Laura

I was hoping I would have something profound and poignant to say for my last (maybe?) post. However, as I anticipate good old fashioned Turkey Day tomorrow, I am not feeling too profound and my Thanksgiving break mind is feeling utterly not creative and fully on vacation. Nevertheless, I do feel I can still do an adequate job reflecting on our last set of readings, my favorite readings of the semester. These readings resonated with me especially due to my final paper and historiography project. Indeed, a few of this week’s articles make an appearance within my tracing of World War I animal history and agency history. One in particular, Chris Pearson’s “Dogs, History, and Agency” was especially useful as a framework for my own writing and Pearson does an excellent job weaving together both the history of dogs in World War I and the history of animal agency.

Interestingly, it is one of the last articles I read for this week and that I did not plan to include in my paper that most caught my eye. David Gary Shaw’s “The Torturer’s Horse: Agency and Animals in History” did an excellent job of describing what agency is precisely and I appreciated Shaw’s argument that “Ultimately, historical agency is likely always to involve human beings, but there is also space for animals to act with people” (146). I also enjoyed Susan Pearson’s “Speaking Bodies, Speaking Minds: Animals, Language, History.” This article, though not entirely relevant to my final paper, still proved to be highly interesting. I had never really considered the fact that there have been debates concerning animal language in the past and that many animal protectionists have argued that they are speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves. This article contributes to discussions of animal-human relations, a theme I have discovered while researching this past semester: are animals similar to humans? Can they be considered human-like in some aspects? Or are humans and animals distinctly different? Are humans inherently above animals on some sort of energy chain or scale?

This week’s readings also got me thinking about my own thoughts on animal agency for the first time (surprisingly enough). I am honestly not entirely sure how I feel about animal agency, even after all of the reading and researching I have done on the subject. It is incredibly difficult to know what animals are feeling or thinking and what their intentions are. Thus, humans must speculate when it comes to discerning such animal emotions. Nevertheless, I will often look at Robert and think I understand what is going through his little head. And yet, am I simply projecting human-like qualities onto him (anthropomorphism?) Or does he really have agency? Perhaps we will never fully know. Or perhaps historians, working with those outside of their field (including biologists and psychologists, among others) will be able to uncover an adequate answer to the questions surrounding animal agency in the very near future.

I didn’t know quite what to expect when I discovered the focus of this week’s readings: History Meets Natural History/Science. Immediately, I was skeptical. Though we have previously discussed the intermingling of history with other academic fields (like anthropology, for example), never had I really considered the possibility of history working effectively alongside science. After reading Daniel Lord Smail’s On Deep History and the Brain and the articles assigned for this week, I am much more convinced of the possibility.

Indeed, one of the main themes of these readings proved to be the misconception of prehistory. The historians included in the AHR Forum, “Investigating the History in Prehistories,” put forth interesting claims arguing that there should be no distinction between prehistory and history. Instead, a continuity should be recognized between the two to the point that the idea of “prehistory” should be completely reevaluated and ultimately eliminated. In “History and the ‘Pre’,” Daniel Lord Smail and Andre Shryock argue that, “as a by-product of relentless boundary maintenance, the ‘pre’ does not constitute a historical era in its own right. Rather, it is a narrative space auto-populated by features that define temporal Otherness for the self-consciously modern observer” (713). Thus, prehistory is what modern individuals project onto the past, creating a division between prehistory and history, between a time when there seemingly is no concrete evidence to a time when there is.

Smail explores this idea in-depth in On Deep History and the Brain. He argues that although in the past many have lamented the lack of evidence in what has been deemed “prehistory,” there is in fact plenty of evidence to paint a vivid picture of the past, from the very beginnings of mankind. To properly unearth such evidence, however, historians must willingly work with other academics and be open to collaboration with fields once thought to be irrelevant to the study of history. He writes, “The reconstructions require careful triangulations between all the available and relevant evidence: morphological, archaeological, ethological, molecular, and linguistic” (195). This is a bit unsettling to someone like myself who typically believes in the firm separation of academic subjects: math and science go together much like history and english. But history and science? It seems like a leap but I can certainly see Smail’s point and I do believe there is merit in his argument. However, it is still not clear if historians, particularly those we studied earlier in the semester, in their stuffy offices and ivory towers, will be willing to work with those in academic fields much unlike their own. Smail argues, “For this to succeed, historians will have to become more scientifically literate, and biologists and physiologists, many of whom have ceased to be historically minded, will have to learn to think again with history” (73). Will this endeavor succeed? Time will only tell (just not prehistory).

I have been looking forward to this week’s readings and getting the opportunity to delve headfirst into Joan Scott’s work again for quite some time. Indeed, this time last year, I was experiencing “Gender as a Useful Category of Historical Analysis” for the first time in Dr. Mollin’s class on gender in United States history. In that particular class, we utilized Joan Scott’s foundational text as a foundational text for our class and our extensive discussions concerning gender naturally fell back on her writing throughout the semester. Dr. Mollin’s class proved to be one of my favorite classes of both my undergraduate and graduate career so you can imagine my excitement in getting to read Joan Scott’s work again. For reference, I pulled out my notebook from my gender class and glanced at my notes to see some of my initial reactions. I also found Joan Scott’s “Unanswered Questions” that I also read last year and it was interesting to re-read both works again and compare notes.

This time around, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I understood Scott more readily than before. In fact, I vividly remember feeling that Scott’s writing was dense last year (though after reading Foucault recently, how could I find Scott dense?!) and yet I did not get that impression this time around whatsoever. Perhaps it is because I understand her argument a bit better. I also enjoyed reading another work by Joan Scott, her piece on head scarves entitled, “Symptomatic Politics. The Banning of Islamic Head Scarves in French Public Schools.” I find her writing to be both captivating and transparent, she is remarkably clear in conveying precisely what she means to argue and say. Naturally, I appreciate that approach to historical writing (or really any writing for that matter).

I think what is perhaps most captivating about “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis” (other than the fact that it proved to be the most influential women’s history essay to date) is that it questions precisely what gender is to begin with. Is it simply (or perhaps not so simply) a construction? Is it a product of the binary opposition of male versus female? Is it completely unrelated to sex? Scott defines gender utilizing “…two parts and several subsets,” she writes, “…gender is a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes, and gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power” (1067). Later she argues, “Gender, then, provides a way to decode meaning and to understand the complex connections among various forms of human interaction. When historians look for the ways in which the concept of gender legitimizes and constructs social relationships, they develop insight into the reciprocal nature of gender and society and into the particular and contextually specific ways in which politics constructs gender and gender constructs politics” (1070). Thus, gender is not a simple concept. It is multi-layered and multi-faceted and at times difficult to fully grasp. And yet, gender is a critical lens by which to view history and it is a category of analysis that is ultimately highly beneficial to historians and other scholars, alike.

I will have to admit that I enjoyed Geoff Eley’s A Crooked Line a bit more this time around. In particular, I appreciated his insight into the history of history, in Germany and elsewhere. I like being able to explore the background of history and it is one aspect of our class that I am enjoying most readily. I also appreciated the fact that Eley gave a bit of background to Carolyn Kay Steedman’s Landscape for a Good Woman as I read Eley prior to reading Steedman. Eley laid the foundation for what I was about to read and I approached Landscape for a Good Woman with a basic understanding of what I was going to experience. Eley writes, “Steedman is better described as a historian who understands the theoretical and philosophical implications of doing historical work. She pushes edgily on the boundaries of what historians think they do, but she manages to combine social and cultural history without turning the results into some risk-free and reassuring middle way…This is what we should take away from reading Steedman’s work: between social history and cultural history, there is really no need to choose (180-181). Thus, I began reading Landscape for a Good Woman with an eye towards both social and cultural history.

And Steedman did not disappoint. In fact, what I experienced in reading Landscape for a Good Woman was not quite what I had expected. I fully expected a purely biographical account but this book is far from it. Instead, Steedman weaves her own story in with discussions of class, motherhood, feminism, childhood, and other analyses. What results is an interesting rollercoaster ride through Steedman’s life and mind.

Perhaps most surprisingly, Steedman is blunt and at times, coarse in Landscape for a Good Woman. She is unapologetic about the way she presents her own life and that of her mother. And as a result, her writing is at times captivating, the history she tells is both personal and impersonal, both social and cultural. For example, concerning her mother she writes, “There was nothing we could do to pay back the debt of our existence. ‘Never have children dear,’ she said; ‘they ruin your life.’ Shock moves swiftly across the faces of women to whom I tell this story. But it is ordinary not to want your children, I silently assert; normal to find them a nuisance” (17).

Furthermore, in discussing her father near the beginning of her book Steedman writes, “A father like mine dictated each day’s existence; our lives would have been quite different had he not been there. But he didn’t matter, and his singular unimportance needs explaining. His not mattering has an effect like this: I don’t quite believe in male power; somehow the iron of patriarchy didn’t enter my soul. I accept the idea of male power intellectually, of course (and I will eat my words the day I am raped, or the knife is slipped between my ribs; though I know that will not be the case: in the dreams it is a woman who holds the knife, and only a woman can kill)” (19).

Wait, what? What did I just read?

This is precisely what about Steedman is so captivating and yet so confusing. She often looks back on her childhood fondly, admiring her mother and father at varying times. And yet, there are other times in which (like above) she is blatantly displeased with the choices and actions of her parents and with their effects on her childhood (among other things). What results is a confusing and sometimes difficult story to follow. And yet, I still enjoyed this book to some extent. I enjoyed Steedman’s honesty and a look into a time and place quite different from my own. And also an approach to history that I am not quite used to experiencing. However, I still found myself somewhat confused by the end of the book. What precisely was Steedman attempting to accomplish? What was her purpose for examining her childhood? What was her argument (if there was one)? Perhaps I got too caught up in the stories at hand to be able to understand Steedman’s writing on a deeper level. I am hoping my colleagues will be able to answer my questions and that we will be able to traverse this landscape together through our upcoming discussion next Tuesday.