POST STRUCTURALISM
Structuralism is the stance that, without any further external objective reference, the objective nature of reality is rooted in binary oppositions in language. Language filters everything, and the signifier is an arbitrary but regulated noise or squiggle that stands for something else, the signified. The signified is a concept, and these concepts can be worked into contrasts. Something is defined by the not-something, which could well be something else, but related by the completely negative relationship. X is not not-X. This binary pattern is obviously mathematical, it is then deemed to be in the mind, a kind of super language before a particular language gets going, and thus there is a solid link between the mind and culture, between the psyche and the collective conscious rooted in communication.
|
Monday, October 15, 2012
POST STRUCTURALISM
post colonial history
POSTCOLONIALHISTORY
Understanding the colonial period now from a fully revised perspective
The analysis of colonies in the process of and after their liberation.
|
These are different if connected.
|
The first is to understand now how imperialists and colonialists created the "Other" (Green, Troup, 1999, 280; see Said) based on evolutionary superiority of usually Protestant Christian or secularised people over the less developed and orientals, the strange alien over whom superior rationalised government was produced. This was the language of alterity of anthropologists (Rapport, Overing, 2000, 9-10, and see 98). Classification by academics produced a primitivism or exoticism of the lowest status peoples in Europe related to a past time (neolithic and mediaeval) contained within geographical space (Rapport, Overing, 2000, 100, 13). This was a dominant ideology justifying control, although there was a variety of academic thought, and it was used for legitimacy within governance.
|
ORAL HISTORY
ORAL HISTORY
Oral history is clearly very attractive to a great many people. It requires accessible technology available for some decades now of a simple recorder and tape. The person interviewed goes back in time to recall childhood, and so it seems possible to stretch back into days lost when things were done differently.
|
ETHNOHISTORY
ETHNOHISTORY
Ethnohistory is that type of history which comes closest to social anthropology. It began in the 1950s in the United States as a means of understanding the history of American Indians from the inside, as it were, rather than being judged as external objects of study. Most history relies on documents in Western society fashion, but ethnohistory needs other experiential insights like folklore, stories handed down, maps, artwork and objects, and it looks at archaeology, anthropology and linguistics (Green, Troup, 1999, 175).
|
HISTORIOGRAPHY-GENDER
HISTORIOGRAPHY-GENDER
Gender history starts with the distinction made between gender and sex, in that gender adds on to sex expectations of cultural propriety and power relationships (see Green, Troup, 1999, 253). These are made, not given (sex is a given), and so they have a maker as well as receiver.
|
HISTORICISM
EMPIRICISM-HISTORICISM
Empiricism remains one of the most influential methods of doing history because it focuses on method. It is about accuracy with primary sources, close work that extracts the evidence and produces an account of the past as close to the evidence as possible. Many footnotes or references should be expected. The sources should be generated at the time the history work is focusing upon.
|
ESSAYS-HISTORIOGRAPHY
History Extension
ESSAYS
Contents
Reynolds Henry Why Weren’t We Told?
Hobsbawn, Eric On History
Evanx, Richard J In Defence of History
Becher, Carl J ‘What are Historical Facts?’
Vincent, John An Intelligent Person’s Guide to History
Jenkins, Keith What is History
Bailyn, Bernard Two Encounters
Summers, Anne Damned Whores and God’s Police
Dixson, Miriam The Real Matilda
Windschuttle, Keith The Killing of History
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)