Write reflections on the quotes and articles ( 3 Paragraphs 100 words each)
Read our lecture “Historiography” and the following Handouts/Articles:
“The Secret Death of Pete Ray” (LA Times)
“The New History Wars” by James Grossman, NYT 9/2014
“Confederate Statues and ‘Our’ History” by Eric Foner, NYT 8/2017
Now, for this Discussion Post, think deeply about the following quotes and the multiple ways they force us to think about what we know and the ways that we have come to “know what we know” (this is “historical memory”). Choose one or two quotes that resonate with you (that you like or that you find meaningful) and write a paragraph on why they are important for our understanding of our past (at least one substantial paragraph).Then, discuss the importance of at least one of our articles for our understanding of history and historical thinking (about two substantial paragraphs).(About 3 substantial paragraphs total).
- “Until lions have their own historians, the hunter will always be glorified”Ethiopian proverb
- “Our past is only a little less uncertain than our future, and like the future, it is always changing, always revealing and concealing.”Daniel Boorstin, Hidden History
- “Our only duty to history is to rewrite it.”Oscar Wilde
- “The past is never dead.It’s not even past.”William Faulkner Requiem for a Nun (Act I, Scene III) (referring to, for example, the legacy of slavery -something from the past- into modern times)
- “Getting History wrong is part of being a nation”Ernest Renan
6) “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it”Flannery O’Connor
7) Benedict Anderson argues that part of being a nation is “organized remembering and deliberate forgetting.”What do you think?
8) “The truth shall set you free, but first it’ll piss you off.” Gloria Steinem
9)“If you think you think you already have the answer or the truth, it keeps you from learning.”
David Henry Hwang, playwright
10) “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.”Daniel Patrick Moynihan