Re: Art History Debates

dargan_w <*no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com*> · Wed, 26 Feb 2003 11:44:15 -0000

yeah, I'm an M.A. student.  What I should have said is that we 
mostly study other historians in our classes, or at least I do.  
Most of my classes are about historiography, and most of the primary 
source work I do is for my thesis, but apparently I don't know 
enough about what other history programs are built on.  Sorry I 
overgeneralized.  Anyway, I still find it interesting that we always 
ask about practitioners of science, which they basically don't study 
at all, and we almost never ask about historians, which we do study, 
even if its not the main thing we do.

Dargan

--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, thefool75 <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> Are you a new M.A. student?  I did a fair amount of historiography 
> in my M.A. program but even much of that was primary source work 
> while virtually all of my Ph.D. history work was primary source 
> related--you read historians in seminars of course--but more as a 
> sounding board and context for one's own work--as well as for 
> comps...I would have to say that it completely misstates the case 
to 
> say that grad students in history primarily study other historians-
-
> most of my time was spent rummaging around in revolutionary war 
era 
> British colonial documents and in various Puritan 
publications..that 
> sort of thing pretty much goes for every other history grad 
student 
> that I've known as well....
> 
> --- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, dargan_w <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> > In thinking about what Guy and others have said about art 
history, 
> > I'd like to point out that it applies to history in general.  
> We've 
> > had this discussion on here before -- Upper level and grad 
> students 
> > in history study events almost as an aside, what we mainly study 
> are 
> > other historians and their ideas and theories.  Modern 
historians 
> > (as opposed to Herodotus or Edward Gibbon) do come up every once 
> in 
> > awhile, but it's rare.  I personally think Peter Brown, James 
> Scott, 
> > and Ian Kershaw (just to give a couple examples) are as relevant 
> as 
> > Cindy Thompson, but let's face it, most rooms would give me 
blank 
> > stares on those names.  
> > 
> > Anyway, it is very interesting that science questions often tend 
> to 
> > ask about practitioners of science, which angers the science 
folks 
> > because that is not what they study... while at the same time, 
> > history questions (as opposed to questions in the social 
sciences, 
> > which I emphatically believe history is not) almost never ask 
> about 
> > our practitioners, historians, which is what we actually study 
at 
> > least in graduate school.  I really am not sure what relevance 
> this 
> > has to the way questions should be written, because I think for 
> the 
> > most part questions should reflect the desires of the players, 
and 
> > even most history players would rather hear a tossup on Hitler 
> than 
> > on Kershaw.  Anyway, this was a pretty random rant, but I think 
it 
> > does point to a basic difference in the way we ask about the 
> > sciences and the humanities.
> > 
> > peace and collard greens,
> > Dargan