In our era of the fast-paced environment and computer technology changing almost every mode of our life, the move, the cinematography and Hollywood for a long time took a leading role to interpret and historically educate our society. The following authors bring their points of view on this phenomenon by analyzing various film productions.
Discussing The Return of Martin Guerre (1982), historian and consultant Natalie Davis looks at the move form the anthropological point of view in the attempt of the moviemakers to reconstruct sixteenth-century life of the French countryside. Despite her ground work as a researcher, the movie obviously appeared with some shortages: manner of speech and conduct of the main characters, system of public trial in the Ancient régime France, appropriate dress, to name but a few. To that extend, discussing historical and cinematic criteria, Davis suggests that the first one embraces the “constructing the image of the past and lines of the historical plot” while the second is responsible for “quality, movement, and cost.” (p. 47). Inability of a director to work with close conjunction with the consultant creates an image of modernity replacing the historical reality. One of the solutions is the suggestion to present historical review on movie in the scholarly journals, but today’s generation of spectators, I am afraid, is looking more for an entertainment rather than a diligent research.
Further, Vivien E. Rose and Julie Corley are attacking the domineering approach in directorship, which was undertook by Ken Burns’ in his Not for ourselves alone: The Story of E. Stanton and S. Anthony (1999). Bringing up the idea that “historians need a public versed in history”, authors suggest for more promotion of the “historical narrative” (p. 50). We could agree, perhaps, that the Burns’ presentation of two famous suffragists (although did not survive to see the 19th Amendment coming into the effect) goes with a standard interpretation of great American heroes (heroines). However, lots of primary materials are misused: off-period photos, inconsistency in music matching the scenes, odd text and the like. “I can see it in such a way,” – is the usual defense of a director against piles of historical research and convincing evidence.
Although move seems educational it does not, by the opinion of authors, necessarily brings “scholarly credibility” (p. 56). It, however, promotes the sale of a product associated with the history of suffragist movement, which is no less important. Just as the above Davis’ article suggests, there is need for more appearance of historians in public, writhing of op-ed pieces and teaching students how to use primary source and analyze documents. Perhaps, there is time when historians having directors and producers only as an instrument for production could make their own historically accurate movies.
How about that for a change?
Although Robert Toplin in his Cinematic History agrees that more and more movie production became available to historians and students alike, he discourses the main question as to what is today’s major vehicle for public to attend history-based movies. He is trying to answer it by investigating movies that interpret history, those as the author calls it, “cinematic history” (p. 81).
The traditional narrative style is still persisting, as the audience wants to be entertained rather then undergo critical thinking, states the author. From another hand, the Hollywood was able to attract its audience by presenting the past in connection with present events (WWI, Vietnam war, the 1960s and so on). Although historians are facing dilemma on the film research, the insisted political agenda undermines, sometimes, such an endeavor. Historians, in the author’s interpretation, research film in three levels: the final product, film’s relationship to actual history, and production behind the scenes. By combining all three approaches – from both the cinematographically accurate and historical (archival) points of view, one can manage to present a whole picture of a historical event. What is missing here is the author’s lack of comparison with historical European movies and the DVD material which is frequently supplied with “how the move was made” feature. Another problem is that all of the commentaries are made postfactum, after the movie hit the screens and snatched its first millions (like it or not, but today’s movies are aimed primarily on the younger audience). What desperately needed is a rightful partnership between consultants and producers and assumption of responsibilities from either side.
Wallace’s Disney World (Section II)
One of the many recent marvels the Disney World is obviously the most renowned feature of American and world culture. Presenting a brief history of these theme parks – Hall of Presidents, EPCOT, Carousel of Progress and others, Wallace researchers the impact, which such features bring upon millions of attendees and moreover, its historical significance and accuracy.
Obviously, being inspired by Colonial Williamsburg, Disney resembles its technique – “transporting visitors back in time”(p. 135). But, as the author notices, it is more of a win-win situation; in its pursuit the corporation presents the history as a great achievement throughout the historical period. No questions needed. True, it is a popular culture (which does not need “negativities” such as war, depression or class struggle), but from the other hand it is an education brought up by an entertainment and a proper museum expo could only bring to it an additional flavor.
In the second part of this installment, the author presents the development of the Disney’s brand – in Europe, in Japan, and everywhere else, mainly aiming for heritage tourism and development. Speaking of controversy, which aroused between historians and park directors, the author stresses a deep impact when the scholars criticized the innovations calling it “sentimentalism by a nature” (p. 165). Further, it created a line of protests from the environmentalists and historic preservationists fighting for authenticity against plastic consumerism. Historians, in fact, concludes the author, should work with the place such as Disney. But just as in the case of Hollywood production, historians should be flexible and assist in recreating the truth while avoiding being preferential.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
HIstory websites
Surfing through the myriad of websites in work for school and leisure, the presentation of the historical aspect of the American Revolution was always interesting. Obviously, there are websites of all colors, designs and shapes that supposed to gratify even the most sophisticated visitor. Are they?
American Revolution
http://www.americanrevolution.com/people.html
The website seems the most classical version of this kind, since it pops up almost everywhere the researcher is trying to pursue this or that subject. It subdivided by three major parts: “A History”, “Documents” and “People”. Clicking on “People”, for example, the screen automatically brings you to the most important chapters of this subdivision, such as “The Founding Fathers”, “African-Americans in the Revolutionary period”, “Martyrs and Heroes” and the like. The links are easy to navigate and they give a lot of information: biographical sketches, extracts from the mémoires and excerpts. There are lots of pictures (many of them however, of contemporary artists, which is downsize of the design), portraits and famous wall paintings. Sadly, when the website discusses Revolutionary war battles, there is no immediate map attached to the text (though major map does exist) but through the navigator it is possible to get a reference from other sites.
Sponsored by the Google, US Army Reserve and several other commercial and governmental entities, the website presents lots of exchange banners and advertisement. However, the website is designed for a general audience, for it has discussion Forum and could be as a great help to anyone looking for to obtaining preliminary information on various aspects of the American Revolution.
American Revolution
http://www.theamericanrevolution.org/
As its above namesake, the website is also divided into several subchapters: “Important People”, “Battles”, “Historical Documents” and others, including “Recommended reading” and “Chat.” Aiming towards the special audience, Joseph T. Logan, the founder of the website notes that “Scholars and educators in today's society have a difficult time in convincing our children of the importance of history. We must do our best to find better ways of making the teachings of the founding of our nation more interesting to our youngsters.”
He, however, finds the “better ways” by presenting all white, male, Christian, Anglo-Saxon, to name but a few, history of the American Revolution. Among twenty-five “Important people” there is no place for Marquise de Lafayette or Martha Washington, not to mention any of the Africans or Native Americans. From the other hands, the military section is very extensive. Not only the website provide the information on date, location and opposing forces, but by clicking on a single battle one could get a link to the information on general overview, synopsis and effects of the encounter. It also gives a recommended reading, map and pictures (some are mislabeled, however), where available.
Section on documents provides link to “who, when, where, why and what” on many primary sources from the “Boston Massacre Oration” (1774) to “Sedition Act” (1798). The author also scanned original documents and with the high quality resolution monitor one could get a nice view of many historical papers and pamphlets.
Although obviously biased, this website, certainly, could serve as an excellent assistance to the instructor, for it provides easy-to-navigate tool for introduction of the major events of the American Revolution along with numerous first-hand documentation.
American Revolution
http://www.americanrevolution.com/people.html
The website seems the most classical version of this kind, since it pops up almost everywhere the researcher is trying to pursue this or that subject. It subdivided by three major parts: “A History”, “Documents” and “People”. Clicking on “People”, for example, the screen automatically brings you to the most important chapters of this subdivision, such as “The Founding Fathers”, “African-Americans in the Revolutionary period”, “Martyrs and Heroes” and the like. The links are easy to navigate and they give a lot of information: biographical sketches, extracts from the mémoires and excerpts. There are lots of pictures (many of them however, of contemporary artists, which is downsize of the design), portraits and famous wall paintings. Sadly, when the website discusses Revolutionary war battles, there is no immediate map attached to the text (though major map does exist) but through the navigator it is possible to get a reference from other sites.
Sponsored by the Google, US Army Reserve and several other commercial and governmental entities, the website presents lots of exchange banners and advertisement. However, the website is designed for a general audience, for it has discussion Forum and could be as a great help to anyone looking for to obtaining preliminary information on various aspects of the American Revolution.
American Revolution
http://www.theamericanrevolution.org/
As its above namesake, the website is also divided into several subchapters: “Important People”, “Battles”, “Historical Documents” and others, including “Recommended reading” and “Chat.” Aiming towards the special audience, Joseph T. Logan, the founder of the website notes that “Scholars and educators in today's society have a difficult time in convincing our children of the importance of history. We must do our best to find better ways of making the teachings of the founding of our nation more interesting to our youngsters.”
He, however, finds the “better ways” by presenting all white, male, Christian, Anglo-Saxon, to name but a few, history of the American Revolution. Among twenty-five “Important people” there is no place for Marquise de Lafayette or Martha Washington, not to mention any of the Africans or Native Americans. From the other hands, the military section is very extensive. Not only the website provide the information on date, location and opposing forces, but by clicking on a single battle one could get a link to the information on general overview, synopsis and effects of the encounter. It also gives a recommended reading, map and pictures (some are mislabeled, however), where available.
Section on documents provides link to “who, when, where, why and what” on many primary sources from the “Boston Massacre Oration” (1774) to “Sedition Act” (1798). The author also scanned original documents and with the high quality resolution monitor one could get a nice view of many historical papers and pamphlets.
Although obviously biased, this website, certainly, could serve as an excellent assistance to the instructor, for it provides easy-to-navigate tool for introduction of the major events of the American Revolution along with numerous first-hand documentation.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Preserving History: Archives
Visit to the DOS Archive – Legal Division
Today, no major work is possible without the extensive access to the archival material in the Department of State Archive, the principal repository of many documents relating to the Florida’s environmental issues. The Archive collection I’ve been looking at contains several groups of files from the Environmental Law Section, which hold the state and local government records serving as the basis for this examination. The sample could be presented, as follows:
Record Group Number: 000520
Series/Collection .S 1442
Creator: Florida Department of Environmental Regulation
Title: Legal Reading Files, 1973-1975
Amount: 1.50 cubic ft.
With the assistance of the database, one could determine that 000520 is the subsequent number of the box; index “.S” relates to the Environmental Law Section, which submitted copies of the documents for filing. Each box in this section contains files, in this instance, for the period from 1973 to 1975. These files organized in the chronological order and contain personal and interagency correspondence, draft legislations, and the like, in the way of litigation structural (that is, case by case, date by date). Various legal notes related to the environmental issues, such as pleadings, upcoming hearings, proceedings, rulings or pending in jurisdictions are grouped together with the preceding correspondence.
Box contains ten chronologically composed files, which were collected and bound as the legal proceedings went along. Documents are not numbered, nor they have a general or local index; also, all files are aviating its turn to be digitized. The extensive interagency correspondence they do contain, however, makes possible a much fine-grained analysis of the various problems, which surrounded Florida’s environment from the legal point of view.
Nicholson Baker’s “Double Fold”
In his thoroughly researched book Baker discusses the system of the American archives and libraries, which employs the policy of “destroying to preserve”, that is, microfilming old original newspaper printed issues and selling/discarding out the originals in terms of to preserve space. Starting with this dilemma that faced the British Library, the author takes his reader along the way to various collections in the United States describing, analyzing and disgusting all together in his quest to find a solution to such problem.
Note that the author, while obviously is in discontent, is not per se against the system of microfilming, copying and/or digitizing of the priceless material. Rather, his concern is that that the major depositories, starting with the Library of Congress or NASA, are not performing duplication in the professional and diligent way. Being an old-fashion person (very much like myself), the author states “historians don’t read the old papers because their libraries don’t keep the old papers to read, and microfilm is a brain-poaching, gorge-lifting trial to browse” (p. 39). There is – and we all could agree upon – inaccuracy, loss of data, chemicals that are deteriorating and so on. But, perhaps, an era of a digital marvel could help? No good either, says Baker, for one of the famous one, JSTOR has a certain amount of typos (do not bother me, really) and problems with its character-recognition software (mostly true).
The general solution, the author suggests, that libraries “must keep its duplicates… for books became worn with use, lost, stolen or misshelved” (p. 102). How about if we added to this list more of government funds (and not only on the national level), sophisticated security system and professionally trained personnel, from an intern clerk to a director?
Towards the continuation of the preservation of the originals saga the author reveals various stories he encountered while dealing with books and newspapers – its collections, preservation, discard and destruction – and its second life, where possible (as in the case of bidding to save the material form the British Library destined to be sold out). Although stories seem a bit redundant their concept is obvious – the author worries for the future of the printed material for readers like you and me. And no double (triple? quartile?) fold test is really needed.
Roy Rosenzweig’s "Wikipedia" (from essays for History and New Media)
The author analyzes unprecedented success of Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia, which hit the computer world in 1999-2000 and he discourses whether serious historians/authors/scholars/students could rely on its immense history information bank. For the many, this is not a place where people advocate their research or argue their positions – this is truly unbiased source, which is in many instances a collaborative work that summaries data in the narrative way.
“But is it a good historical resource?” – asks the author. There are some topics of the American history, which are getting vast attention and those that go unnoticed at all. What drives this is a need for an interest, its prime utilization and probably, unwillingness to touch “sharp corners”, such as racism or immigration. Comparing Wikipedia’s random chosen biographies with “thick” and respective dictionaries, the author notices how thorough the e-authors conducted their research. From the other hand, the multitude of the authors highlights certain entries and diminishes the others by committing obvious errands. While the narrative is well written, some entries lack the scholarly analysis, elegancy in prose and discursive interpretation. It is still does not have a clear mechanism against “computer vandals” who might change the text in a minute, while someone is reading it in this very moment. From the scholarly point of view it reflects on both – history teachers and students in colleges, who – yes, we have to admit it – do consider Wikipedia as their major research engine. One of the solutions to this problem, the author suggests, is to teach our students to work with primary and secondary materials and explain to them the limitation of the on-line source. From the other hand, history material should be easily available and accessible; Wikipedia is just an alternative, non-commercial way of learning but is not the major one.
Today, no major work is possible without the extensive access to the archival material in the Department of State Archive, the principal repository of many documents relating to the Florida’s environmental issues. The Archive collection I’ve been looking at contains several groups of files from the Environmental Law Section, which hold the state and local government records serving as the basis for this examination. The sample could be presented, as follows:
Record Group Number: 000520
Series/Collection .S 1442
Creator: Florida Department of Environmental Regulation
Title: Legal Reading Files, 1973-1975
Amount: 1.50 cubic ft.
With the assistance of the database, one could determine that 000520 is the subsequent number of the box; index “.S” relates to the Environmental Law Section, which submitted copies of the documents for filing. Each box in this section contains files, in this instance, for the period from 1973 to 1975. These files organized in the chronological order and contain personal and interagency correspondence, draft legislations, and the like, in the way of litigation structural (that is, case by case, date by date). Various legal notes related to the environmental issues, such as pleadings, upcoming hearings, proceedings, rulings or pending in jurisdictions are grouped together with the preceding correspondence.
Box contains ten chronologically composed files, which were collected and bound as the legal proceedings went along. Documents are not numbered, nor they have a general or local index; also, all files are aviating its turn to be digitized. The extensive interagency correspondence they do contain, however, makes possible a much fine-grained analysis of the various problems, which surrounded Florida’s environment from the legal point of view.
Nicholson Baker’s “Double Fold”
In his thoroughly researched book Baker discusses the system of the American archives and libraries, which employs the policy of “destroying to preserve”, that is, microfilming old original newspaper printed issues and selling/discarding out the originals in terms of to preserve space. Starting with this dilemma that faced the British Library, the author takes his reader along the way to various collections in the United States describing, analyzing and disgusting all together in his quest to find a solution to such problem.
Note that the author, while obviously is in discontent, is not per se against the system of microfilming, copying and/or digitizing of the priceless material. Rather, his concern is that that the major depositories, starting with the Library of Congress or NASA, are not performing duplication in the professional and diligent way. Being an old-fashion person (very much like myself), the author states “historians don’t read the old papers because their libraries don’t keep the old papers to read, and microfilm is a brain-poaching, gorge-lifting trial to browse” (p. 39). There is – and we all could agree upon – inaccuracy, loss of data, chemicals that are deteriorating and so on. But, perhaps, an era of a digital marvel could help? No good either, says Baker, for one of the famous one, JSTOR has a certain amount of typos (do not bother me, really) and problems with its character-recognition software (mostly true).
The general solution, the author suggests, that libraries “must keep its duplicates… for books became worn with use, lost, stolen or misshelved” (p. 102). How about if we added to this list more of government funds (and not only on the national level), sophisticated security system and professionally trained personnel, from an intern clerk to a director?
Towards the continuation of the preservation of the originals saga the author reveals various stories he encountered while dealing with books and newspapers – its collections, preservation, discard and destruction – and its second life, where possible (as in the case of bidding to save the material form the British Library destined to be sold out). Although stories seem a bit redundant their concept is obvious – the author worries for the future of the printed material for readers like you and me. And no double (triple? quartile?) fold test is really needed.
Roy Rosenzweig’s "Wikipedia" (from essays for History and New Media)
The author analyzes unprecedented success of Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia, which hit the computer world in 1999-2000 and he discourses whether serious historians/authors/scholars/students could rely on its immense history information bank. For the many, this is not a place where people advocate their research or argue their positions – this is truly unbiased source, which is in many instances a collaborative work that summaries data in the narrative way.
“But is it a good historical resource?” – asks the author. There are some topics of the American history, which are getting vast attention and those that go unnoticed at all. What drives this is a need for an interest, its prime utilization and probably, unwillingness to touch “sharp corners”, such as racism or immigration. Comparing Wikipedia’s random chosen biographies with “thick” and respective dictionaries, the author notices how thorough the e-authors conducted their research. From the other hand, the multitude of the authors highlights certain entries and diminishes the others by committing obvious errands. While the narrative is well written, some entries lack the scholarly analysis, elegancy in prose and discursive interpretation. It is still does not have a clear mechanism against “computer vandals” who might change the text in a minute, while someone is reading it in this very moment. From the scholarly point of view it reflects on both – history teachers and students in colleges, who – yes, we have to admit it – do consider Wikipedia as their major research engine. One of the solutions to this problem, the author suggests, is to teach our students to work with primary and secondary materials and explain to them the limitation of the on-line source. From the other hand, history material should be easily available and accessible; Wikipedia is just an alternative, non-commercial way of learning but is not the major one.
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