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Journal #2 What do (or would) postmodern histories look like? After reading Jenkins’ introduction to The Postmodern History Reader, [it is hard to say with any sort of definitive response.] Postmodernist history, in fact, is so elusive, that the original main clause of that previous sentence, formed with a coherent argument, slipped quietly away while checking the title of Jenkins’ work. A particularly interesting part of Jenkins’ answer to that question is : “One thing we can be fairly sure about is that (if they exist) they will not be like.…” He questions the future existence of a history that fulfills the very theory of history that he champions with his work. Yet he sees “intimations of postmodern-type histories” in existing works by certain historians. Granted, it would not be postmodernism if an almost absolute statement were to remain unqualified, and so perhaps as a postmodernist he is compelled to qualify his statement, just in case, despite his urgings to historians to embrace postmodernism, postmodern histories do not actually materialize. If we prune back his sentences and tame the jargon-laden theoretical discussion, my vision of what we see ought not be nearly as frightening to non-postmodernist historians as some portray postmodernism. I believe a central feature of postmodern histories will be an honest and clear explanation of what the historian has included in a particular study, as well as an acknowledgement of what the historian has left out. Interpretive frameworks will be clearly spelled out, rather than implied or obscured. They will be embraced wholeheartedly as one of many ways of understanding a given episode of history, rather than touted as the one true way. Furthermore, history will return to (if it ever stopped being) a discipline which we look to in order to make better sense of the world around us and the future world we hope to shape. With the Web, perhaps the old notion of the single, definitive, authoritative work will fade away, allowing the multiplicity of interpretive frameworks to co-exist and support each other. Each work residing only one click away from any other given work may enable necessary connections for the reader to gain a fuller understanding of the historical picture, seeing it from various vantage points. In order to take hold, postmodernist histories will need to find a method for crafting qualified statements that elucidate more than they obscure. Otherwise there may be a temptation to write-off non-committal, postmodernist histories as meaningless. Here too perhaps the Web will be of assistance. Postmodernist histories may take advantage of technology to produce layered texts, in which qualifiers and explanations may be shown or hidden, much like HTML comments are seen when viewing source code. Imagine a history in which, without affecting readability, the historian may integrate fact and interpretation, and the reader can still see which is which. --Allison Meyer |