlying my friend’s comment is something I could not agree with more: we are historians because we love history. Why I love history (aside from delusions of ever being Indiana Jones), I am not entirely sure. I just do. And this is why I am in graduate school: I want to be a professional in the field that I love.

Amateurism in the field of history is a problem only for professionals (myself included). Having first undergone the selection processes at the undergraduate level to become one of the top of my class, having then undergone the selection process for getting into graduate school, (hypotheticals follow, based on the Historian on the Edge post) then (hopefully) survived graduate school, and (hopefully) getting an academic job to finally (hopefully) getting tenure SHOULD qualify me as a historian. Being called a historian SHOULD then be a matter of pride. So when bozos on the History Channel call themselves historians (that guy who wrote Holy Blood Holy Grail), it is a problem for me. They are not, in fact, historians. I share the Historian on the Edge’s frustration, as well as Kelman’s on that one. We are trained, we have acquired a technique, a skill through our training. It is not a skill that is natural, or inherent in human beings, though some people are more prone to exhibiting it, just like mathematics for those kids that “just got it” in High School. Think about Aristotle’s Poetics: there is a technique to writing drama.

But as I am considering the grim prospects of my future, yet taking tremendous pleasure in my present, I remembered Grafton’s point in Worlds Made by Words: academics have never been particularly wealthy. This point is reiterated by a classicist, Alan Cameron, in The Last Pagans of Rome. The literary scholars of the late-fourth century were, in general, neither the top aristocrats, nor were they known to be extraordinarily wealthy. Ausonius was a wealthy landowner, but by no means on par with the Anicii or “Jerome’s widows.” Likewise, Augustine was not a member of the high aristocracy of North Africa, and coveted well-paid positions of tutoring (and even then one can argue whether the intellectual pursuits were his primary goals). Then, are we harking back to a golden age that really existed in the post-world-war II economic boom (1950-1970), and again briefly from 1980 to 2000? Did that golden age even exist?

The point that Kelman makes in the end (agreeing with the Historian on the Edge) is that ““professional historians should become more involved in the discussion about the crisis of history education — if, amidst the push for ever more STEM education, we’re still having that discussion at all” is well made. Perhaps this is our plan B: get involved in the communities. I do think our training has value: synthesis of large bodies of text, cultural sensitivity that is not principled, but ingrained by our postcolonial training, number of language known, etc… It is now up to us to relate our training to modern needs. No family member of mine currently works in academia, much less in the humanities, so at dinner parties, I am often asked: “What does a historian of Rome do?” When I explain, people are often amazed, sometimes indifferent. But those people that are amazed, though they are unlikely to fund our research, are intrigued by the difficulty of the training, the commitment of the student, and the set of skills that is acquired (sorry for all the passives, gnomic statements are terrible for that).

Remember, medieval scholars were not all Aquinas or Abelard:

I, a wandering scholar lad,  Born for toil and sadness,  Oftentimes am driven by  Poverty to madness. Literature and knowledge I  Fain would still be earning,  Were it not that want of pelf  Makes me cease from learning.   These torn clothes that cover me  Are too thin and rotten;  Oft I have to suffer cold,  By the warmth forgotten.[3]

Scarce I can attend at church,  Sing God's praises duly;  Mass and vespers both I miss,  Though I love them truly. Oh, thou pride of N---------,  By thy worth I pray thee  Give the suppliant help in need,  Heaven will sure repay thee.

Take a mind unto thee now  Like unto St. Martin;  Clothe the pilgrim's nakedness  Wish him well at parting.  So may God translate your soul  Into peace eternal,  And the bliss of saints be yours  In His realm supernal.

If you would like to comment, please do so on the blog. Also, please refrain from simple or targeted complaints. Only constructive criticism please.

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[1] http://600transformer.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-siege.html

[2] http://arikelman.org/policing-boundaries/?fb_source=pubv1

[3] http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/medievalstudentsongs.asp

My Attempt at Archaeology Critique- A Review of Carla Sinopoli

Carla Sinopoli considers the evidence of two classes of goods produced in the craft areas of Vijayanagara, the capital of an empire that lasted from 1340 to 1565. She considers textiles and ceramics, and tests the production of both based on three distinct types of craft production models. These models are a) administered production, b) centralized production and c) non-centralized production.

Sinopoli briefly describes each of the three models. Administered production, she states, occurs when crafts are produced by some administrative structure whether a temple or a centralized state. In administered production, workshops are bound to the administrative structure and should be centralized around a certain area of significance for a given administrative structure. Centralized production occurs when there is both large scale production and segregated workshops BUT without direct involvement of  a given structure. The last system is non-centralized production and this is characterized by small workshops and local consumption of the goods produced.

One interesting concept that Sinopoli to differentiate between administered production and centralized production is that of attractiveness. Put simply, the workshops should compete to make their goods more attractive to potential customers, via “increasing elaboration in material complexity” (vs., I assume, standardized production in the case of administered production). She does not really extrapolate on the ways she might test for attractiveness.

Moving on to textiles, Sinopoli uses what she calls “historical documents”, which range from indigenous texts and inscriptions to foreign accounts of the city (I will not critique her use of these sources). Sinopoli argues that textiles were important “in long-distance trade, in temple worship, in life crisis ceremonies, and in expressions of ritual and political status or prerogatives.” She tells that textile production was dominated by castes or subcastes of weavers, while they were organized in communities. The administrative structures exercised an indirect control in the forms of taxation, and a merchant caste was handling the distribution of the weavers. Thus, she argues, textiles were part of centralized production since the state exercised only indirect control over the weaving communities.

The single most important part of her argument that textiles were, in fact, centrally produced (vs. administered production) is that the state appears to have no involvement in distribution. This was tested epigraphically. However, I have doubts that administrative structures were not involved in production. First, she stipulates that the workshops were clustered around temples. Clustering around an administrative structure is one of the ways in which she can test for administrative production. Secondly, as she states herself, textiles were tremendously important for political status and or religious significance. Comparatively, ancient states did regulate clothing practices specifically to maintain status boundaries, though this may affect distribution more than production. The Vijayanagarese system appears less differentiated than she initially lets on: though distribution and production are handled by two different castes, the government, by granting exemptions and taxing the workshops, clearly had an interest in regulating the production aspect of textile-weaving. The dual-caste system for production/distribution could be linked to caste relationships as much as economic impetus. Finally, Sinopoli mentioned that “attractiveness” was the largest differentiator between centralized and administrative production. Attractiveness never enters the discussion. Perhaps the problem I am having is that the distinction between administrative and centralized is more fuzzy and difficult to test for, and thus making the distinction, problematic for scholars (since the concluding result of the model should vary greatly).

Sinopoli's description of ceramics is more thorough and more convincing both in terms of methodology and logic. Her point that ceramics are not mentioned in texts is relatively moot (they are never mentioned except in specialized texts, and even then, the ceramics really has to be unique). In spite of lack of geographical data (and hence one cannot test for lack of spatial clustering), her point that there is varied types of ceramic still stands. She demonstrates technological variety by using archaeological data (specifically water vessels) and ethnographic data. She justifies her blend of archaeology and ethnography by stating that “continuities in production technique, identifiable from archaeological evidence, and the limited available historic documentary evidence supports assumptions of long-term continuity in technique and organization.” It is worth noting that her use of ethnographic data is done as a way to expand on archaeological data, not as a primary mode of analysis.

By looking at these pots, and comparing them to five random samples of six vessels, she is able to conclude that the pots from Vijayanagara appeared to correspond to an ideal type (variance in neck thickness/lip angle) but that these samples allowed for maximum variation from potter to potter. The site distribution of the shards appears to link types to communities and districts. Thus, she concludes that a ceramic workshop would allow for consumption of goods in one area. Ethnographic data is then used to show the ways in which these workshops functioned. They functioned around the nucleated family, with a master potter and an apprentice at the wheel. Women and children were only involved in the firing of the pottery. From a body of twelve vessels, she is able to conclude that vessels were very varied. This implies non-centralized production.

One major problem with the article as a whole (even if I am convinced that ceramics are non-centralized production) is her choice of sources. She chooses textiles and practical ceramics (and not just any ceramics, water-carrying vessels hence practical ceramics) as a means to investigate production types. Prior to any analysis, knowledge from comparative study would point to textiles being produced either administratively or centrally, and this form of base, daily-used ceramics to being produced locally. In other words, her evidence choice foretold the results. Then her larger conclusion on “spheres of production” need further investigation before the generalizations that textiles were part of a centralized-production network (rather than administrative or even non-centralized) and ceramics were part of a non-centralized network can be sustained.

Review of the Stories of Scottsboro by James Goodman

This review needs some prefacing. I am not a modern historian, and much less a U.S. historian. Still, this book should, in my opinion, be read by specialists and non-specialists simply on the quality of the writing. This books proved to me that novelizing history need not happen at the expense either of historical accuracy or proper argumentation.   

Responding to judgments pronounced against Clarence Norris’ family in the 1980’s, Reverend Butts asked whether or not one “can judge the behavior of a man who has lived through living hell” (p.390). James Goodman’s The Stories of Scottsboro is the narrative of that living hell, which nine young African-Americans endured from 1931 to 1938. James Goodman engages his readers to follow the trials of these young men as they seek to avoid the death penalty for a rape that they did not commit. James Goodman forces his reader into a world where mentalities were exacerbated by the social, economic, and political constraints of the time.

                Goodman’s work is divided in four general sections 1931-1932, 1933, 1934-1941 and 1937-1989, which progress for the most part chronologically even within each individual section. Goodman departs from straight chronological narrative only intermittently, either to recount contemporaneous events in a different place or to introduce biographical data for a new protagonist that enters the scene. For instance, Chalmers hears of the guilty verdicts of the 1937 trials roughly at the same time as Leibowicz, but the reaction is described after the SDC’s address in New York.

                Goodman’s narrative technique is evidence of a craftsman. In the very complex web that he spun, one in which secondary characters enter the plotline and either leave it, one in which political currents interact, the reader never loses track of the sequence of events. Details are introduced whenever they are necessary. This is especially true of biographical data. The case of Judge Horton, who tried the boys until he was replaced by Callahan in 1934, is one particularly telling example of Goodman’s ability to interject important information. Goodman initially introduces Judge Horton in the context of the first trials, and especially of the pervading prejudice of the south. Goodman, describing Leibowicz’ reaction to bigotry, states that “it never occurred to him [that prejudice] could have knocked, introduced itself, and then walked right in the front door [of the courtroom]” (p.120). It is not until Horton’s opinion’s piece of June 22, 1933 that the reader is made aware of his background.  While Horton is a southern gentleman with strong ties to the confederacy, he was an active proponent of fairness in the context of the law, as well as staunch opponent of lynching and popular justice (p.175). Goodman is preparing the reader for one major plot twist: Horton dismantled the testimony of Mrs. Price, the major piece of evidence for the prosecution, thereby ordering a new trial (pp.173-182).

                In addition, the narrative technique of Goodman allows him to reconstruct the arguments at the trials chronologically, but nevertheless allowing the reader to understand fully both arguments in their entireties. For instance, the cross examination of Victoria Price, in chapter 19, is presented as it would have been during the trials. First, as a witness to the prosecution, she is interviewed by Knight. The crux of Knight’s argument is clear in Goodman’s exposition; Knight was relying on Price’s standing with the court: Price simply identified Patterson as her rapist, and Knight held up a pair of torn panties, which Price acknowledged she was wearing on the day of the rape. Goodman need not detail the arguments of the prosecution further. He has already described Price’s status as a virtuous southern lady in chapter 3. That the arguments have not fundamentally changed is also highlighted by the detailing of Leibowicz’ argument. Leibowicz is attacking the fallibility of Price. The use of Carter and Bates are the major pieces of his argument simply because both propose an alternative version of the events. Thus, the defense’s goal is simply to plant the seed of doubt in the minds of the jurors with respect to Price’s testimony. Then, even if the chapter follows the interrogations chronologically, it allows the reader to understand the development of both arguments and reach the only possible conclusion, that Price was a liar, and that the guilty verdict was the result of bigotry.

                Therein lays one of the major problems of narrative history. Because Goodman is presenting the data in a nearly complete chronological manner, the author must make his position known, not in the juxtaposition of data, but in what he chooses to present and what he chooses to omit. In the aforementioned chapter, the absence of the prosecution’s full interrogation leads to only one possible outcome, namely, that Patterson was convicted on a racial basis, as opposed to legal arguments. One can wonder whether Leibowicz’ surprise at the guilty verdict (p.147) is not also Goodman’s, and the reader’s for that matter.

                Goodman’s exposition is not problematic only in chapters 19 and 20. For instance, in chapter 33, the discussion of the decision of the Supreme Court in the Norris vs. Alabama case clearly focuses on the limitations of the act, rather than the success at the order of the retrial (chapter 33). Goodman achieves this effect by juxtaposing the decision with other Supreme Court decisions: for Goodman, the Norris vs. Alabama decision was part of a trend in the involvement of the Federal Government in segregation laws (p.253). While the impact of the decision was not immediately felt, when Knight visits Leibowicz in New York, he mentions that the length of the trial had depleted Alabama financially and politically (p.290). Then, the decision for retrial, while legally not as far reaching as Cooper vs. Aaron, for example, the decision had direct relevance for the Scottsboro Boys’ eventual release in 1938.

                Goodman does not shy away from this criticism. In the preface, he states that “Stories of Scottsboro is my story of Scottsboro […]. I have tried to convey my sense of the essential facts of the case” (p.xiii). At the heart of the case, for Goodman, is the racist (though he does not use that word) that “black men are rapists” (p.xiii). In light of the sensitivity of the subject, the question remains as to whether or not one can write a history of segregation, presenting, as objectively as possible, all aspects of the discourse.  At a more fundamental level, Goodman’s book begs questions related to contemporary history as a whole. Is “the historian’s version of a story” the only version possible when it comes to contemporary history? This is precisely the question that Reverend Butts asked: “how can [one] judge the behavior of a man who has lived through living hell?” (p.390).

                This perspective should not detract the reader from the outstanding achievement of Goodman, namely, to write a history of a highly sensitive subject in manner that, if it lacks objectivity, conveys a certain view of the Scottsboro trials. Goodman is able, from southern sources, to extrapolate a view of the white south that, if bigoted, had many divisions. Doing so, Goodman is fair to the variety of opinions: Horton, though somewhat prejudiced, was loyal to his station; Knight, however virulent and anti-black during the trial, was loyal to his state; the women of the south had organized an anti-lynching league; in other words, if Goodman’s view is that the nine boys were condemned on account of lingering racist ideologies, he is particularly adamant to show the varieties of opinions that permeated the south.

                Goodman, then, in the Stories of Scottsboro, offers an exhilarating account of a lengthy trial, describing in detail the trials and tribulations of the historical characters involved. His method is different from that of other historians, whose aim, as described by Elizabeth Clark is to “persuade, exalt, denigrate, and denounce.”[1] Goodman’s achieved purpose in writing the Stories of Scottsboro, was to engage, to provoke his reader, but also to relate a story that is important in the more general history of the Civil Rights Era.

                As a recommendation to non-specialists of late-roman history, do read Christopher Kelley, The End of Empire: Attila the Hun and the Fall of Rome (New York:  Norton, 2009). It is written much in the same way. It is an excellent and engaging read, if unpalatable as a work of proper history for most specialists on the grounds of the poor use of sources.

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[1] Elizabeth Clark, History, Theory and Text (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), p.105.