Posts com a Tag ‘GREVER Maria (Res)’

Although narrative forms can be viewed as essential cognitive tools, Pihlainen claims it is a “curious mistake to extend this same centrality to historical narratives” because we cannot have direct historical experience (6). Thus, narrative as a sense‐making strategy does not hold for historical narratives. This statement remains a bit unelaborate and vague until later in the book, particularly in chapters 4 and 5, when it becomes clear that Pihlainen refers not to fictional creation but rather to the tension between truth and reference. Because of historians’ commitment to representing a past reality by means of referentiality, Pihlainen claims, “[h]istorical narratives—as narratives—are fundamentally disturbed” (63). So, there are two competing and conflicting positions in contemporary historiography: on the one hand, the writing of history always involves the use of a narrative form, transcending the level of separate propositions; on the other hand, the narrative is incompatible with epistemological evaluation. It is curious that at this point in his book Pihlainen does not refer to Paul Ricoeur. The making of historical narratives is a process of what Ricoeur has called “productive imagination,” or the configuration of scattered past events, persons, intentions, goals, and causes into a synthetic whole by means of emplotment.⁵ The overarching thesis of his three‐volume Time and Narrative is that the temporality of human experience unfolds by narrative. Moreover, Ricoeur also includes the role of the reader, which is an important element of Pihlainen’s book. Narrating history is a process of configuring time—that is, the shaping of temporal aspects that are prefigured in acting. The temporal configuration occurs in plots that give coherence to a diversity of individual events from the past.⁶ This configurable dimension, Ricoeur explains, makes the story intelligible and traceable. Yet for the audience to be able to follow a story, there has to be an endpoint from which the story can be seen as a whole, a kind of conclusion where expectation in the beginning finds its fulfillment.⁷ Following the narrative (such as through reading or hearing) implies a refiguration of temporal experiences. In the act of reading, the receiver plays with the narrative constraints and makes the plot work.

However it may be, the aforementioned tension that Pihlainen invokes is the often discussed and unresolved dilemma, as mentioned by Paul A. Roth, “between either epistemic standards inapplicable to histories or nonepistemic narrative theorizing.”⁸ Interestingly enough, Pihlainen does not dwell on this dilemma but rather, referring to White, suggests that the constructed nature of meaning makes all participants in “the work of history” ethically and politically involved (10). Historians, publishers, and readers have to take responsibility for the making, consequences, and reception of the narrative. There is no escape: meaning cannot be distilled from facts or reality “out there,” and historians cannot rely on some objective or acknowledged method. This ethical and political issue also touches the presence of history in people’s daily lives and the ways that interpretations of the past thrive outside of the academic field of history. Pihlainen explains that this public practice of history has nothing to do with the “presence” of the past or any mystical appeal of historical traces, nor does it have anything to do with experiences of—or direct contact with—the past (28).⁹ He obviously dislikes the presence paradigm, especially considering his statement that “the idea of the presence of ‘history’ does not seem to lead anywhere” (28). But it is possible, Pihlainen continues, that encounters with historical sources in the archives or experiences in popular genres (such as literature, theater, and film) might generate corrections on the level of factual statements, consequently undermining the coherence of a narrative. In that case, “the disruptive potential” defamiliarizes the “glossing and colonizing impact of narrativization.” The resulting increased fragmentation can stimulate “the disruption of narration and its control of meaning” (29).

In line with this argument, and inspired by Nancy Partner’s work, Pihlainen advocates in chapters 3 and 6 that historians should become more involved with the world and should pay serious attention to “popular appropriations of the past” (52).¹⁰ Indeed, academic historians increasingly acknowledge—although sometimes reluctantly—the importance of popular media and public memory in building representations of the past (99). Popular media and genres also include performative articulations like historical reenactments, museum exhibitions, street views with augmented reality, and interactive media.¹¹ Telling examples of this are digital games about the Second World War, which have become a prominent method of cultural expression reaching millions of people all over the world. By allowing players to engage actively with the Second World War, this body of commercial digital entertainment games can significantly co‐configure how the history of this war is understood. These video games often create immersive experiences, but they can also stimulate informal historical learning.¹² Digital games and augmented reality are current trends that can fundamentally change how we think and write about the past, hence even influencing historical scholarship.

In chapter 5, Pihlainen explicitly argues for historiography that avoids noncommittal attitudes toward the past (50). It is time, he urges, that historians and theorists find ways to become politically committed in their writings and to challenge their readers to do the same (58). Based on this reasoning, the social responsibility of those involved in the work of history also applies to the current global protests of the Black Lives Matter movement and the fierce conflicts about the content and form of narratives and other representations of the history of slavery, colonialism, and racism. Just like engaged citizens, educators, and policy makers, academic historians cannot remain aloof in public debates. The current removal of statues that deliberately represent white supremacy is understandable, as is the call for rewriting history. But there is also the understandable fear of cleansing the past, of destroying culture and denying that “[a]ll societies are palimpsests.”¹³ What we need is an open conversation about the history of these representations so that opposing parties can learn. But we also need more.

No less crucial is avoiding the closure of a narrative and the judgments inevitably involved (96), including—in my view—counter‐narratives such as gender history, the history of black slavery, or colonial history. White particularly warned that the realist closure tends to domesticate and normalize the presentation of past events. The absence of closure reveals a narrative’s constructive and ideological nature, but it also provides room for reflection and discussion. That is why, Pihlainen explains, White can suggest that the goal of historical representation should be “to create perplexity in the face of the real” (11); it is also why, in his later works, he appreciated modernist and experimental representational forms that “refuse the kinds of closures attributed to more conventionalist realist as well as propagandic representations” (12). In the case of material representations, a closure—in the sense of a fixed representation—can be avoided by “counter‐monuments,” a term coined by James E. Young.¹⁴ Counter‐monuments represent a shift from the heroic, self‐aggrandizing figurative icons that were erected mainly in the nineteenth century to the antiheroic, often‐ironic, and self‐effacing postmodern conceptual installations of the late twentieth century. These often‐abstract monuments are dialogical and interactive by nature. Examples include the Holocaust monument in Berlin and the bronze sculpture by Zadkine in Rotterdam, which commemorates the bombing of the city on May 14, 1940. Counter‐monuments deal in various ways with “the unimaginable, the unspeakable and unrepresentable horror” of the Holocaust or other genocides.¹⁵ They can create feelings of perplexity, functioning as Kafka’s ax in literature, “for the frozen sea within us.”¹⁶

Pihlainen argues in chapter 5 that complexity creates a space where the text is not simply a given but becomes a space for communication in which readers and other participants are involved (91). For White, this complexity provides a way to make the past present—that is, to actualize it for readers. His view on the historical sublime, Pihlainen continues, “aimed at an experience that makes ‘real’ without imposing closure” and at the same time saves history from domestication (91). Although the demand for complexity and open‐ended representations seems incompatible with the historian’s responsibility and commitment, it is exactly the responsibility of historians, White emphasized, to resist the inclination to make a closure, particularly given all its implicated judgments. This responsibility includes the world around us, the impact of presenting ourselves as historians, and our interpretations and actions as readers (94). Yet Pihlainen is not happy with the way that White deals with the consequences of this complexity (108). These narratives and other representations, he suggests, risk becoming unreadable and unapproachable. Readers expect coherent and appealing historical narratives. Complex histories are more difficult to understand and might lack the emotional impact that audiences expect.

In his book, Pihlainen refutes the equation of “constructivism with unconstrained relativism” (66). He makes a strong and convincing argument for the political character of history writing from a constructivist point of view, and he encourages historians to challenge their readers to question received interpretations and to recognize historiography’s ideological elements (87). His emphasis on the role of readers and the communicative aspects of the work of history is most important. But Pihlainen’s constructivist perspective implies that historiography is not only political but also normative, often in relation to the political dimension. Contemporary discussions about the past do not just incite historians to put different historical narratives in perspective; they also require historians to distinguish which narratives are better than others, be it in terms of accuracy or morality. What, then, are the criteria for these choices? Which answers can constructivism provide to this question without resorting to realist ontologies or moral realism? Pihlainen does not pose such questions. I regret that the book sometimes reads too much like an exegesis of White’s work, in turn limiting Pihlainen’s voice a bit. Another disturbing element is that many of Pihlainen’s arguments are repeated. But it is beyond dispute that this book is worthwhile reading and that it truly encourages critical thinking about the “work of history.”

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