History Extension

What is History? Historiography

Paul Kiem, HTA

Historiography Overview
Preparing for Question 1 in the HSC
Themes or Questions for your Extension Lego Box
1. Postmodernism.
2. Is history possible or necessary?
Note
3. Science, Literature, Entertainment? references
4. Public v Academic History. to past
HSCs
5. The Digital Revolution and History.
6 Australian
6. A t li C Case St
Study
d Debate
D b t and
dRRevision.
i i
7. Anna Clark Private Lives, Public History (2016)
8 Ode
8. Od tto F
Footnotes
t t
 1. Historiography
g p y Overview

Academic Broader
Oral Organised Enlightenment Crises:
Discipline, View of
T diti
Tradition N
Narrative
ti - Rational
R ti l Postt M
P Mod
d
Science? ? History

Prehistory 5th C.
C BC 18th C.
C 19th C.
C 20th C.
C 21st C

Herodotus Gibbon Ranke Jenkins

Thucydides Bede Evans
 Ranke 1903 Bury Science
2.

21st Century

Beyond
Postmodernism:
20th Century
C t Ch
Challenges
ll
Annales School Defend History
New History
Herodotus Postmodernism Broader view of
History
more democratic

See also: Marnie Hughes-Warrington

Fifty Key Thinkers in History 2nd ed 2008 or 3rd ed 2015, Introduction
An approach to what is history?
y of history
1. History y
Herodotus
History stuff
to talk about

Now

2. Explore themes and questions.

Egs + What impact has postmodernism had on history?
+ What does Australian history tell us about history?
+ Is history
y a science or literature?

3. History Now
Academic Popular Popularised Entertainment
Digital Revolution Commemoration Museums New Books ... Blogs
 Preparing for Exam Essays
Right Respond to
Wrong
SOURCE &
Themes
QUESTION
Ranke
Postmodernism Herodotus
Digital Age
Annales

Schools of Anzac
Thought Methodology Bede
Is History
Fiction?
Books Teaching
& History Science &
June 2016 Lit t
Literature
References
Essay Writing for Q 1
Historians Ranke
Herodotus
TV History
Hi t HTA YouTube:
www.htansw.asn.au
History
Democratisation
Narrative & Today
History
 Eight Examples of Questions to Discuss

Note
references
to past N t relevance
Note l to
t pastt HSC
HSCs
HSCs

History Note NOW references

Now!
1

So, is truth relative

and history impossible?
Traditional Historian
Evans :
the past happened, and we really can, if we are very
scrupulous and carefulf and self-critical,
f f
find out how it happened
and reach some tenable though always less than final
conclusions about what it all meant.
In Defence of History 1997

Moderate Postmodernist
Southgate:
the removal of objective truth as a meaningful goal
- makes historians more humble
- makes historian more aware of themselves AND others

History: What and Why? 2nd ed 2001

2

3. Hollywood will take over if

historians abandon the field
field.

5. We need metanarratives,
including national stories.
3

See
2011,12
HSCs
HSC
 4
1. Academic History
B
Basedd iin universities
i i i andd uses scholarly
h l l methodology.
h d l
Tendency towards narrow or highly conceptualised topics.
Values critical perspective, new interpretations and revision.
Emphasis on qualifications.

2. Public Historyy
Based on scholarly methodology but different purpose.

BLENDS
Applied history history outside universities, in museums etc.
Broad topics,
topics addressed to the public
public.
May involve amateurs and non-traditional sources and media.

3. Popular Popularised History

3
Popular writers and presenters.
Values narrative form and presentation.

4. Entertainment
Films, computer games
Tourism.
Public Historians - See Ashton & Hamilton History at the Crossroads

Raphael Samuel:
history
y is not the prerogative
p g of the historian,, nor even,, as p
postmodernism
contends, a historians invention. It is, rather, a social form of knowledge;
the work, in any given instance, of a thousand hands.
2011HSCQ:
2011 HSC Q
Towhatextentdo
historians'own'
history?

Ludmilla Jordanova:
Hi t
History as an academic
d i discipline
di i li h has only
l bbeen around
d since
i th
the 19th
century it doesnt own history - We cannot dismiss public history as mere
popularisation, entertainment or propaganda. We need to develop coherent
positions on the relationships between academic history, institutions such
as museums, and popular culture.
 The Digital Revolution and History
5
Culture of Abundance source preservation
What about losses and deception?
Digital research tools
What about cyborg element?
Reconstruction & presentation The Digital
What about books and authority? R
Revolution
l ti and d
Beyond Narrative and Text to the actual past History
TH Dec 2015
Do we want the actual chaos of the past?
Collaborative
C ll b ti andd dynamic
d i history
hi t
Can scholarship be about anonymous sharing?
Digitisation as a mechanism for democratisation of history
Can everyone be a historian?
Evaluating the impact of the digital revolution

anyone can write history

Critique AND defend academic history! about anything
 Tweet
History
Now!

Blog

Debate
Academic
cade c v
Amateur

Tweet
Peter Stanley:
Democratic
History
6
A great new case study in
academic v
public v
2011HSCQ:
popular history
Towhatextentdo
historians 'own'
historians own
Centenary of Anzac 2014-2019 history?

Will the Anzac Legend be examined by academics as a critical

study?

Will it be approached as a commemoration of the Anzacs and/or a

celebration of a key event in the national story?

Will the popularisers simply tell ripping yarns?

Historians and others have set up Honest History, a coalition

promoting the view that there is much more to our war history than
tales of heroic men in khaki: www.honesthistory.net.au
y
 Scott McIntyre, sports journalist sacked
from SBS for anti-Anzac
anti Anzac tweets

Professor Philip Dwyer, professor of

history at Newcastle University
University, writes
about the tweets and contested history
on The Conversation:
http://theconversation com/au
http://theconversation.com/au

Contested
Australian
History
y

History
PublicvDigital
Now!
AcademicRevolution

Significance
ofhistory
Daily Telegraph
30 M
Marchh 2016

UNSW rewrites the history books...

Headline

Story

Cartoon

Editorial

History
Now!
 7 Anna Clark, 2016

Research
R h andd di
discussion
i on:
Private History Public History
Academic History
Anna Clark
Quotes Michelle Arrow:
Private Lives,
If we onlyy look at national
Public History
commemorations and popular histories
in terms of the ways they are deployed in
political debate
debate, then we are in danger of
missing their personal and affective
dimensions.

History Clark:
Now! Its a pity so much public discussion and
d b t d
debate doesntt seem tto understand
d t d th the
Mine the book reality of historical connection, or
contemplate the need for fostering
History is a need
need .
History is learnt outside school...
histories that acknowledge this reality.
etc
8
Footnotes are not defensive displays of pedantry,

they are honest expressions of vulnerability,

they are generous signposts to anyone who wants to

retrace the path and test the insights
insights,

they are an acknowledgement of the collective

enterprise that is history.

Tom Griffiths
History and the Creative Imagination (lecture 2008)
See 2013 Extension History HSC, Question 1 Source
In 2000 a British High Court found that Holocaust denier David
Irving had falsified accounts of the past.
This was based on the expert evidence of Sir Richard Evans,
who checked Irvings footnotes.
Now they are going to make a movie about footnotes:
Now,

Truth,
Significance

Movies&Historian:
History
HistoryEvans
Now!

Methodology
(footnotes)