Methodology

[tavernagreen]

Greetings, participants and lurkers of the Art History Forum in the Humanities department of The Grad Café.

Here's a question that has been brewing in my mind: Just what is methodology, and how should one go about assessing methodological fit with POIs and departments? In certain programs, there exist codified breakdowns of subfields (Ancient, Modern/Contemporary, Latin America, History of Photography, yougetthepicture). Can methodology be organized and categorized neatly? What might that look like?

Give me what you've got.

[betsy303]

This is an interesting question. I think the only way to really get a feel for a scholar's method is to read a lot of his/her/their work. Some really broad scopes include biography, connesuriship, social art history/cultural and historical context driven, iconography, and theory. Art history by Hatt and Klonk might help clarify the differences to you, if you are intrigued. Many of these methods overlap (and most good scholars depend upon a variety of the above as well). I will say, there are some folks out there who do prefer certain methods. For example, I was an idiot and applied to work with a hard core social art historian who is pretty anti-theory and mostly historically driven. I am more interested in theory. I think in general most departments like to have a rooted method/core belief despite a diverse area of research interests. For example, a program like Rochester, Wisconsin, Bryn Mawyr, or Princeton tend to be driven by theory and psychoanalysis. Other programs such as Northwestern and Chapel Hill tend to be more included to use historical context. 

[poliscar]

I agree with Betsy that one of the best ways to go about evaluating a scholar's methodology is simply reading their work. However, that's not always the best or most efficient way of putting together a larger picture. I tend to draw on a mixture of sources to get a feel for where a scholar is situated. For example, I'll generally look at where they publish in terms of journals, who their supervisor was, what their students have done, the sources they repeatedly use, the texts they put on syllabuses, etc. I find doing this helps me locate them in relation to other scholars/genealogies of scholarship. 

One thing I am wary of, however, is pigeonholing scholars via labels. I guess this is where I disagree with betsy303, because I find a lot of these terms to be far too slippery. Realistically, a "social art historian" being "anti-theory" doesn't make sense to me. I mean, I understand the "social history of art" as a deeply theoretical methodology via. Arnold Hauser & T.J. Clark, but also in relation to the Vienna School, Warburg, the Frankfurt School, and Meyer Schapiro. Use of "historical context" doesn't preclude "theory" at all, and "theory" is most often historical. If you have read Freud you know that psychoanalysis has its own models of history and the social, likewise with someone like Foucault. I think relying on a split between the two as a methodological distinction is naive at best. 

[Eggleston]

19 hours ago, betsy303 said:

Art history by Hatt and Klonk might help clarify the differences to you, if you are intrigued.

Agreed - this is a terrific book to read if you're wrestling with the giant question of just what methodology is, as well as how various art historical methodologies differ and overlap, and how they developed historically. The writing is very clear and accessible, and I think also treats the topic with the kind of nuance that @poliscar is calling for.

Also second @poliscar that looking at a scholar's sources, assigned readings on their syllabi, etc. is a good way to glean their methodological orientation. Now that I've done my exams, I often find myself looking at the bibliography or footnotes of any new book first, precisely for this reason. 

[charybdis]

Corbu: It obvious at the town hall meeting that we don't have methodology because no one wants to teach it. This conversation has become such a waste of time.