Assignments
Historical Scholarship on the Web: A Critical Review
[ Introduction ] [
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In Hamlet on the Holodeck, Janet Murray states that at some point
in their futures all methods of storytelling become "transparent."
Instead of focusing solely on the method of delivery, "we lost
consciousness of the medium and see neither print nor film but only
the power of the story itself." Hopefully the history profession
will see a day when "digital history" simply becomes "history."
Until then, it is important to discuss the positive and negative
aspects of this new medium and its effects on the realm of historical
scholarship. This review is a very small step in what I hope will
be a direction that makes the "digital" in digital history
invisible.
As stated in my proposal, this review examines the ways that scholars
have written historical scholarship in a digital environment. As
a medium essentially without limits on pages, graphics, and audience,
digital media has attributes that can aid or hinder historians in
presenting scholarship. Based on the variety of their content, structure,
and usability, I have selected the following websites for review:
Gerald R. Butters, Jr, From
Homestead to Lynch Mob: Portrayals of Black Masculinity in Oscar
Micheaux’s Within Our Gates. Journal for
Multimedia History 3 (2000) - This site uses movie clips, written
narrative to examine the constructions of black masculinity.
Thomas Dublin and Melissa Doak, Miner's
Son, Miners' Photographer: The Life and Times of George Harvan.
Journal for Multimedia History 3 (2000) - A site that uses
a variety of media resources, Miner's Son, Miners' Photographer
uses the story of George Harvan to explore broader historical contexts.
David Staley, Sequential
Art and Historical Narrative: A Visual History of Germany. Journal
of the Association for History and Computing v. 5, no. 2 (2002)
- In this site, Staley juxtaposes images of German history in order
to "write" a narrative about German culture and the automobile.
Duncan Salkeld, Making
Sense of Differences: Postmodern History, Philosophy, and Shakespeare's
Prostitutes. Cronicon 3 (1999) - Using frames, Salkeld
writes a traditional scholarly article that allows readers to jump
a footnote while reading the
William G. Thomas, III. and Edward L. Ayers, The
Difference Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities
- Here Thomas and Ayers have created a site that brings more analysis
to their award-winning Valley of the Shadow website.
The section provides links to small reviews of
each individual website so that readers can be more familiar with
their contents before going further.
The
section looks at three themes common to all the websites: Narrative,
Argument, and Interactivity.
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