History Extension
What is History? Historiography
© Paul Kiem, HTA
• Historiography Overview
• Preparing for Question 1 in the HSC
• Themes or Questions for your Extension Lego Box
1. Postmodernism.
2. Is history possible or necessary?
3. Science, Literature, Entertainment?
4. Public v Academic History.
5. The Digital Revolution and History.
6 Australian
6.
A t li C
Case St
Study
d – Debate
D b t and
dR
Revision.
i i
7. Anna Clark Private Lives, Public History (2016)
8 Ode
8.
Od tto F
Footnotes
t t
Note
references
to past
HSCs
1.
Historiography
g p y Overview
Academic
Broader
Oral
Organised Enlightenment
Crises:
Discipline,
View of
T diti
Tradition
N
Narrative
ti
- Rational
R ti
l
Postt M
P
Mod
d
Science? ?
History
‘Prehistory’
5th C.
C BC 
Herodotus
Thucydides
18th C.
C
Gibbon
Bede

19th C.
C
Ranke

20th C.
C 
21st C
Jenkins
Evans
2.
Ranke 1903 Bury – ‘Science’
21st Century
Herodotus
20th Century
C t
Ch
Challenges
ll
• Annales School
• New History
• Postmodernism
Beyond
Postmodernism:
• Defend History
• Broader view of
History –
more democratic
See also: Marnie Hughes-Warrington
Fifty Key Thinkers in History 2nd ed 2008 or 3rd ed 2015, Introduction
An approach to what is history?
y of history
y
1. History
History stuff
Herodotus
to talk about
Now
2. Explore themes and questions.
Egs
+ What impact has postmodernism had on history?
+ What does Australian history tell us about history?
+ Is history
y a science or literature?
3. History Now
Academic  Popular  Popularised  Entertainment
Digital Revolution … Commemoration … Museums … New Books ... Blogs
Preparing for Exam Essays
 Right
Respond to
SOURCE &
QUESTION
Themes
Ranke
Postmodernism
Wrong
Herodotus
Digital Age
Annales
Schools of
Thought
Anzac
Methodology
Is History
Fiction?
History Science &
Books Teaching
&
June 2016
Lit t
Literature
References
Essay Writing for Q 1
Historians
Herodotus
Ranke
TV History
Hi t
Democratisation
Narrative &
History
Bede
History
Today
HTA YouTube:
www.htansw.asn.au

Eight Examples of Questions to Discuss
Note
references
to past
HSCs
History
Now!
N t relevance
Note
l
to
t pastt HSC
HSCs
Note ‘NOW’ references
1
So, is truth ‘relative’
and history impossible?
Traditional Historian
Evans :
‘… the past happened, and we really can, if we are very
scrupulous and careful
f and self-critical,
f
f
find
out how it happened
and reach some tenable though always less than final
conclusions about what it all meant.’
In Defence of History 1997
Moderate Postmodernist
Southgate:
‘the removal of “objective truth” as a meaningful goal…’
- makes historians more humble
- makes historian more aware of themselves AND others
History: What and Why? 2nd ed 2001
2
3. Hollywood will take over if
historians abandon the field
field.
5. We need metanarratives,
including national stories.
3
See
2011,12
HSCs
HSC
4
Public History
y
Based on scholarly methodology but different purpose.
Applied history – history outside universities, in museums etc.
Broad topics,
topics addressed to the public
public.
May involve ‘amateurs’ and ‘non-traditional’ sources and media.
4. Entertainment
•
Films, computer games …
•
Tourism.

3. Popular  Popularised History
3
•
Popular writers and presenters.
•
Values narrative form and presentation.
BLENDS
2.
•
•
•
•

1. Academic History
•
B
Based
d iin universities
i
i i and
d uses scholarly
h l l methodology.
h d l
•
Tendency towards narrow or highly conceptualised topics.
•
Values critical perspective, new interpretations and revision.
•
Emphasis on qualifications.
Public Historians - See Ashton & Hamilton History at the Crossroads
Raphael Samuel:
“history
y is not the prerogative
p
g
of the historian,, nor even,, as p
postmodernism
contends, a historian’s ‘invention’. It is, rather, a social form of knowledge;
the work, in any given instance, of a thousand hands.”
2011 HSC Q:
2011
HSC Q
To what extent do historians 'own' history?
Ludmilla Jordanova:
Hi t
History
as an academic
d i discipline
di i li h
has only
l b
been around
d since
i
th
the 19th
century it doesn’t ‘own’ history - “We cannot dismiss public history as ‘mere’
popularisation, entertainment or propaganda. We need to develop coherent
positions on the relationships between academic history, institutions such
as museums, and popular culture.”
5
The Digital Revolution and History
• ‘Culture of Abundance’ – source preservation
What about losses and deception?
• Digital research tools
What about ‘cyborg element’?
• Reconstruction & presentation
‘The Digital
What about books and authority?
R
Revolution
l ti and
d
History’
• Beyond Narrative and Text to the ‘actual past’
TH Dec 2015
Do we want the ‘actual chaos’ of the past?
• Collaborative
C ll b
ti and
d dynamic
d
i history
hi t
Can scholarship be about anonymous sharing?
• Digitisation as a mechanism for democratisation of history
Can everyone be a historian?
• Evaluating the impact of the digital revolution
Critique AND defend academic history!
anyone can write history
about anything
History
Now!
Tweet
Blog
Debate
Academic
cade c v
‘Amateur’
Tweet
Peter Stanley:
Democratic
History
6
A great new case study in
academic v
public v
popular history…
Centenary of Anzac 2014-2019
2011 HSC Q:
To what extent do historians 'own'
historians own history?
•
Will the Anzac Legend be examined by academics as a critical
study?
•
Will it be approached as a commemoration of the Anzacs and/or a
celebration of a key event in the national story?
•
Will the popularisers simply tell ripping yarns?
Historians and others have set up Honest History, ‘a coalition
promoting the view that there is much more to our war history than
tales of heroic men in khaki’: www.honesthistory.net.au
y
Scott McIntyre, sports journalist sacked
from SBS for ‘anti-Anzac’
anti Anzac tweets
Professor Philip Dwyer, professor of
history at Newcastle University
University, writes
about the tweets and ‘contested history’
on The Conversation:
http://theconversation com/au
http://theconversation.com/au
Contested Australian History y
History
Public v Digital
Now!
Academic Revolution Significance of history Daily Telegraph
30 M
March
h 2016
“UNSW rewrites the history books...”
Headline
Story
Cartoon
Editorial
History
Now!
7
Anna Clark, 2016
Research
R
h and
d di
discussion
i on:
Private History – Public History –
Academic History
Anna Clark
Quotes Michelle Arrow:
“If we only
y look at national
commemorations and popular histories
in terms of the ways they are deployed in
political debate
debate, then we are in danger of
missing their personal and affective
dimensions.”
Private Lives,
Public History
History
Now!
Mine the book
• History is a ‘need’
need .
• History is ‘learnt’ outside school...
• etc
Clark:
“It’s a pity so much public discussion and
d b t d
debate
doesn’t
’t seem tto understand
d t d th
the
reality of historical connection, or
contemplate the need for fostering
histories that acknowledge this reality.”
8
• Footnotes are not defensive displays of pedantry,
• they are honest expressions of vulnerability,
• they are generous signposts to anyone who wants to
retrace the path and test the insights
insights,
• they are an acknowledgement of the collective
enterprise that is history.
Tom Griffiths
History and the Creative Imagination (lecture 2008)
See 2013 Extension History HSC, Question 1 Source
In 2000 a British High Court found that Holocaust denier David
Irving had falsified accounts of the past.
This was based on the expert evidence of Sir Richard Evans,
who checked Irving’s footnotes.
Now they are going to make a movie about footnotes:
Now,
Truth, Significance Movies & Historian: History
History Evans
Now!
Methodology (footnotes)