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This is Not the Past: The Limits of Historical Representations

David Staley states that when historians do virtual reality "narratives"--or any other historical narrative for that matter--they should hang signs that say "This is Not the Past." Staley spends much of the space in his book on the values and benefits of historical study and interpretation, but his message also carries an important caveat as illustrated by his warning: Historical narrative can never fully recover the past, but is only a representation of the past. Thus, Staley argues that while “virtual reality” can “open up new vistas of interpretation,” it has the same limitations as any other medium used in historical inquiry.

In his chapter entitled “Virtual Reality,” Staley proposes that virtual reality can be a productive medium for the study of history. It can reorganize information in new ways and allow "readers" to see and digest that information in one visual construct, instead of a lengthy and verbose written narrative. Like written history, however, virtual reality cannot fully recreate the past because it is a secondary construct of the past, created with disparate, relatively incomplete sources.No matter how much information a historian uses, no matter how many sources he or she consults, the historical narrative created from those sources is an imposition on the past by the present historian. Staley argues that visual narrative, or visual secondary sources, "should not be confused with 'the past'." Visual narratives can be rigorous secondary sources similar to scholarly monographs in that they can provide interpretation, organize historical information, and tell stories in a different communicative form.

While Staley spends a good amount of space explaining the limitations of digital media (and other media), Janet Murray would focus on the immersive and expressive attributes of digital media. Though Murray would not necessarily disagree with Staley’s statement, she would emphasize the ways in which narrative can be more interactive in a digital environment. Perhaps this is because of Staley’s and Murray’s respective fields (Staley is a historian, Murray a literary scholar). Staley explicity warns against believing that the past can "come alive" in any kind of narrative; "Even an 'immersive' visual environment," Staley argues, "is a constructed fiction."

For William Cronon, narrative is a human construction and, in agreement with Staley, is an attempt by historians to organize reality. However, Cronon deals exclusively with linear, linguistic narrative. Narrative, as he argues, has a “beginning, middle, and end”; it is still linear. In contrast, Staley embraces the multidimensionality of visual narrative and its precise lack of a beginning, middle, and end. Moreover, Cronon disagrees with Staley (and deconstructionist historians such as Hayden White) that history cannot be fully recovered or represented “fairly.”

I'm a big fan of Staley's arguments. For the most part Staley apporaches digital history with a optimistic but realistic attitude. He gives an informed assessment of the place of written narrative in the historical profession, yet he argues persuasively that visual narrative--narrative that uses symbols and constructs other than words--can provide illuminating explanation and analysis of historical questions. Visual narrative, Staley admits, will not make written narrative obsolete, but it can add new dimensions to historical study that written narrative cannot: multidimensionality, perspective, and interactivity.

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