Week Four Blog Post
July 27, 20111. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
2. What is historical reality?
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
1. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
From what I was able to obtain from Dr. Baileys definition, “subjugates their morals for those of the invaders. Better to be subjugated than dead.” Inside of his lesson plane we were able to understand that how people were able to conquer and be conquered. Subalterns really don’t affect my research because of the simple fact that I am doing my research on the treaty of Versailles. But pertaining to an international scale this is really interesting to understand that subalterns were a major part of Yorks historical Layers that it has. It was very interesting to understand and to know what their techniques were when they tortured and enslaved, raped and conquered civilizations.
2. What is historical reality?
Historical reality is Historical reality” refers to the real facts and events of the past as they occurred historically, whether they were external or internal to the subject confronted by them.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
Historical layers impacts my research as well as everyone else’s research due to the simple fact at you must finally understand what is there and uncover them before you can truly being to understand what the history of the place is. Truthfully I never really understood the history of York. It honestly looks very boring but however I am able to understand that York has the second largest city in England. You must first uncover what is viewable by the naked eye. With my research is a lot of information on the surface. However if you topic differs my you may need to dig deeper and wider into the underground plethora of information that lies beneath.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
The only problems that I am currently having are locating sources. Because I do not have the option of being at MSU campus. Libraries here are truly limited to what I need to fin d secondary as well as primary research on the treaty of Versailles. However plan on mending this situation that using JSTOR Michigan state university online list of scholarly journals. The topic is plentiful in information and primary sources. I plan on using the treaty of Versailles treaty with all of its stipulation as my primary sources. I will begin digging deep into the history of what founded the document.
James – point 2 needs some work. A question can’t be answered with the question.
I did answer the question the answer is under it. i answered the question to my best ability
Still can’t be answered with a question. On your final you need to add the details that Professor Bailey taught.
BTW. i quoted number two ..by googling it..
1. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
Subaltern is someone who compromises their morals or principles to help save their life. From the lesson that Dr. Bailey did, he talked about how one of the Queens did this in order to help save her life and her peoples’ lives from the Romans. She surrendered to the Romans in order to help save themselves. One of the biggest examples of this in more recent times would be the Native Americans surrendering a lot of their land to help save the people. To imagine how different history may have been had they fought back even more. In my research for my final paper, De Valera and Collins are forced to back down on several big points in order to achieve independence.
2. What is historical reality?
Historical reality is the idea that there is no absolute truth in history. There are always multiple points of views and different stories to the same event. An example would be of the American Revolution. We, as Americans, have a completely different view of this than the British do. We believe that we as colonies were wronged and mistreated by the leaders in Britain, while the British may think they were treating us as they should treat any colony. It means that nobody views the same event in the same way. How an event affects someone’s life will also change their outlook on what had happened. In short, historical reality is that nobody has the same version of history as others do. We all see historical events through different eyes and different circumstances, which will alter our point of view on what had happened.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
Historical layers mean that history is not as simple as it may seem. It means that while you may read one cause of a historical event, there are at least a dozen more causes and theories behind the same event. Layers mean that historical events are not isolated to one time period, but you can see the build up to it before it happens, and often times, there will be a lasting impact after it occurs. An example of this is when we were looking at the downfall of York. We discussed the different causes of it. One of them was the closing down of the mine; this is a more recent event (it happened in 1984). But another reason dates all the way back to the 15th century when York chose to side with the Catholics instead of the Church of England. And there were many more causes given other than these two. But this reminds us that we can’t pinpoint just one reason that something happen, they are usually not isolated events, and there were several reasons for the event to happen.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
One of the biggest problems I am having is finding useful primary sources. I am having a hard time finding a few primary sources that will go along with my argument. I can easily find a lot of great secondary resources though.
1. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
The idea of subalterns is completely understandable, especially if there is a choice between that or death. However it seems like this would affect the history we research by potentially skewing data. For example, if you are researching a changing over of government and want to know who supported the change, subalterns included in a total number of followers may make the amount of true support for change seem much larger than it really was. There is a big difference between a large population of people actually agreeing with something and a portion simply agreeing for the sake of not stepping on toes. It is important to understand how and why events in history happened. On one hand, if subalterns are being considered, we would get clues of what kind of treatment was going on at that time, but if they aren’t being considered, one could easily stumble into false conclusions and data.
2. What is historical reality?
This is a difficult question, but it seems like historical reality is exactly what it sounds like. We study history by looking at things like events, movements, dates, names, time lines, culture and people. We can do research on records and artifacts from the past or listen to stories that have been told over time, but unless we get in a time machine, there is no way of studying history exactly as it would have been lived at that time. We can only piece together the information we have. I think of historical reality as what actually happened, not the nostalgic, romanticized concepts we create in our minds of a previous time. A great example of this is the way I imagined the UK to be from movies and books. I created a place in my mind that mixed past and present together in a somewhat delusional way. Once I was here I realized that I was crazy and that this would be done easily with a time period that we are unable to travel back to.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
I am researching how the roles of women and children changed during WWII. In order to do this paper properly I will have to look at the layers of change that occurred and the reasons behind them. I cannot simply look at one layer without considering what layers it came from and why. The point of this idea of layers is that everything builds on something else, which is exactly what history is. For my paper I will not only identify the layers but think critically about why they exist. Using this model of layers is also helping me organize and structure my paper by thinking about the topics in that way.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
I am having a difficult time with my resources. I have found a number of books that I really want to use, however I can’t find online copies and I have not been able to make to a library. I am going to continue looking online for the time being, but I also plan on dropping in to a book store or library when I get out of York.
There are a number of resources – look up Women and WW2 – though your course focused more on WW1 which in some ways had a larger impact.
1. Dr. Bailey described subaltern as being subject to the invaders as opposed to being dead. This idea affects all kinds of history and plays a role at some point in almost every civilization. My research is on the poets of World War One. It does not strongly tie into the definition, but it can relate in way. The poets/ soldiers are subalterns to the doctors and authority in Craiglockart, in the sense that they would rather be there under someone else’s control than be dead.
2. In my opinion historical reality can never truly exist because of perspectives and opinions. The truth of history is always distorted, especially in ancient history. Before photographs and even before writing, historians have tried to uncover what was going on, but no one can be precise. Even in more recent periods of history, we can never really know what happened. This is because of perspectives. Every country, tribe or even family has a different way of explain or telling a story. Historical reality can be closest reached by analyzing, researching and interpreting the work of scholars and finding out facts.
3. Dr. Bailey explained historical layers very interestingly. Many of the cities we have visited are built upon their own layers. They have layers and layers of history, whereas at home there are only a few layers that create our country. I am writing about a certain period in history, not over a wider space so layers do not impact my research very much. However, I have narrowed my outline into three layers for each poet. The first layer is there childhood and upbringing, the second is there experience in the war, and the third is how poetry helped or did not help them throughout and after the war. They are layers that present a sequence through time.
4. My biggest problem for my paper is finding primary sources. A lot of scholars have opinions and ideas about the poets of World War One, but there is not a lot of evidence suggesting direct impact of their poetry. However, to solve my problem I am going to use the poems themselves in my paper. I also want to find quote, interviews, articles written at the time, and transcripts to make my arguments on how poetry affected each poet. Finding a clear argument is also a problem. The poets were too different to generalize into one argument, such as “the World War One poets had a huge impact on the war” or “the poets changed people’s minds about the war.” There is not enough evidence to prove or disprove either of those arguments and include all of the poets I am researching. To solve this problem I have generalized one argument, but it is broad so each poet has a specifically detailed area.
Regarding number 2 – if history can’t exist then it can’t be studied. Since it is a major academic discipline then it does exist. We must be very careful to distinguish the differences between our personal bias toward truth, our limitation on understanding truth and the nihilistic idea that truth does not exist. Obviously truth exists. If not we have no way to know anything. So we Can know what happened – we just can’t know fully what happened. There is a major difference between limitation of knowledge and no knowledge.
1. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
Subalterns greatly impact the history of one place. Going on Dr. Bailey’s layer theory about York, the subalterns transformed the history. York was a place of people invading and conquering other people. When the Brigantes became subalterns to the Romans it changed the history of the area. Though the Romans completely ignored the Celts, at the least the Celtic culture didn’t die out as fast.
2. What is historical reality?
Historical reality is an abstract idea. The “reality” is based on the paradigm of those who are writing or telling about the history. What is “true” to one person may not always seem the same to someone else.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
I’m studying how the First World War impacted the Russian Revolution of 1917. During the Revolution there were many layers to what occurred. Digging through those layers has been pretty interesting.
4. What problems are you encountering in your research and how do you intend to solve them?
There aren’t many problems that I’m encountering. Other than the book that I’m using for my secondary source is at home. That will be an easy fix since I can just plug the information in once I am home.
Again – Tiffany – We must be very careful to distinguish the differences between our personal bias toward truth, our limitation on understanding truth and the nihilistic idea that truth does not exist. Obviously truth exists. If not we have no way to know anything. So we Can know what happened – we just can’t know fully what happened. There is a major difference between limitation of knowledge and no knowledge.
1. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern, how do subalterns affect the history your research?
Subalterns affect history because it changes the culture of people that have been conquered. The groups begin to take the customs of the people ruling them and in turn it replaces some of their traditions from before they were taken over. This affects my research because the attitude of the Germans changed so drastically after World War I and some of the reason in the French and British influence on their culture both by interacting with the people and by taking away their possessions.
2. What is historical reality?
Historical reality changes from person to person. Your view of history changes based on facts or by the way a person explains a story to you. Everyone experiences things differently which is why not all stories are exactly the same. I would have to say the historical reality is the way that you view a moment in history based on your perspective and your own life experiences.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
When in York, we discussed how the different layers of the buildings represented the different time periods throughout history. This is important because each of the layers tell a different story. The layers do not just have to be buildings. They can be based on people groups and culture. When it comes to my research, the different historical layers are more like building blocks. One event, like World War I, piles on top of another, like the Treaty of Versailles, and in time these blocks impact German life to the point where they fall over and in turn bring about distrust and inevitably World War II.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
The only main problem that I am coming across in my writing is making sure that I do not have too much information in my paper. At the same time, I am trying to make sure that I have enough facts to make my paper say what my thesis is trying to prove. All in all, I am not having too much trouble with it.
I will say the same thing to you Kalen, We must be very careful to distinguish the differences between our personal bias toward truth, our limitation on understanding truth and the nihilistic idea that truth does not exist. Obviously truth exists. If not we have no way to know anything. So we Can know what happened – we just can’t know fully what happened. There is a major difference between limitation of knowledge and no knowledge.
1. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
Subalterns like the people under Cantimunda change the course of an invasion and therefore change the course of history; by surrendering what they believe in, they avoid having to surrender their lives. These sorts of groups are interesting because of the cognitive dissonance involve; what is the more powerful instinct, to fight for one’s life or to fight for one’s principles? In my research for this paper, I can relate “war neurosis” victims to subalterns rather easily. One of the horrors of WWI was that nobody really knew what they were fighting for—what the underlying principles were—and yet, one had to kill or be killed. What’s the more powerful instinct, to fight for one’s life in the trenches or to fight for one’s principles back home?
2. What is historical reality?
Reality is all about perspective. The people who provide us with historical information have shaded it with their beliefs on what “really happened,” and it’s difficult to sift through all of that subjectivity to find true fact. While it may be true that dates and names are usually the most accurate, multiple accounts of the same incident could be entirely different from each other; a person’s view is very much based on what they believe to be true, rather than what may be absolutely true. Technically, if every person who witnessed an event believed it to occur a certain way, that’s the way it is rememebered and therefore the way it “happened” as far as future generations are concerned; there is no omniscient perspective who can testify to the actual events. One has to look at history with the knowledge that not every reported detail is accurate.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
My research is all about the layers. Psychological studies are very much layered throughout history, with different phases determining popular treatments for the time. For example, the treatment for a disorder in Skinner’s behavioral era would not at all be the same as one of Jung’s theories; one might not even realize the two concepts were the same field of study. The DMV (the manual of all things clinical psychology) itself is incredibly layered, with chapters added and altered according to the beliefs of the time of publishing. Following this thread, treatment of post-traumatic stress has been incredibly dynamic in the last century, with different methods piled on top of each other to create the modern approach to this disorder.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
My greatest problem is finding the best way to word my thesis. I have enough background information to write ten papers, but I’m not entirely sure which aspect of it is specific (or interesting) enough to write such a short paper. Not that I’m complaining about the length (less work is always better), but with my topic there’s just so much to say and different facets to discuss that I’m struggling organizationally. I don’t think by August 3 I will have all of these issues resolved, but once I crank out some semblance of a rough draft I should see the holes in my argument and fill them in my final copy.
Krista, I am sure that this is what everyone got in their first brush with the idea of “historical truth.” The problem is it is an extreme view on its own. We must be very careful to distinguish the differences between our personal bias toward truth, our limitation on understanding truth and the nihilistic idea that truth does not exist. Obviously truth exists. If not we have no way to know anything. So we Can know what happened – we just can’t know fully what happened. There is a major difference between limitation of knowledge and no knowledge.
1. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research? A subaltern is a submission in lieu of death. For example, Dr. Bailey mentioned a Queen who gave up her pride in order to save the Roman people from their death or her own death. Taking this a step further to my research, Winston Churchill was asked to step down from Chancellor of Exchequer after the scandal with Edward VII. Churchill swallowed his pride and stepped down from the position in order to save his life and live a life of exile instead.
2. What is historical reality?
Historical reality is the reality of what happened in history in comparison to a romanticized idea that we have imagined in our minds of what the past was like. So we have this idea that we have read about and then we think about and after thinking about this idea that we have read about, we romanticize that idea into something that we want it to be. After going back and discovering that our idea was wrong or seeing first hand that our idea was wrong, we are disappointed that it was different than we thought leading one to a historical reality. In short, it is an idea that we have fantasized about to be a certain way but in reality, it is completely different than we expect. We get this reality established from a standard of historians that they have in their perspective of the past but in a sense we should not trust their perspective because they could view things differently than we do. Furthermore, it is not an absolute truth, it is only the truth of what someone’s perspective of the truth is to be believed. In the end, historical reality is one’s personal absolute truth for there is no right or wrong answer, it all circulates back to perspective.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
Historical layers are the layers in history or the subdivisions of periods in history. These layers or subdivisions impact my research by time and space. For my paper, I am writing about Winston Churchill and his political career. Churchill’s career was affected by a couple different periods in history. First, there was World War I and he played a role in as well as a major role in the Second World War and essentially helped Great Britain win the war against Nazi Germany. In between the two world wars, Churchill spent a time in exile and dabbled in other positions until the Second Word War came. These historical layers and their impacts trace back to time and space. Dr. Bailey talked about the erection of York Minister and St. Mary’s Abbey and how they took so long to build but more importantly their locations (space). They were located close to rivers because the people who built them used the rivers as a mode to transport the sandstone to their destination from where it was from. Thus, the time that these churches were built related to their space location because of the convenience of the river that was nearby as a mode of transporting materials since transportation had not yet developed. Going back to my paper, time and space impacted Churchill’s political career. It depended on who was in government, the politics at the time and where he was working at the current time.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
During my writing process, I have discovered a couple problems. First, I picked a topic that I thought was fascinating and exciting for me to write about but in the end with more research, the topic was a dud due to lack of information available to me. Thus, I explored a new topic, which seems promising. Second, the internet at each of the accommodations has been an issue. Sometimes the internet works and other times it doesn’t. It behaves on its own time. Third, I am running into the problem of time and have decided I need to budget my time a little more efficiently to have everything done before I leave London. Lastly, sources are seeming to become a present issue since we do not have the vast resource collection of MSU at our fingertips but only the electronic resources. Thus, I am little on time but high on confidence that I will work it out and find enough information to start the draft and have something to present to you before the end of the trip.
There are right and wrong answers to history or grades would be meaningless. For instance you are incorrect about Edward VII, it was Edward VIII. This is an empirical uncontestable historic fact. We must be very careful to distinguish the differences between our personal bias toward truth, our limitation on understanding truth and the nihilistic idea that truth does not exist. Obviously truth exists. If not we have no way to know anything. So we Can know what happened – we just can’t know fully what happened. There is a major difference between limitation of knowledge and no knowledge.
1. Subaltern, as I understand it, is becoming subject to an enemy instead of losing one’s life. As my topic is music in history, I don’t think this will directly affect my research. However, I’m sure there is a piece of music somewhere out there that may have been inspired by the concept of subaltern, or something similar. Nothing specific comes to mind, and I was unable to come up with an example, but I will continue to search for a song in my later research.
2. Historical reality is that nothing is for sure. It reminds me of the concept of a scientific theory or law, in that nothing is actually 100% certain. Everyone’s perspective is different, and therefore historical events are perceived differently to everyone. Once we go beyond the basic facts (if there is such a thing as a fact), history essentially becomes opinion, backed up by other’s perspectives, which may be different from other’s perspectives.
3. Historical layers have a major impact on my research. I feel like most fine arts show historical layers in a more metaphorical way, opposed to physically. Whether it is poetry, novels, or music, it is relatively easy to see the changes in tone, content, and style depending on the historical era or layer.
4. I have been having some problems finding credible scholarly information. It is relatively easy to find lyrics and recording of songs, but having a solid list of credible sources to back myself up is a little bit of a struggle. I’m solving it by delving further into JSTOR and other scholarly resources, and I am planning on going to a local library when I get home to fit in some last minute research.
1.Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
From my understanding of Bailey’s definition of subaltern, it refers to those people who adhere to the morals, rules, and way of life of those in higher power, perhaps even those that have invaded their country. They do this even they do not want to. Obviously, it would be better to be subjugated than dead. Subalterns affect history because when people are forced to succumb to a belief that is not originally their preferred belief, we have more information to research and learn about. We now have what they personally wanted and intended to do and believe, and what they were forced to do and believe. Then we are pressed with which methods were better for the public and the individual, and so on and so forth. This idea goes hand in hand with Bailey’s explanation of historical layering.
2.What is historical reality?
To me, historical reality refers to what we know based on what we have compiled through oral legend, artifact, and documentation combined with logic to deduce what was considered a reality at any point in our past. This is a difficult thing to tackle because no matter what we have, we can never know an absolute truth about the life of the peoples say, 1000 years ago.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
Historical layering impacts research in many ways. For the most part, it complicates the history of a place in the sense that it is hard to narrow down a specific culture at any given time, because it diversifies it. It also complicates history because with so many different layers and time lines to be working with- who’s in power where, who is trying to gain power where, who’s defending the rights in this ‘where’- so much that it makes researching a place all the more difficult. In terms of our research papers, it causes much hardship in focusing in on a specific point of interest when there are just so many branches of even one instance occurring.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
To be honest I am struggling with two problems during my writing process. First, I was having trouble focusing in on one subject for my main thesis. The research of information is the easy part, developing my own theory to why something happened when hundreds of people have already done this is difficult. Second, after I narrowed in on my thesis, I am having trouble finding good sources in the time allotted for our rough draft. I’m overcoming this by searching for them in every way possible. Inch by inch I should accomplish it.
Your answer to number 2 is good. You seem to get the nuance. The idea that we may not know absolutely does not mean there is no absolute truth, We must be very careful to distinguish the differences between our personal bias toward truth, our limitation on understanding truth and the nihilistic idea that truth does not exist. Obviously truth exists. If not we have no way to know anything. So we Can know what happened – we just can’t know fully what happened. There is a major difference between limitation of knowledge and no knowledge.
1. Dr. Bailey explained subalterns as being a group of people who compromise their lifestyle, morals, or beliefs in favor of those of conquerers. Rather than resist and face destruction they chose to yield to the conquerers and hope that in doing so, perhaps their customs or even just their lives are spared. He used the example of the Celtic leader Cartimunda yielding to the superior Roman invadors. She chose to embrace the oncoming conquest and hoped her people would be spared. Although she complied with Roman occupation, her and her people were still met with the same fate as their more war-like counterparts like Boudica.
2. Historical reality is the historical events that actually took place. Going on what Dr. Magee started in the Facebook group, this is is different then say historical memory. The main difference being that peoples’ circumstances can alter the way they perceive history. Things like time, media, conversation, and other influences can have a profound effect on the way people remember history. A great example of this would be how our generation, the millennials, if you will, remember the 1990s. If you ask any of the students on this program they probably remember the ‘90s as a time of incredible joy and prosperity; of cheap gas, great television and music, and complete happiness. This might be different than someone who was an adult at the time. They might remember the Gulf War, or a traumatic event like Rwandan Genocide. The point is that history is relative to the person who’s recalling it and you have to dig deep and compare multiple primary sources to get a good view on the historical reality that actually occurred.
3. When I think of Dr. Bailey’s fantastic lectures and examples of layers of history in York, it honestly makes me incredibly uneasy about my research. When I first decided on my topic, Soccer during WWI, I had had confined my research to the years of World War I. A combination of Dr. Bailey’s class, class discussions, and personal reflection, has made it obvious that it’s impossible to understand what soccer was like during the war without understanding what it was like before the war, or even after it. History is like a tower of understanding. You need a base on which to build your understanding. Without the base, the origin of your research it’s impossible to get an accurate final product…that spire at the top of your tower. Please excuse me as I laugh at that stretch of a metaphor I just formulated..
4. I haven’t found a ton of primary sources yet. Truth be told, I haven’t dug too incredibly deep, so I’m anticipating when I put forth that extra effort the pieces will fall into place.
Good on 2 Jordan. We must be very careful to distinguish the differences between our personal bias toward truth, our limitation on understanding truth and the nihilistic idea that truth does not exist. Obviously truth exists. If not we have no way to know anything. So we Can know what happened – we just can’t know fully what happened. There is a major difference between limitation of knowledge and no knowledge.
How do subalterns affect the history you research?
Subalterns refer to a group of people whose views were forcefully changed. Subalterns skew history substantially. When you read firsthand accounts and try to understand the government or politics of the time subaltern views can completely throw you off. How can you get a feel for the environment when half of the people are told to act a way they do and feel a certain way. Personally if I was a subaltern I would hold immense resentment and animosity to the society that made me conform. Subalterns make it really hard to gage the accuracy of graph and statistics. Some Jews were made to be subaltern. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to kill one of your own or watch someone just like you die. A good example of a subaltern culture would be the Native Americans.
2. What is historical reality?
Historical reality is the notion that there can be an absolute truth in history which is false. It is events that happened in history without any under lying bias. I think this does not exsist because it is so abstract and it human nature to perceive events differently based on past experiences. The perfect example I can think of is the historical reality to a German solider would be very different than that of a Jew.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
They make research more fascinating. Instead of going straight line from A to B they curve and twist. The layers of history add depth to something linear. Events that seem so meaningless become meaningful because of their crucial part of the layers. Places that seem unimportant gain importance because they hold up other structures. The layer pattern helps me see how each little part of history played a big role. If one layer was impacted all preceding ones would be impacted as well changing history all together.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
With my topic it is crucial to have primary sources. Most of the sources online go into tagents of conspiracy theories. I found a good amount of reliable books using Melcat however it is going to be difficult to lay the paper out without any solid sources in my presence.
Victoria, just because it is hard to get to and we can’t fully understand, does not mean it does not exist. If there are no absolute truths then all our study is meaningless. We must be very careful to distinguish the differences between our personal bias toward truth, our limitation on understanding truth and the nihilistic idea that truth does not exist. Obviously truth exists. If not we have no way to know anything. So we Can know what happened – we just can’t know fully what happened. There is a major difference between limitation of knowledge and no knowledge.
1. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
a. From what I understood in Dr. Bailey’s lecture, the subaltern states that “it is better to be alive and subjugated than to be dead and proud.” Meaning that, people would rather live and be subjugated or dominated by another group of people, than to be dead and proud. The importance of the subaltern is focused on living and dealing with being subjugated or ridiculed as a person than dying and being “proud” of being true to your culture. I think that the idea of subaltern is frequently illustrated throughout history. Various cultures and different groups of people have at sometime been “Subaltern” by letting themselves be subjugated by another group of people to survive. Subalterns affect the history that I research by providing a different perspective to how history would have been without subalterns. If subalterns would of fought back more, a good portion of history would have been completely different than it is today.
2. What is historical reality?
a. There is no actual “historical reality”. From what I understand, the “truths” in history are understood and portrayed by different groups of people, differently. For example, the Spanish perspective on the Spanish-American War is different from the American perspective. It is interesting going to museums in different countries because you are getting the historical story from that countries perspective. Therefore, the “facts” or “truths” that are presented to you are fairly opinionated as they apply to that specific country. In conclusion there is no “historical truth” or “historical reality”. As Magee mentioned earlier in the course, “history is simply an event after an event”. What one learns about history is usually tailored to the history that they are learning about. Because there are so many different perspectives on happenings and events in history, there is no absolute historical reality or historical truth.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
a. Historical layers impact my research, by showing that they’re many different events in history that lead up to one event. For example, when we first discussed World War 1, Dr. Magee mentioned that a lot of people probably thought that the main spark to World War 1 was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, which in fact it was more than just that event, it was a series of events that built up tension over time. Furthermore, historical layers show that history can be summed up as events after events after events. There are different perspectives to just about everything that happens in history and to get a grasp of it all, you need to look at the “facts” from different angles or “layers” as you have put itin this question.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
a. The main problem that I am encountering in my writing process, is not knowing what to include versus what not to include. I have a good amount of information, but from different angles and perspectives on what I am comparing between war and religion, which are: 1. The relationship between church and state in World War 1 versus World War 2, 2. Personal religion in the trenches in World War 1 versus World War 2, and 3. The role of Jews in World War 1 versus World War 2. I need to try and focus maybe on accounts from one country rather than looking at it all. Once I have narrowed the information down that I am going to include, I should be good.
Alayna, I strongly disagree with your answer in number 2. Dr. Bailey is wanting to start a fight as his parting gift to me. If there are no absolute truths then all our study is meaningless. We must be very careful to distinguish the differences between our personal bias toward truth, our limitation on understanding truth and the nihilistic idea that truth does not exist. Obviously truth exists. If not we have no way to know anything. So we Can know what happened – we just can’t know fully what happened. There is a major difference between limitation of knowledge and no knowledge.
1. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
Subalterns can greatly affect the course of events when a foreign people are trying to take over a new land. Subalterns are a group of native people that make peace with the invading people in order to avoidgetting killed by them. The people that do this are choosing life over their pride; they would rather be conquered with the invading peoples and try to make peace with them, than to die trying to fight to keep their homeland. This has happened countless times throughout history, and multiple times in York, such as when the Romans and the Vikings invaded.
2. What is historical reality?
Historical reality is the reality in which a certain people or nation choose to believe. In war, there are always at least two sides, and usually the winner gets to write the history books. There are always two sides to a story, and whichever country you choose to affiliate yourself with, you will always be hearing their side of the story. The people that America views as “terrorist”, another people may see as heroes. Historical reality is all about perspective, and we must always be skeptical to believe anything to be an absolute truth.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
Historical layers impact all historical research. There are many historical layers to any single event or time period in history. It may seem like event A caused event B in history, but history is much deeper than that and we should be hesitant to attribute an event in history to one single cause. All of history has layers, and as soon as we reveal a layer of history, we can always find another. When we are researching history, we should always try to take into account the multiple layers of history that are always in effect.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you of the intend to solve them?
Some of the problems im encountering in writing my paper is finding primary sources from other countries about how they dealt with the psychologically traumatic effects of WWI. Sources from US and UK aren’t that difficult to find, but I am having difficulty finding sources from Germany and other countries, and especially ones that are in English.
ok. We must be skeptical – but not nihilistic.
1.Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
My understanding of Dr. Bailey’s definition of subalterns is those people who assimilate to the customs, beliefs, morals, and rules of those who have higher power or who have invaded their country. They may have thought that becoming accustomed to their beliefs would be better than being killed for keeping their own. This affects the history we research because the history of the people who have been invaded is completely erased. They want to trace of their former customs because they fear being killed by those in the higher class.
2. What is historical reality?
Historical reality, to me, is something that has actually happened in history; proven facts, actual dates, and first-hand stories. With so many biases and skewered outlooks, sometimes it is hard to find a historical reality. The only way we, in the 21st century, can create a historical reality is from puzzling together artifacts and stories, and picking out the truth, or as close to the truth as we can get without actually going back to that time.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
Historical layers impact research in a multitude of ways. For one, it complicates things. If there were one ruling race in the United Kingdom for as long as it has existed, there wouldn’t be much to learn about. The many battles for control of land and power also makes the nation rich with a multitude of backgrounds. It’s not like every race is going to stay in its little area of the country, it’s going to become a melting pot. With this melting pot, there will come many different versions of history. This brings me back to historical reality. Researchers must dig through each version of historical events to piece together the historical reality, which can be quite a daunting task.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
I haven’t encountered any huge problems in my writing process, besides the fact that the writing process isn’t going as quickly as I would like it to. There are so many stories on doctor serial killers in the United Kingdom’s history that it’s hard to weed through all of them and pick the best primary sources.
1. To the best of my understanding, subaltern refers to someone socially, politically, and geographically outside “normal society.” They would not follow the chain of command or the leadership of the general public and thus be seen as an outsider. I think these are the people that tend to make the most noise in history—the dissenters, minorities, rebels, etc. They are extremely important in history, for without them, the world would be an awfully dull place. If there’s no one to rock the boat or challenge existing viewpoints and commands, the evolution of mankind and history would not happen. In research, these people make for the most interesting subjects and the most popular topics. For example, how many books exist out there about Hitler and his victims? Or how about all the movies made about some outsider turned hero who stood up against some injustice? These people are all over history and you would find it impossible to research ANY topic in history without coming across several of these people living to change their situations.
2. In my opinion, historical reality is the search for the most factual, unbiased version of events in the past. We search for “what really happened,” as opposed to what is popular belief. They say the winners write history and I believe that to be a fairly true statement, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s silly to say we can never trust those who write history and that everything is in the eyes of the beholder or whatever that crap saying is, but we should still be on our guard when it comes to accepting all history told to be completely factual. Sure we should question and interpret and consult other sources to seek absolute answers, but that could make for a very monotonous circular activity.
3. Everyone has a different story to tell and my ambition is to obtain as many varying viewpoints for my topic as possible. I don’t mean I want oxymoronic evidence, but that, because my topic is so controversial, there should be a lot of differentiating opinions on the subject. These differences add to the layers of my research and to the history of trench warfare itself. While one commander may think trench warfare is ingenious and foolproof, those soldiers actually serving on the front could very possible see the whole situation as quite the opposite. Layer upon layer, the story of how and why trench warfare became the battle plan of choice in WWI will emerge, and from there I hope to develop an informed, varied conclusion as to the pros and cons of using such a tactic and the result of the decision for the world at large.
4. The major problem I have encountered in my “writing process” would be the fact that I’ve already graduated and I simply need to pass all of these classes with a 1.0 so I’m lacking in the motivation category. I haven’t written a single word of my final paper, and I know that’s a problem in some people’s eyes, but, being a former journalism major, deadlines don’t scare me and I like the pressure of time. I’m not leaving the greater London area for the long weekend, so I have more time than others to get started on something for Wednesday. I’ve never done a rough draft in my life; when I had a draft deadline, I would write the whole paper and when it came to turning in the final copy, I just changed the date most times. I don’t say these harsh truths to be cocky or worry you Magee, I say them because I’m honest in the fact that I am very unconcerned about the whole affair at this point (which is unfortunate but inevitable). I WILL start something this weekend, hand you in a draft of some sorts Wednesday, and finish the thing before August 15 for sure, and my final paper of my college career will blow your mind (and if not, like I said, 1.0). Cheers.
1. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
The subaltern as discussed by Dr. Bailey was that in some incidences people’s behavior changes to something that is outside what is normal in civilization. In other words, culture and morals are disregarded and replaced by the instinct to survive. In the case of war people join the army and fight for different reasons. Some fight for their families or their countries, regardless of why one joins a war, a riot, or a revolution that person still has their morals, at least at the beginning. Most people are opposed killing another human being, but if put in a situation of life or death basic instinct takes over and people fight for survival. World War I is a good example of this in that society believed it to be a war to bring about peace, the last war. In fact, it became one of the worst wars ever fought. Young men left and returned having seen and done things that they could never imagined. I could not imagine being put in a place for months on end that is wet, cold (or hot), smelly, dirty, etc. along with the fact that there are people dying all around you every day. Survival instincts had to have taken over after a while. A person who once believed in peace might have changed into someone capable of killing anyone to survive, or even to protect his friends. In turn, I could not imagine what it would be like to return to society and be expected to live as you had before the war. This possibly could explain the prevalence of mental illness and trauma for soldiers. They disassociated themselves from civilization and lived in a world where basic instincts were necessary or you would die. Following this, people in society even though they were aware of the war and how devastating it was, since they had not had to live in the trench conditions or experience what the soldiers had.
2. What is historical reality?
When we first started to learn history we were taught the facts. This event happened on this date, this king was the monarch of this country, this war was fought between this country and that country, etc. I still know people who when they discover that I study history in college they ask if it is just memorization of dates, events, people, etc. This is only part of historical analysis. Something that is introduced later in education are the concepts of historical actors and their own perspectives on their lives and experiences. People are products of their time, meaning the culture that is present affects a person’s perception of the world. For instance, a person’s view of sexuality in ancient Greece is different than a person in the twentieth century. Until the end of the nineteenth century terms such as heterosexuality and homosexuality did not exist. However, today there is much debate among scholars about whether or not these modern terms can be applied to past societies. Another example is that today we know that illness is caused by germs and viruses, not witches and evil spirits. The reality of each person living in today’s world is based on the values and opinions of society and the culture that has been developed. Facts are present as a base and of course there is always debate about whether or not they have been simply perceived. But, for instance, most everyone can agree that the World Trade Center was hit by two airplanes on September 11th, 2001. This is just an example from our lifetime, records and memories date back hundreds of years ago. We were able to learn the basic facts about history, before our lifetime, because records exist. People can study the Roman Empire, the French Revolution, the regain of Victoria, and more because records exist. Now depending on where you lived, how old you were, your profession, etc. your memories and perception of September 11th is differently. I was 11 years old and living in Michigan. I am sure my account of that day is much different than a girl the same age living in Manhattan on that morning. Perspective plays an important role in the development of history and it allows historians to study varying experiences that are lacking in the basic facts. To summarize, a person’s historical reality is a constructed perspective based on time they live, their position within the existing society (class, profession, etc.), race, gender, age, and much more. The facts that are passed from one generation to the next still exist, however depending on who is analyzed the experiences and perceptions will most likely vary.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
When I think about historical layers one of the first things that come to mind are the rings of trees. Each ring reveals a specific time in that tree’s life and scientist can gain information about the surrounding area by deciphering the rings. History of people, places, events, etc. can all be deciphered looking at specific times, sub-events, nature, and much more. History builds on itself and through time events and ideas build on one another creating future events. For instance, in my research I am analyzing the changes in women’s roles in the public sphere, specifically in international relations and public policy. First, I already have observed that there have been changes in women’s role. At the start of my research it is clear that women lacked primary roles of leadership. It was expected, but nevertheless, there is still very few documents, letters, etc. that I have read written by women or that discuss the lives of women. This is very different from today in which it is very common to see a female author and women have leadership positions. History has built upon itself to the point where women fought and won the right to vote to working for equalities such as better pay, equal education, and more. History does provide many more records about women in the 20th century with less and less the father back in history one goes. This will present some difficulty in discovering women’s contribution to history before society and historians viewed the perspective of women as important. However, if this was a thoroughly researched topic, then there would be less to discover and write about.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
The major problems I am facing in the research and writing process for my topic involved finding relevant sources and information, as well as having enough of it to formulate a thesis. Women’s primary role in history has been the domestic life of the home and family. This means that without the existence of diaries and letters, it is very difficult to gain a great deal of knowledge about the women of specific leaders. For instance, I have been researching Lord Castlereagh who represented England at the Congress of Vienna. His wife, Lady Emily, was also present and I have been trying to find if she played any role in the negotiations at the congress, behind the scenes of course. In addition, there were many other women present at the congress. As well, the negotiations were conducted in less conventional places such as parties and in bedrooms, which allowed for women to present in the discussion and even have the opportunity to be influential. In the research process there are of course many more sources to be explored and even people of other delegations. I am looking at the sources used by David King in his book as a guide to hopefully find further information about any or all of the primary women at the Congress of Vienna and develop analysis and thesis from it.
1. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
Subaltern is someone taking under surrender than facing worst consequences. On my research on prostitutes I found that many were subject to the profession because it was the only meal ticket or to keep a roof over there heads (for at least a couple of hours).
2. What is historical reality?
In my opinion, historical reality is subjective and not always the “reality” of history. It could be the reality in one person’s opinion but not for the next. In my research, at the rise of prostitutions, there were two views of the subject. For men or johns has they were called. It was seen as a human need that men could not resist so they could not be blamed. For women or the prostitutes, it was seen as a horrible thing to do to your self and that women should be the one’s responsible for letting men engage in such activities.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
I think that historical layers makes research fun to go through. My research has several layers such as how it was started, what people were involved, what led to the business of it, etc. The only problem going through historical layers is making sure that your research is connected with your purpose.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
The only issue I had in my writing process is finding out what issue I want to point out in my paper. I do have many things that I want to discuss in my paper but I want to make sure that it has a clear focus.
1. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
Firstly, they can have a large affect on power balances in competing empires. However that falls much more under military history, and I consider myself much more interested in Social History, and subalternization must have a massive impact on the culture of a society. Looking at some countries like Japan and Thailand, there is a certain national pride affixed in never being conquered, or putting up extreme resistance. Scotland still has great pride in William Wallace, and many of the great martyrs in history were fighting losing battles. Contrast this to becoming a Subaltern. France in WWII arguably did this, though they did put up a fight beforehand, and still had a resistance afterwards, but even that sign of weakness has been a black mark of shame on their country, despite a rich and powerful military history.
2. What is historical reality?
As a firm believer in the existence of absolute truth, I’m not going to try and argue the same point that the rest of my peers have. However, in the interest of making this even an answerable question, I’m going to take the idea of “Absolute” out of the question entirely, because while absolute truth theoretically exists, that is a matter for philosophers and theologians, not historians. What is obvious and observable throughout history though, are the perceptions of multiple truths. Whether any of them are correct is nowhere near as important to history as are the conflicts that arise out of those differences. While a sociologist may inquire about Historical Reality in today’s understanding of the world, as a Social Historian, I am looking at Historical Reality as it affects the minds of people in power. While the easiest way to address this question would be in a religious matter, I’ll be a bit more vague and apply the idea to a wider scope. Obviously history is the study of the past, with the purpose of learning about the present, and affecting the future. History is also an inexact science, much of what historians study is incomplete or possibly unreliable, however in order to create an acceptable picture of the past, often times they have to extend the evidence of what they have perhaps past what it implies. From that, we can get many different interpretations of the past, and those being the basis of this whole process, can change things quite a bit.
One of the biggest changing factors, is that History is also a live science, and we are constantly discovering more and learning more. When the Gospel of John might have been at one point dated to about 200AD, there was a historical reality of unreliability attached to what is written within, however more recent discoveries are dating it earlier and earlier, putting it now within a generation of the life of Christ. As this happens, the entire “Reality” of what is written within changes, and so religion’s impact on the people who know about these discoveries, changes. So the more interesting question to me isn’t “What is absolute truth”, but “How does the changing ideas of absolute truth impact history”
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
Historical Layers, even at the most simple definition, creates visual distinction in history. Looking at America, though there are certainly periods of various immigration, and distinct architectural periods, it pales in comparison to the reminders present in cities like Bath and York. Being able to see those makes me wonder what that would have meant to the people living immediately after those times. Especially with the ruined Abbey in York, I could see that the historical layering allowed the people to show their disgust for the past. Instead of studying the written or spoken culture of Britain’s reaction against Catholic holdouts, there was a clear and obvious picture of it in the destruction of the Abbey. At the same time, and I noticed this right away and laughed., the lawn around this Abbey is neatly kept and trimmed, there aren’t really any weeds, and the smaller remaining pieces are now used to sit on. As Britain creates temporal distance between events, it begins to absorb it as part of a “Rich History”. Having taken Dr. Willis’ IAH course on British Culture, I had to laugh at how absolutely British it was to treat their history this way.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
Cohesion is a difficulty. I am not a fan of drafting or of outlining, but the scope of what I’m trying to write about requires me to examine three distinct historical periods, and keeping those thoughts together is getting tough. I may have to break down and actually preorganize this paper. A distasteful thought.
1. Use Dr. Bailey’s definition of the subaltern. How do subalterns affect the history you research?
Dr. Bailey described subaltern as the people who subject themselves to the rule of an invasive group in order to stay alive. Specifically, he discussed how Cartimunda of the Brigantes chose this course in order to try to maintain her power and livelihood when the Romans invaded Britain. It’s interesting to compare Cartimunda’s response to Bouddica’s, because both women were rulers during this period who responded differently to the invasion. While Bouddica made the decision to fight in order to defend her culture and people, Cartimunda allowed the Romans to take control. Both took separate paths, but ended up in the same situation of being subject to Roman rule.
2. What is historical reality?
From what I’ve gathered, historical reality is the story of history that we create through the various places we get evidence from. Archaeological evidence, documents, and surviving stories all combine to form the histories we read and research today, but these come from so many different sources that reliability is hard to determine. Finding an unbiased source is next to impossible, so we have to use the evidence available and that can lead to inaccuracies in the historical record.
3. How do historical layers impact your research?
Dr. Bailey’s class taught me a lot about the way histories pile on top of each other, especially in York. I realized that it’s important to understand the multitude of cultures that have occupied one place, because they all played a part in forming the society that exists there today and you have to keep that in mind as you study that culture.
4. What problems are you encountering in your writing process and how do you intend to solve them?
The main problem I’m encountering is organizing my thoughts in a way that gives enough information about my topics but doesn’t stretch the subject thin and pointless. I know I can solve this just by continuing to put thought into it and reorganizing my paper until it works.