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Defining themselves against the invented figure of a "crudely empiricist and literalist" historian has been a self-justifying move amongst literary scholars for decades. It's fine. Every discipline has such moves. But you'd think lit scholars would be more self-aware about it.
Or at least, you'd think someone familiar with Hayden White would recognize when they were replicating such a well-worn narrative and maybe be ironically self-deprecating about it.
Lit people cite historians when they need to flesh out the background "context" for the texts they're interpreting. Historians cite literary works when they want to name the theoretical frameworks they've been informed by. Neither side fully buys in to or gets what the other does
Each discipline has its own bailiwick and its own way of approaching the past. I get annoyed when I see historians take uninformed potshots at literary critics that reduce what they do to some simplistic caricature of "theory."
Likewise, I get annoyed when I see literary critics take uninformed potshots at historians that reduce what they do to some simplistic caricature of "crude pedantic empiricism."
Since 2016 historians have suddenly gotten more attention in the public sphere (esp. on Twitter, but also in other venues like the WaPo and Atlantic). On the whole I think it's been a good thing, but oversimplification is always a risk. But is this the historians' fault?
Ppl look to historians & say "tell us the truth." Historians say "ok, but look, it's also more complicated than that but here are some sources to consider." Many in the public then say "THE HISTORIANS HAVE TOLD US THE TRUTH!!!"
I think this is what the Chronicle author is picking up on--the many simplistic misuses of historical knowledge that circulate in our public discourse. It's good to point those out, but I don't think it's right to largely blame historians for them.
Most people who aren't historians (including many literary scholars) tend to read works of history as empirically, simplistically, literally true. A central focus of our training as historians is to complicate that misperception. I guess we need to get better at it.
Please pardon a moment of pettiness...but it's pretty annoying when the Chronicle publishes a piece by someone who's not a historian who lit-splains to historians the things that historians learn in undergrad methods classes, using the work of a historian to do it.
That "historian" being Hayden White, who I'll bet every single history PHD minted since 1990 has read in graduate school...
One last thing. Anyone who honestly wants to know how historians understand the sorts of truth claims their discipline makes should read this excellent book. amazon.com/Thinking-About…
