Why Do YOU Study History?

[fopdandyhomo]

So the "diluted" thread is making me irrationally frustrated, but it's raised an interesting question for me that I didn't want to derail the other conversation to address.

As a generally thoughtful and successful bunch of nascent historians, I'm curious why you chose to study history, of all things. Fascination is probably at the core of it for most of us, but at a deeper level does history serve a personal or political purpose *for you* and, if so, what is it? What is your relationship to the past? (I anticipate this might devolve into a conversation about the purpose of teaching history writ large--which I am not questioning--but I'm really just curious about your own personal motivations. I think they will speak to our ideological and methodological investments.) I suspect we've all given this question a lot of thought as we've written SOP and invested so much of ourselves in the process of applying to grad school. I'm curious to see where our answers overlap and where they diverge.

TL;DR: Why do you study history?

[spellbanisher]

My reasons I call the Three Ps of history: perspectives, parallels, and persistence. 

 

Perspectives: What does a fish know about the water it swims in? History helps us understand the present better by giving examples of how people have acted, felt, and believed in the past. It shows how the present is unique, as well as how it is not. It helps increase our vision of what it means to be human. For this matter, history as a discipline is a method of negotiating with competing claims, beliefs, worldviews, and interpretations in a hopefully tolerant but still rigorous way, something that one has to do in any complex society. Unlike other social sciences, which also give perspective (especially anthropology), history is much more attuned to how things change over time, to the dynamic qualities of human societies. 

 

Parallels: This would roughly fall into the "those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it," or "history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes." While I think this is actually the weakest reason for studying history since our views of the past are interpretive, I still think it is helpful to be mindful of parallel events in history, how people have fought for change, created movements, handled various economic, social, and environmental crises, and so on. 

 

Persistence: Whatever one believes, it based on some interpretation of history, no matter how nebulous or unformed that historical vision might be. Even someone who says that the past does not matter, that we should be focused on the present and future is basing that claim off an understanding that technological, social, and political progress in the past was the result of forward thinking. Think about how frequently historical interpretations have played a central role in political discourse over the last 15 years in the United States. We must depose Saddam Hussein because he is a gathering threat, and the last time we ignored a gathering threat a world war resulted. We can't have universal healthcare because that is communism, and we all know that communism doesn't work. Employers should heed the lessons of the five dollar day and pay their workers more, because any government solution to inequality is worse than the problem. And then there's the tea party.

 

I could go on and on. The point is, these vital political positions were driven by historical interpretations, and whether one believes they are good interpretations or bad ones, the fact is, to quote Faulkner, the past isn't dead. It isn't even past. Or to put it in another way, the past persists. We might as well deal with it. 

Edited February 22, 2015 by spellbanisher

[spellbanisher]

deleted

Edited February 22, 2015 by spellbanisher

[ashiepoo72]

I like dead people more than living people

In all seriousness, I have this weird connection to history that just draws me in. I don't think I could do anything else or at least not be fulfilled by anything else. I find history vital, dynamic and obviously important, something that needs to be studied and made valuable in the present and the future. But mostly, history gives me the feels

[dr. t]

I blogged about this a while back. This is the relevant part of my answer:

 

Your primary and secondary education probably taught you that history is about facts, and from the very beginning you were forced to memorize facts. “The American Revolution began in 1776,” things like that. Dates, information. Everything you learned provided a simple, neat answer in factual form, with little ambiguity. 

 

This is not history. Facts are the building blocks of history, its skeleton, but they do not give it life or purpose, because the practice of history is the practice of understanding someone who is not you. It is is an act of sympathy, of apology in the most fundamental and original meaning of both words. Correctly done, it is the full and unbiased understanding of the people of the past as they were and as they saw themselves. We are, to borrow the brilliant phrase of a terrible bigot, speakers for the dead, and our essential purpose is to cultivate a mental approach to those who are not ourselves which seeks to understand, rather than to categorize and judge.

 

This is not the natural state of the human mind. To quote the late, great David Foster Wallace:

 

Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.

 

The promotion of and indoctrination in a historical mode of thought is thus the indoctrination in a way of approaching the world that attempts to separate us from that basic impulse to understand the world based on our own preconceptions. Teaching this is what historians do. All that stuff with dates is just a side hobby.

 

I study history so that I may teach this properly, both to undergraduates and to those who read my formal work.

Edited February 22, 2015 by telkanuru

[BlackBear50]

It's almost hard to put into words. I understand it in my head but using writing as a medium? It doesn't do it justice.

 

In short, many reasons.

 

Musing to myself:

 

First, I have oft thought... Is History not a means by which humans attempt to escape immortality? Is studying the past not a metaphoric (and very real, I think we can agree) reminder that the past (and thus the people who lived before us) are still affecting us in the present. This awareness can give of a sense that we're escaping mortality whilst studying History. When reading the words (or even just about) of Jefferson or Pericles or Ashoka or Martha Ballard or whomever, it is as if the past is still alive. It's as if we have escaped mortality.

 

Second, I fundamentally believe studying history makes us better judges for the present. I will not waver on this standpoint. It is my unshakable belief that through studying history we can come to a better understanding of how a myriad of forces result in the present we live in now. Understanding, as best we can, this complicated process makes us better at judging the present and future.

 

History helps answer exisential questions like "who are we?" or "Where do we come from?" For many of us today, we no longer take for 100% truth our religious teachings. As such, our world understanding is altered, even shattered. History, then, can give meaning (both in a good way and a bad way: see nationalistic movements for independence or see Nazi Germany for extreme examples) to existence, it can offer us an identity.

 

History gives meaning to death.

 

History allows us to understand the past. Truly understand. As Telkanuru touched upon, it takes a lot of understanding to understand people from different times and places. To understand what language meant to them, their world view, their gender biases, their religion, their experiences in life, their age, their racial biases, their class, their political institutions, their traditions, etc., are all aspects of past peoples experiences we need to understand to understand the events and developments of their time.

 

History is creative.

 

History is fun.

 

History is complicated and challenges my brain + it improves valuable skills: reading, writing, comprehension.

 

And so much more that I can't hope to express, much less at 11:48 pm of mid-term week.

[tingdeh]

I'll share my own personal answer to this question.

I came out of an American Literature degree in my undergraduate. During that time I got grants to do research and I opted to travel across the Pacific to do archival work. This led me to look at migration and empire, and led me to more beautiful islands in the Pacific to do ethnographic and oral history techniques.

When I got around to writing my honors thesis, my advisors would not have any of the material I collected as co-textual to the novel I was doing, as a way of looking broadly at a larger cultural question. I finished the thesis and pushed out a small publication, but was frustrated in the approach.

This led me to compose a conference paper that drew from that summer research and historical methods, where it won best paper and garnered the attention of the History Department (not lightly...this is a top 20 school and an incredible department). Since then I've been an RA with them, doing some amazing work and about to enter a PhD program.

Tl;dr: English Lit as a discipline didn't work for the kinds of questions I always asked. Cultural history does.

[a.rev]

I just...do? I'm with Ashiepoo in that "I like dead people more than living people" but in all seriousness learning about the past gives weight and importance to today. I've always been someone focused on the past, in elementary school I read books about time travel (does anyone else remember Time Warp Trio?), Helen of Troy, and colonial America. At 10 I was the nerd who came to history class dressed as Eva Peron to give a biographical presentation, how does a 10 year old even know Eva Peron? I checked out a book from the city library on "great" women and she was one of them. (The year before I dressed as Hernando De Soto.) 

 

I'm just infinitely curious about the lives of those before. When I see the worn down steps in older buildings I immediately think, what where their lives like? What inspired them? What were their worries, triumphs, and tragedies? I wish I had a more scholarly reason for studying history but I don't, I just couldn't imagine myself anywhere else. (The added benefit is that my peers get my bad jokes instead of just staring at me blankly.)

[ashiepoo72]

I love reading everyone's answers. What about you fopdandyhomo?

[Mrazy]

For the first two years of my undergrad I was in English. My mom passed away when I was younger and we had a really deep connection when it came to literature. English in high school was my favourite subject and it just made me feel like I was doing something that connected me to my mom. The only history course I took in high school was on Canada in the world wars... I enjoyed it but it didn't strike me as something I wanted to pursue. Looking back, I really enjoyed social studies, which was bascically bottom up history, but again it didn't jump out at me.

 

I took history as a minor in university and it blew my mind. I looked forward to every class and each midterm and assignment made me excited. It felt like the discipline just opened everything up to me - things clicked and my perspective changed on so many levels. English allowed me to study the human condition through art imitating life, but history magnified that approach. I contemplated finishing my English undergrad and applying to MA history programs, mostly because changing fields was daunting. I went to my first week of English classes at the beginning of my third year and hated every one - I had a history department booklet detailing all of its course offerings in my backpack and pined after them. Anyways at the end of that week I ate a pint of ice cream in my room while I switched my whole program online. The next week I was in all history courses and I haven't looked back since. I'm writing my honours in history right now (fourth year) and am waiting on hearing back on my MA in history applications  

 

I think history is so important to study because it offers context to situations and proof that no matter how pernament something feels in society, things change. That seems obvious but when you're only young and have only known your situation to be the same, (whether it be living in a country that has a dictator or are an oppresed individual in a democractic country) history offers hope. History is so important for the present, and a very powerful tool that can be manipulated for both negative and positive outcomes. Because of this it is paramount that history is made accessible to the general public - knowledge is power and it can liberate.

 

And all of the many good reasons telkanuru pointed out!

[knp]

I'm not sure I know. But it's a great question, so thanks for asking it. I have very good answers, practiced over several years, for why I want to study my field of history, why I want to teach history, and why I want to teach my field of history within that. I know that I find very little as compelling as writing historical arguments and reading or examining historical sources. But why is that so? Why do I want to be a historian? Lots to think about for the next day, or several days, or even longer. What a nice prospect.

[Fianna]

I've always loved the quote from Shakespeare: what's past is prologue.

 

We got here because of all the things that happened in the past. It's important to understand and know that. I love the process of learning about it and writing about it, and eventually teaching it. Learning about the histories of people and areas and countries is pretty amazing. Stumbling upon some awesome thing in an archive that opens a window, however narrow, towards the thoughts or ideas or feelings of someone who lived a long time ago is really cool. Finding the similarities in those old thoughts and feelings and seeing how much similarities there are in the entirety of the human experience gives me an amazing feeling of connection to the world and to human culture.

[a.rev]

I've always loved the quote from Shakespeare: what's past is prologue.

 

I'm going to put this on a canvas above my desk, that's really profound. (In a sense that, history is important but also that what happens in our past is also a new beginning, yes I'm a sucker for quotes.) I'm not good at painting but that's what I married a painter for, if not for money than for free art! 

 

Stumbling upon some awesome thing in an archive that opens a window, however narrow, towards the thoughts or ideas or feelings of someone who lived a long time ago is really cool. Finding the similarities in those old thoughts and feelings and seeing how much similarities there are in the entirety of the human experience gives me an amazing feeling of connection to the world and to human culture.

 

All of this, I like feeling connected to the past. It makes me feel a part of the whole "human experience." As a side note, I'm submitting a grant proposal next week to try and get money to do archival research over the summer. One of the things I mentioned is that one of the archives I visited has recently been moved and reopened but some of the files have been misplaced, so the potential is there to "rediscover" a previously lost record. I would be contributing to its reorganization but also might be the first to find a vital piece of information or insight. I mentioned this to my husband and he thought it sounded like torture, but to me it's utter excitement. 

Edited February 22, 2015 by a.rev

[fopdandyhomo]

I love reading everyone's answers. What about you fopdandyhomo?

 

Thanks to everyone who has engaged with my questions so far!

 

My answer echoes some of what others have said before. If you had asked me back when I was a freshman in college, my answer would be quite different (but I take it as a good sign that my thinking has matured since then). This won't be as cohesive or eloquent as I would like it, but here's a preliminary sketch of my thoughts:

 

There are six main thrusts to why I study history. They overlap and probably contradict each other, but I suppose that's to be expected.

 

1) I'm a bit of a misanthrope and introvert but I'm deeply curious about the lives of others. I'd love to go peeping into other people's brains if I could. But the relationships necessary for that level of access are two way streets. Studying those who are long dead allows me that level of access without the reciprocal expectations. Dead people don't look back at you and expect things from you or judge you. You can't disappoint them. You can't have awkward conversations with dead people if all the conversations are in your head. It's just easier.

 

2) Someone earlier beautifully wrote about their curiosity about the forces that wore away at stone steps. It's a powerful image for me. I often think about the accretion of experiences in urban spaces and the way these experiences build on one another in complicated ways to produce the world we live in today. As I enter into the world, I want to do my best to be in conversation with the forces and layers that produce the world as I receive it. (Has anyone read Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity? It's been a long time since I've read it, but this is compelling me to return to it.) Fundamentally, I'm just curious but understanding this kinesthesia (as one of my POIs described it) is also helpful as I work to shape the world for the better.

 

3) Being in an archive is the closest I get to God (or what I, as an atheist, assume people find in their deity of choice). In such a chaotic and destructive world, the fact that fragile and precious materials survive the ravages of time provides a bulwark against the inevitability of change and decay. Cherishing what survives also allows me to mourn what we have lost and that we will perpetually continue to lose the world around us as time marches on. I don't mean to sound dark or melodramatic nor do I dwell on this, but our impermanence haunts my time in the archives. I both grieve and reconcile myself to the fact that I will never be a part of or know those individuals and communities who shape my world. Archives make me feel small and insignificant (kind of like thinking about the vastness of space). As a person (like most of us) inclined towards egoism, being reminded how insignificant my life is is probably a good reminder.

 

4) Just as archives provoke my existential fears, they also allay them. Especially for social and microhistorians, we spend a lot of time studying the lives of "mundane" people. I, likely, will never be famous, but this sort of history is a helpful reminder that though my place in this universe is infinitesimally small, my life still matters. I am imbricated in forces vastly greater than me, both as a passive recipient of cultures/norms/discourses/etc and as an active force shaping the world around me with my choices (I'm thinking of Camus, Foucault, and Arendt here).

 

5) Though I'm loathe to admit it, point four results in a nagging desire at the back of my mind to someday appear on the pages of historians years from now. I study history out of a sense of obligation, too, a way of paying it forward, if you will. I'm not saying that historians make the lives of the dead matter; I mean that historians get to give our subjects an afterlife. (Now who that afterlife serves is a question I struggle with deeply...)

 

6) Many others here have proffered the idea that the "past is prologue." While I generally agree with this idea, I have one big caveat. Part of the reason I study the past--especially the not-so-recent past--is because it isn't prologue, at least not necessarily. I'm drawn to moments of opacity that are wildly alien from the world and worldview I partake of now. As a massive homo (surprise!), I, like many others, am not satisfied with the ways my desire for certain types of bodies has been amalgamated into a sexual orientation I must proclaim to the world (lest I be accused of suffering from undue shame). But if I look beyond the late 19th century, I find a whole set of alien paradigms for thinking about sex, desire, and gender. Though some were wildly oppressive, thinking beyond our received identities and paradigms enables me to undo them. It's hard to think beyond the gender binary or the hetero/homo/queer spectrum. I have agender friends who struggle to imagine what it means for them to not be female or male. Here the past can provide useful examples that we can steal from when they provide useful prologue. Understanding the roots and changing nature of the discourses I find oppressive makes them seem less ineluctable (sorry for the wordiness). So, for me, history fundamentally enables me to be a more ethical citizen. It's part of my social justice efforts just as much as it is a personal salve.

 

Whoops, I've outted myself as a complete weirdo. This isn't all of my thoughts or a great approximation of them, but it will do for now.

[Fianna]

Not a weirdo at all. I think a lot of the idea of history as political is really spot-on. The act of writing can (I would argue must or should) be a highly political act. Telling stories is a tradition of cultural indoctrination and cultural preservation that has a really long provenance. I feel like being an historian means taking on some of the responsibility for being part of the cultural memory. Shared stories and shared traditions, that sense of shared memory, is a really profound part of what makes a group a people, and the stories we choose to tell and to remember are important ways of making sure that the people behind the stories are told and remembered. To bring this around full-circle to the thread which spawned this discussion, that's why cultural history and the historiographies they spawned are unbelievably valuable.

[Chiqui74]

As an aside, not directly related to the topic...I've never been in any archives....

[a.rev]

Chiqui, the only archives I've been to have been the ones at my university. Today, I think it's pretty common to have students not visit archives because so much is scanned in and available online. I do think archives are important, especially when relying on search engines. I know when I search my school's library vs. WorldCat vs. Google Scholar not everything shows up on each, whereas sifting through a box means you won't be missing out on potential documents. I've only had one professor tell me that archival research is vital for success, he's fairly young and has only been out of his doctoral studies for about 5 years, I'll take the advice of my other professors who are well published that it's good but not necessary.

[Josh J.]

As Mrazy mentioned above, I loved social studies as a kid.  Not much else in school interested me, but social studies did.  I also loved to read.  My mother would take me to the library, and they often had books in one corner that they had pulled out of circulation and that they were giving away.  Many of these books were history and political science.  I would take these things home, and I remember pouring over 1920s election statistics, looking at how many people voted for socialist and communist Candidates in Oklahoma or Texas or Wisconsin even.  Growing up in the 80's with Reagan talking about about the evils of communism, I wondered how it was that anyone ever voted for these candidates...but also marveled at how, if people did in the 1920s, why they weren't now...I think these early questions might have spawned my fascination with history.

 

The humanities and social sciences have always really fascinated me, probably from my early fascination with social studies.  I took a lot of social sciences classes in high school and college, and I enjoyed them, but I always felt most at home studying history.  While I enjoy studying social and cultural phenomena using different methods, there is just something about the methods of historical studies that fits like an old shoe for me.  Currently, I'm finishing my Master of Theological Studies degree, focused on history, which also required coursework in textual studies, sociology of religion, ethics, theology, etc.  I've enjoyed these, and even excelled in few of them (such as theology), but still, even so, when I settle into my historical course work, its just so much better, even if I'm studying the same topic from multiple perspectives at the same time.

 

Finally, I find that one of my major goals in this whole education project, besides getting a job and being paid to teach and research, is to do cultural criticism.  It seems to me that history is the best way to do this.  Through history, I can study ANY subject, including the rest of the humanities and social sciences that I'm interested, and also other topics, such as science, if I want to.  This might give VR4douche some fodder for his thread on the dilution of history, but I find this to be one of the best things about history...its versatility. 

[Cpt Jo]

tldr

 

I was only good in history at school.

Edited March 1, 2015 by Cpt Jo