Doing the backwards Kuhn

Interesting thoughts about historical methodology and theory from Adolph Reed in 1997 (I highlighted the Kuhn reference I mention in my title):

9: It is natural enough--given the primacy of racial subordination and oppression--that Afro-American thinking has been so thoroughly dominated by issues of racial strategy. What Myrdal overlooked, however, is that even the narrowest, most 'provincial' lines of debate derive from and are structured by a normatively significant language of politics, a discourse bound by shared 'values, beliefs, perceptions, and concepts.' In their various critiques Fontaine, Reddick, Thorpe, and Frazier in effect were calling for black intellectuals to adopt a more critically reflective stance vis-a-vis the foundations of prevailing patterns of black social and political discourse."

10: "Under these influences, Afro-Americanist scholarship congealed around an intellectual core characterized by naivete concerning both the historical autonomy of political thought and the theoretical and epistemic foundations of its own enterprise. As a consequence, research has been largely blind to the regions of deeper normative meanings that are tacit within expressly pragmatic black political debates; for penetrating those regions requires reconstructing the historically specific intellectuals conventions that set the terms of episodic controversy. Not having access to the conventional groundings of black discourse, furthermore, undermines the project of commenting other than trivially on the durable features and self-driving characteristics of Afro-American thought. Instead, such commentary has tended to depict either a perennial chase after platitudinous symbols--'freedom,' 'equality,' even 'struggle'--or a Whiggish saga of the linear unfolding of a grand idea.

11: For students of Afro-American thought the call for critical reflectiveness is therefore most importantly a call for making the normative underpinnings of black thought accessible. Thus we must examine texts as historical artifacts of specific discursive communities. This is in turn entails a need for greater theoretical self-consciousness about two discrete aspects of our approach to our subject matter; one bearing on the relation between the Afro-Americanist and Americanist fields, and the other more generally on the history of ideas. First, to the extent that black thought takes shape within a broader American language of politics, credible recovery of the normative principles tacit in black discourse requires accounting for that constitutive grammar of political debate. ... The study of Afro-American thought can be enriched by rigorous study of American thought and should be so informed.

This methodological innocence--a function of the prevailing naivete about historical contextuality--has left Afro-Americanists without a basis for discussing either interpretive standards or purposive orientations to research. This point should not be taken to suggest a call for a research 'paradigm.' Such an effort hints of solipsism and would deploy scholarly resources most inefficiently. Besides, exercises in paradigm building very likely invert their Kuhnian inspiration anyway. By forgetting that paradigms--when and where they exist--are born, not made, efforts to call them into existence commit a version of the well-known error of confounding the history of science and its summary reconstruction as a sequential logic in the philosophy of science. In this area Hegel's dictum holds: 'The way is the long way around'; one might add, 'if there is any way at all.' Rather, what I am suggesting is simply that we inform our work with the insights--and the ambiguities--generated by hermeneutical and otherwise procedural discussions throughout the broader history of ideas (and, for that matter, literary criticism).

Proper attentiveness to historical contextuality requires breaking the thrall of presentism and similar forms of interpretive naivete, which in turn requires cultivating an attitude of humility and cautious self-doubt in approach to texts. These qualities can be enhanced by making the field's reigning assumptions and procedures objects of scrutiny and by considering Afro-American thought to be a 'relatively autonomous' subset of American thought in general and the history of ideas writ large.

Doing the backwards Kuhn

Interesting thoughts about historical methodology and theory from Adolph Reed in 1997 (I highlighted the Kuhn reference I mention in my title):

9: It is natural enough--given the primacy of racial subordination and oppression--that Afro-American thinking has been so thoroughly dominated by issues of racial strategy. What Myrdal overlooked, however, is that even the narrowest, most 'provincial' lines of debate derive from and are structured by a normatively significant language of politics, a discourse bound by shared 'values, beliefs, perceptions, and concepts.' In their various critiques Fontaine, Reddick, Thorpe, and Frazier in effect were calling for black intellectuals to adopt a more critically reflective stance vis-a-vis the foundations of prevailing patterns of black social and political discourse."

10: "Under these influences, Afro-Americanist scholarship congealed around an intellectual core characterized by naivete concerning both the historical autonomy of political thought and the theoretical and epistemic foundations of its own enterprise. As a consequence, research has been largely blind to the regions of deeper normative meanings that are tacit within expressly pragmatic black political debates; for penetrating those regions requires reconstructing the historically specific intellectuals conventions that set the terms of episodic controversy. Not having access to the conventional groundings of black discourse, furthermore, undermines the project of commenting other than trivially on the durable features and self-driving characteristics of Afro-American thought. Instead, such commentary has tended to depict either a perennial chase after platitudinous symbols--'freedom,' 'equality,' even 'struggle'--or a Whiggish saga of the linear unfolding of a grand idea.

11: For students of Afro-American thought the call for critical reflectiveness is therefore most importantly a call for making the normative underpinnings of black thought accessible. Thus we must examine texts as historical artifacts of specific discursive communities. This is in turn entails a need for greater theoretical self-consciousness about two discrete aspects of our approach to our subject matter; one bearing on the relation between the Afro-Americanist and Americanist fields, and the other more generally on the history of ideas. First, to the extent that black thought takes shape within a broader American language of politics, credible recovery of the normative principles tacit in black discourse requires accounting for that constitutive grammar of political debate. ... The study of Afro-American thought can be enriched by rigorous study of American thought and should be so informed.

This methodological innocence--a function of the prevailing naivete about historical contextuality--has left Afro-Americanists without a basis for discussing either interpretive standards or purposive orientations to research. This point should not be taken to suggest a call for a research 'paradigm.' Such an effort hints of solipsism and would deploy scholarly resources most inefficiently. Besides, exercises in paradigm building very likely invert their Kuhnian inspiration anyway. By forgetting that paradigms--when and where they exist--are born, not made, efforts to call them into existence commit a version of the well-known error of confounding the history of science and its summary reconstruction as a sequential logic in the philosophy of science. In this area Hegel's dictum holds: 'The way is the long way around'; one might add, 'if there is any way at all.' Rather, what I am suggesting is simply that we inform our work with the insights--and the ambiguities--generated by hermeneutical and otherwise procedural discussions throughout the broader history of ideas (and, for that matter, literary criticism).

Proper attentiveness to historical contextuality requires breaking the thrall of presentism and similar forms of interpretive naivete, which in turn requires cultivating an attitude of humility and cautious self-doubt in approach to texts. These qualities can be enhanced by making the field's reigning assumptions and procedures objects of scrutiny and by considering Afro-American thought to be a 'relatively autonomous' subset of American thought in general and the history of ideas writ large.

History "Reading" In Graduate School: A Follow-Up

Although I wrote that I agreed with many points in Larry Cebula's "How to Read a Book in One Hour" post, I must admit that I did so with some regret. I truly do enjoy good history writing when I find it. And graduate school would be a waste if one only took books apart rather than relishing, at times, in an author's prose. Indeed, maybe graduate programs are turning out substandard writers, in part, because seminar reading programs are too heavy with 15-books-in-15-weeks type syllabi? Perhaps it is less that programs are not teaching historians how to write, and more that programs are not letting students learn to appreciate good prose?

I am in this reflective mood about slow reading courtesy of Christopher Shea at the Boston Globe's Brainiac blog. There I ran across the reflections of Columbia University literature professor Jenny Davidson. Davidson recently won Columbia University's Mark Van Doren Award for undergraduate teaching excellence, and she posted the remarks she planned to give at the award ceremony. Here's a passage that struck me (bolds mine):

It is tempting to rush to broad thematic generalizations about a work or an author, but how can you answer a big question about what something means if you can’t parse the meanings of the words in one enigmatic sentence? It takes a willingness to puzzle over small things – and often to admit that one doesn’t understand some particular turn of phrase or twist of argument – to earn the right to answer the bigger and more glamorous questions.

I repeat: To earn the right to answer the bigger and more glamorous questions. Well said. I wonder how many historians bother to earn that right? And why bother if we're not consistently trained to admire good prose?

One of the reasons I enjoy intellectual history is precisely because it forces a slower reading. The prose isn't always great, but the topics are complex enough that one has to read more deliberately. I think that, by and large, intellectual historians do earn the right to ask bigger questions because, in part, they are forced to read slower. The nature of intellectual history demands it.

So having the practical skill of knowing "how to read a book in one hour" might get you through graduate school---perhaps even with flying colors---but it won't give you the appreciation needed to produce good prose for a profession that will hopefully last one's lifetime. And what is the use of making it through, or what is the use of a program credentialing people, if the apprenticeship does does not provide the master skills? - TL

History "Reading" In Graduate School: A Follow-Up

Although I wrote that I agreed with many points in Larry Cebula's "How to Read a Book in One Hour" post, I must admit that I did so with some regret. I truly do enjoy good history writing when I find it. And graduate school would be a waste if one only took books apart rather than relishing, at times, in an author's prose. Indeed, maybe graduate programs are turning out substandard writers, in part, because seminar reading programs are too heavy with 15-books-in-15-weeks type syllabi? Perhaps it is less that programs are not teaching historians how to write, and more that programs are not letting students learn to appreciate good prose?

I am in this reflective mood about slow reading courtesy of Christopher Shea at the Boston Globe's Brainiac blog. There I ran across the reflections of Columbia University literature professor Jenny Davidson. Davidson recently won Columbia University's Mark Van Doren Award for undergraduate teaching excellence, and she posted the remarks she planned to give at the award ceremony. Here's a passage that struck me (bolds mine):

It is tempting to rush to broad thematic generalizations about a work or an author, but how can you answer a big question about what something means if you can’t parse the meanings of the words in one enigmatic sentence? It takes a willingness to puzzle over small things – and often to admit that one doesn’t understand some particular turn of phrase or twist of argument – to earn the right to answer the bigger and more glamorous questions.

I repeat: To earn the right to answer the bigger and more glamorous questions. Well said. I wonder how many historians bother to earn that right? And why bother if we're not consistently trained to admire good prose?

One of the reasons I enjoy intellectual history is precisely because it forces a slower reading. The prose isn't always great, but the topics are complex enough that one has to read more deliberately. I think that, by and large, intellectual historians do earn the right to ask bigger questions because, in part, they are forced to read slower. The nature of intellectual history demands it.

So having the practical skill of knowing "how to read a book in one hour" might get you through graduate school---perhaps even with flying colors---but it won't give you the appreciation needed to produce good prose for a profession that will hopefully last one's lifetime. And what is the use of making it through, or what is the use of a program credentialing people, if the apprenticeship does does not provide the master skills? - TL

History "Reading" In Graduate School

Larry Cebula, of Eastern Washington University, breaks down the infamous---and useful---grad school skim at his Northwest History weblog.

I confess that I have used Larry's method on many occasions, and agree with most of his points. Allow me to add a few more tips.

If you own the book and believe you are likely to keep it, follow some advice I obtained years ago from Mortimer Adler: Do not fear writing in the book. It is as easy to enter short notes and page numbers in a book's endpages as it is to use notecards, or enter information into Zotero or some other (useful) program. But write your notes with a pencil. Don't highlight. When you highlight you're simply delaying both your note-taking and thinking. There's something about the writing utensil that touches your deepest habits as a student.

Reinforcing point #6 of Larry's method, one of my professors told me years ago that there's usually one chapter that makes a book. If you cannot ~not~ spend some time reading in the book, work on this chapter. This will cause your reading to exceed one hour, but at least it will both assuage your guilt and give you more confidence heading into your seminar.

Sadly, I think point #8 of Larry's list usually occurs ~after~ class. If your grad school experience was like mine, most of your friends are not in school with you. And if you happen to have a few who are, usually you are in different courses. Sometimes, however, grad students will gather for a drink or food after a class. That's where you might be lucky enough to actually talk about your reading---provided Lost, Glee, Treme, Madmen, or some other TV program does not dominate the conversation.

I would be remiss if I failed to draw your attention to the last three lines of Larry's post. When you see warnings like this, you know you've encountered one of the dirty, essential secrets of the profession.

Thanks to John Fea for the tip. - TL

History "Reading" In Graduate School

Larry Cebula, of Eastern Washington University, breaks down the infamous---and useful---grad school skim at his Northwest History weblog.

I confess that I have used Larry's method on many occasions, and agree with most of his points. Allow me to add a few more tips.

If you own the book and believe you are likely to keep it, follow some advice I obtained years ago from Mortimer Adler: Do not fear writing in the book. It is as easy to enter short notes and page numbers in a book's endpages as it is to use notecards, or enter information into Zotero or some other (useful) program. But write your notes with a pencil. Don't highlight. When you highlight you're simply delaying both your note-taking and thinking. There's something about the writing utensil that touches your deepest habits as a student.

Reinforcing point #6 of Larry's method, one of my professors told me years ago that there's usually one chapter that makes a book. If you cannot ~not~ spend some time reading in the book, work on this chapter. This will cause your reading to exceed one hour, but at least it will both assuage your guilt and give you more confidence heading into your seminar.

Sadly, I think point #8 of Larry's list usually occurs ~after~ class. If your grad school experience was like mine, most of your friends are not in school with you. And if you happen to have a few who are, usually you are in different courses. Sometimes, however, grad students will gather for a drink or food after a class. That's where you might be lucky enough to actually talk about your reading---provided Lost, Glee, Treme, Madmen, or some other TV program does not dominate the conversation.

I would be remiss if I failed to draw your attention to the last three lines of Larry's post. When you see warnings like this, you know you've encountered one of the dirty, essential secrets of the profession.

Thanks to John Fea for the tip. - TL

Conference: The Role of Opinion Journalism in American Intellectual History

If only I lived in New York! Participants in this exciting half-day conference include two historians scheduled to speak on one of our plenaries at the upcoming USIH conference--Casey Nelson Blake and Rochelle Gurstein.

From the Columbia University website:

Columbia University to Host Conference on the Journalism of Opinion

The Friends of Columbia Libraries are pleased to co-sponsor a conference on opinion journalism in American intellectual history. The half-day conference, entitled “The Journalism of Opinion,” will take place on Friday, April 30, 2010, from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm at the Lecture Hall on the 3rd floor of Columbia University’s Journalism School. The event is free and open to the public.

The keynote will be delivered by Victor Navasky, Delacorte Professor of Journalism at Columbia Journalism School and chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review. Panel participants include Casey Nelson Blake, Eric Alterman, Howard Brick, Rochelle Gurstein, Michael Kazin, Stanley Crouch, Andi Zeisler, and Mark Lotto. Dean Nicholas Lemann, Henry R. Luce Professor, Columbia Journalism School, will make the opening remarks.

The journalism of opinion has played a significant role in twentieth-century American intellectual history. From its beginnings in a paper-only format to today’s purely digital spaces, the influence of opinion journalism has remained strong, although the message has outlasted its original medium. This conference will offer thoughts on the journalism of opinion—past, present, and future—by scholars and writers.

The impetus for the conference is the presence at Columbia University of The New Leader magazine and archives. The event is co-sponsored by the Friends of Columbia Libraries and by Columbia University’s American Studies Program; Journalism School; Rare Book & Manuscript Library; and the Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History.

To register for this event visit www.alumni.libraries.columbia.edu and click on “News and Events” or send an email to cul-events@columbia.edu. For further information about the event, contact Eric Wakin (etw2@columbia.edu), Lehman Curator for American History, at Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library