#why I'm interested in the historiography more

[inkbee]

Realizing now that I'm done with Latin intensive I can get started somewhat with my cathargate liveblogging. Pegg's first essay 'The Historians' Illusion" alone is going to take forever, but tbh I think going through it slowly and summarizing it as I go along makes for better understanding in general. He spends the first paragraph being kind of dramatic, but in the subsequent paragraphs which I was initially annoyed at for getting into the historiography as opposed to the primary sources themselves, actually now that I'm trying to map this out cleanly in google docs its useful and also interesting. Why does everything come back to the Germans

[mesetacadre]

I can't find the post where you're asking for asks so if we had to do an emoji or anything rip sorry for being the outlier. But anyway, do you have any recommendations on like, the tactics side of things? There's plenty of reading lists on the basics on communism and philosophy but I'm not sure where to start on the historical side of things. The people I follow are often able to cite various people's revolutions, for example, and know a fair few details about why they worked or didn't work, what lessons to take from them, and how it ties into general communist analysis. And I'm often left at a loss. I'd like to work on this gap of knowledge more myself.

Hi, there is no protocol for sending me asks, you're fine :3

Lenin's What is to be Done is sometimes said to rather be about what should not be done, but it is the 101 book for communist strategy IMO. Mao's On Practice will probably also interest you, but I haven't read it yet so my recommendation is not 100% confident. That said, I don't think Mao is the type of person to use a misleading title. You might have noticed I'm talking about strategy, not tactics. Strategy is the overarching philosophy that guides action, while tactics are the individual actions or sets of actions that are done to complete the overarching strategy. I believe Lenin goes into this in the book linked above but don't quote me on that

As for reading on the more specific tactics, I'm not very read up on. Once again making a recommendation based on title, perhaps Mao's On Guerrilla Warfare helps you. When people talk about different revolutions, like I sometimes do with Cuba, and talk about the flaws and achievements, it is either a result of multiple discussions with other people on the subject, an intense reading on the particular historiography (which might be difficult to find non-propagandized ones in your language depending on the particular case) or actual personal experience (god I wish that were me). I can only say to read what other people recommend and ask those you see talking about subjects that interest you.

[stirringwinds]

Hi I just spent so long scrolling through your blog, it's an absolute goldmine! I love the way you approach historical hetalia and delve into how these nations feel and interact. This is exactly what got me into hetalia almost decade ago and why I'm still stuck here. The way you characterize the fam is amazing, the dysfunctional relationship betwen Alfred and Arthur, Matt stepping in, etc. I'm rambling at this point but I can't tell you how amazing this blog is and happy I am to find it.

sorry for taking some time to answer this, but genuinely, thank you so much for sending this sweet message! comments like these are exactly why i've stayed in the fandom for so long. and yes, there's so much to explore with the family in hetalia; arthur and alfred are so interesting to think about, within this 'young ambitious crown prince / shrewd and cunning old king' dynamic, conflicting against those moments where there is some longing for a simpler father-son relationship. and lmao, i owe 'Fly-from-Fornication' to a post listing examples of historic Puritan names. something about its outlandishness to modern eyes, and contrast to how older Alfred depicts himself (charming, flirtatious hollywood showman) was very fun.

the other nice thing about being in the fandom for years is that i've had the chance to meet some really cool people, and imo, the best headcanons often come through that collaboration— bouncing ideas off and researching with friends. in this case, i owe a lot of thoughts about the father/son dynamic, alfred's relationship with matt, matt's characterisation (being his father's sword and first dominion, but who also deals with being overshadowed) — and the expanded concept of Jack (AUS) and Zee/Eleanor (NZ) as Alfred's two other siblings to my friend @historia-vitae-magistras (who created many of the original character concepts for Jack and Zee, particularly the latter, whom we've retconned quite a bit from canon).

it's been three years since i first drew that old US/CAN/AUS/NZ sheet about their rship with Arthur, and i do like that i'm not even close to done exploring that history. there is the warmth, alongside the struggles, complexities, ironies and other contradictions about identity and power that arise when kinship is forged out of the saltwater, steel and conflict of empire. irl, i also ended up writing my dissertation with a focus on british imperial history in the pacific context 😂. there is always more history to layer on, especially when i join it to my headcanons of Yao, Kiku, Yong-soo and the SEAsian characters (who I'm still coming up with names for haha). it's one of my favourite areas to explore because these themes of culturally and ethnically mixed identities and familial ties across national lines are very personal to my own family's history and experiences within the british empire. and generally, i love pulling from what i've learned about history and historiography to approach these characters, so i'm very happy my approach to hetalia speaks to you.

[veliseraptor]

January Reading Recap

Slower month this month, mostly because it took me forever to read one of these...

Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg. I mentioned this one at the end of last month's recap post - specifically that it was published in 2007 and that I expected reading it to be an experiment. I was right and spent a lot of the time reading @ameliarating quotes that were just sort of excruciating 15 years on. It was a great overview of the growth of the Christian right and expansion into politics particularly during the Bush years; I really wonder what Michelle Goldberg would say about the subject matter now. If you're interested in the interactions between Christian evangelists and U.S. politics, I do recommend this one despite the fact that it is, inevitably, dated.

Beneath the Stairs by Jennifer Fawcett. January sort of ended up being the month of mildly disappointing horror, which isn't exactly new for me but is still sad. This was probably the second-best of the three I read but ultimately still just came up as "meh, okay, I guess." I can't point to anything wrong with it, and it wasn't that the conclusion was unsatisfying or anything, I think I just found it underwhelming and unexceptional.

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes. I want good space horror with all my heart; this wasn't it. Basically a rip-off of Alien but with a worse resolution. I'd say the first half of the book had me going because despite being an Alien rip-off it was still quite spooky, but ultimately I just came out of this one wishing it were at least 25% a different book.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. This is an old book that came up for me again for...some reason, I honestly forget what brought it up? I remember seeing it on my parents' shelves growing up. I read Missoula by the same author some years ago and remember being very affected by it. This book is the author's account of the 1996 disaster on Mount Everest that killed a number of hikers and generated some controversy (and about which I knew very little); he happened to be on the affected expedition as a journalist planning to write an article about the commercialization of Everest climbing. Reinforced everything I already believed about (a) nobody should climb Everest and (b) big mountains are terrifying.

Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past by Richard Cohen. This was the book that took me forever to read, and my search for a nonfiction book about historiography that gives me what I want continues. I wanted this book to analyze how history has been written over the years, and how different approaches to history/schools of historians have impacted historiography, but this ended up feeling more like a survey of historians past (and often their personal foibles). It was much lighter on the analysis or depth of investigation of its subjects than I would've liked it to be, probably as an inevitable consequence of its scope.

I feel like my issue with it can be summed up by the fact that there was an entire chapter about the feud between two British historians that was much more about their personal exchanges than going into their contrasting approaches and what those approaches meant/mean for the writing of history and the way we understand it.

Little Eve by Catriona Ward. I liked The Last House on Needless Street better, I think, though this one was very interesting in its own way; I'm not sure why it didn't click with me, but I suspect because I thought I was going into a different book than I ended up going into. I think the book I ended up with is a better one, but it meant that there was some internal dissonance over the course of my reading.

I think I actually do recommend this one, though, tentatively. Not in a "everyone should read this" sort of way, but in a "this is an interesting work and I'd be curious to hear more peoples' thoughts on it" sort of way.

I just started reading How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith after bouncing off The It Girl by Ruth Ware about five pages in. I'm not giving up on it, but I clearly wasn't in the right frame of mind for it right this minute, so...it can wait.

Tune in next month to see if I've found a new horror novel I like yet.

[lennjamin-o7]

For the ask game, 18 and 29?

18) The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

Wilbur. Fucking. Soot. Gosh, he is so HARD. You have to balance his chaos with his eloquence and it is just SO HARD. If I go gray, the entire fault lies with character Wilbur Fucking Soot. I'm not even joking.

29) Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

This question is why it took me so long to respond. I had an idea, but I wanted to re-read earlier chapters to make sure I didn't overlook anything. Which, for one, thanks for that. I realized I never addressed a certain plot hole. It must have gotten cut from a draft. I can do that in another chapter.

Anyways, I have a few that I really liked. I can’t quite pick one so you get 5+1.

From Chapter 2

So, of course, Technoblade was punished for guiding a teenager through the city. Because that is just the height of blasphemy against the Blood God. Associating with some random blonde kid would be the end of all the Blood God’s well laid plans. The very downfall of Scywar. Ridiculous.

Also from Chapter 2

“He’s like a thunderstorm,” Technoblade settled on. Sir Wil tilted his head, eyes glittering.

“Oh? How so?”

“Loud,” Sir Wil barked a laugh,” But…not unpleasant to listen to.”

“I agree,” Sir Wil’s eyes softened, taking a step away from Technoblade. “A thunderstorm is an excellent way to describe him.”

From Chapter 6 (Because of the sheer amount of dramatic irony I stuffed in it)

“Dad is really interested in military strategy and history. He can honestly be a bit overenthusiastic about it. He could go on for  hours  about proper army placements. I’m sure he would  love  to talk to you about it sometime. He's also  really good with a sword, and I am sure that he would love to spar with you, if you wanted. Scywar is renowned for their swordplay, after all. But I’d understand if you are sick of fighting,” Wil mused. “I’ve never been very interested in fighting myself. Armor is incredibly uncomfortable. Not to mention it just  doesn’t  match my aesthetic. And Tommy can be a bit too…monomaniacal with his approach in sparring, I suppose. It makes him a bit predictable.”

“You better explain that word right now, prick. The only maniacal person here is you!” Tommy growled as he returned with a glass in his hand. Wil ignored him.

“And ever since we lost Mom, Dad hasn’t really had anyone to talk to about that sort of thing. Well, he does still talk about it. It just  bores me. There are only so many times I can hear about the proper way to wield a trident before I want to throw myself out the nearest window. I have always been more into political drama, anyway.”

Chapter 8

“I’m not going to read some encyclopedia-”

“Read it.” Technoblade sat in the desk chair, not looking at the brothers as Tommy groaned.

“Ugh, wait. Is this the one Wil got laughed at because of?” Tommy asked. Technoblade nodded without looking up and the kid looked slightly more interested. Or at least, he looked less like he bit into a lemon. Cautiously, the kid opened the cover and his look of distaste turned into one of confusion. The kid flipped through the pages.

“All of these pages are blank,” Tommy said in confusion. Wil leaned over his brother’s shoulder, curiosity piqued.

“All of them?” Technoblade goaded. Tommy flipped through the pages quicker, until he stopped on a page in the middle.

“...it just says ‘nice’.” Tommy said, bewildered. But Wil broke out into cackling laughter, leaning against the bed to not fall over. “Wait…”

Technoblade tore his eyes away from the book to watch the brothers with amusement. Tommy met his eye, a look of dawning awe.

“K. Jacobs wrote forty-two volumes detailing the history of Essempi. They’re considered one of the most accurate historiographies of the country,” Technoblade explained with a smirk. “His forty-third volume, however, was a bit of a joke that he labeled-”

“Volume Sixty-Nine,” Wil wheezed. Tommy had now joined his brother in breathless amusement. Technoblade rolled his eyes, before returning to his book.

Chapter 10

Technoblade stood upright as the priests slowly made their way through the barrack, assigning tasks to each Blessed One that they passed. And in the familiarity, there was horror. For instead of sluggish compliance, the Blessed were twitchy and wound. The Blessed were full of fear and despair. The Blessed had never tasted hope, not one day in their short lives, but were now choking on trepidation. And oh, the children looked so lost under the guidance of those who claimed to know the very plan of a god. A plan that was either flawed, false, or fiercely cruel.

And from Taste of Freedom, I just really like this section.

Two feet came into view, and Technoblade peered up at one angry  Jerry .

“You disobeyed me, Technoblade.”

“Would I do something like that?”

“You attacked guards of the church.”

“Pretty sure they attacked me.”

“You attempted to permanently injure another Blessed.”

“I mean, not  permanently . The only thing a little oxygen deprivation is gonna do is kill off some brain cells. And we both know that Hallowlance doesn’t have any-”

Priest Jereth kicked Technoblade. Technoblade blinked stars away, a trickle of blood dripping from his forehead.

“Ow.”

“You are disrespectful, unrepentant, sacrilegious-”

“I’m pretty sure the Blood God didn’t come up-”

Priest Jereth kicked him again. The world spun and Technoblade stopped struggling as he blinked away spots in his vision. He tasted blood.

Thank you so much for the ask! Funny enough, the fic took me some time to reread lol. Someone put too many words in it <3 <3 <3

[transmissionsfromthebattlefield]

There's No Trains To Heaven

Things I made this semester: A just barely 19 page long historiography paper. An accompanying 7 and a half page long research proposal with 22 page long annotated bibliography because I found too many interesting sources and had too much to say about them. An 8 page long paper about seditious speech that could have been a little shorter but I had too much to say about that, too. One data research analysis report (with accompanying fun bar graph). A basically functional, entirely responsive website with 7 individual pages (which I'm still putting the final touches on). In between all of this I recorded an eleven song album of nuclear reactor core folk ditties, all by my lonesome.

T’was a good semester.

I also changed my major. Again. This summer I'd declared a second major in history to go with my studies in emerging media and technology with a minor in web design. But I wasn't too sure about the latter degree. Part of why I was clinging to EMAT was plain ol' fear, to be completely honest. Not a crippling or conscious fear, but the oft-restated assumption lingering in the back of my head: it'll make you marketable. If you get a bachelor of arts, you'll either be out of a decent job or trapped in the stressful, low-paying world of education. Get that ~science~ certificate in your life and you'll be rolling in that dough and not destute, unlike those silly B.A. kids.

Well, I don't necessarily agree with that train of thought. Having had the concept of "STEM" shoved down my throat in even middle school, I've grown critical of the importance we place on those fields specifically. As vital as technology and science are, you also have to realize that the social sciences are just as useful to, well, society. Yet such fields are looked down upon. No wonder people nowadays are barely capable of critical thought, take everything (especially media) at face value, and barely know the basic facts about their own country's past. It's because we condition kids to doze off in their classes and not take education on any level seriously, especially not the subjects associated with boring, stuffy things like reading and interpreting and thinking. Too much hard work, let's rah-rah the football team instead.

Learning history and connecting it to the present is one of the most important things you can do to become a more aware citizen, and it's time we stop pushing this culture of self-consciousness over what people think of us because of our degrees or careers and actually work on ourselves to actually get some informed participation in society. As for the career part, my workplace on campus is proof enough to me that studying history can get you a fulfilling job that lets you utilize the skills you honed and information about the wider world you picked up in your studies. It helps you connect with people and their past experiences. It helps you contextualize the world you currently live in. And by studying things objectively, it helps you become a more logical person less swayed by disgusting propagandic appeals to emotion. It just helps you become a better person. Realizing that that is the path I want to take, as opposed to sticking with a major I just wasn't fully jiving with in the name of some enigmatic ideal of making my chosen institution proud or something, is very freeing.

The web design minor is staying because I just genuinely love twiggling around with my little HTML and CSS files and applying my graphic design Skillz in that manner. On the other hand, I've picked up another minor: creative writing. I've always taken my writing abilities for granted; I'm a great writer, I'd say. But only now have I really felt empowered (to use a cheesy term for lack of a better one) to express it in a creative way - and not just in the songwriting department. I think I felt for a while that I had to suppress my "creative" side in order to appear serious to...I don't even know who I was trying to appeal to. But my brain has been firing off in too many directions lately, and has been too inspired by the world around me and my various influences to let my individual perspective linger in the background. I gotta do me.

So I went from English while enrolling --> Journalism because I was under the assumption that all the English majors were going to be Swifties --> Public Relations for a few weeks because I had no idea what I was doing --> Emerging Media and Technology with web design concentration --> History + EMAT + web design --> History major + web design minor + creative writing minor. That's a really weird and still incomplete circle, but it's fun to think about.

[madqueenalanna]

going to ramble lowkey buuuuuut hotd "second of his name" i have some Thoughts vis a vis the white hart

so the whole episode is about hunting the white hart, right? and viserys's crew never find it, but rhaenyra does see it and does nothing, right? and they say it was a pre-targaryen signal of royalty? so i get why the first impulse is to say "it appeared to rhaenyra and not viserys/aegon, therefore she's the rightful queen" but i'm not sure that's the point?

the show is complicated on the matter of the succession. imo it's fairly clear that the showrunners have an issue with the idea of there being "a succession" in a clear sense; rhaenyra-aegon is complicated enough, and then they push rhaenys as well. viserys wins the title of heir (the show excluded baelon entirely for simplicity's sake) and that is not necessarily the right choice! he gets themes disease™ from the throne!

but the important part is not that the white hart signifies rhaenyra should "really" be queen. no one should be queen. the throne is inherently corrupting. the important thing is, every character in the show thinks the white hart is significant, and what does rhaenyra do when she sees it? nothing. she watches and lets it pass unmolested. whereas viserys, hungover as FUCK, not only never sees the white hart but struggles to kill the stag they DO entrap

because that's the question, isn't it? it has nothing to do with "who is REALLY worthy" (i hold to the belief that aenys was a bastard and maegor was blood magic parthenogenesis, so there is no actual heir of aegon), the question is "what do you do with the power that is presented to you?" viserys drunkenly killed a normal deer like a butcher, worse than a butcher; rhaenyra saw the white hart and did nothing. what does that mean TO THEM? how do THEY think of it?

that's what i like so much about hotd. "the truth" matters less than "what information do these characters have/believe and what will it make them do" which is so much truer and realer and more interesting. is gyldayn right? is mushroom right? who cares?? six of one half dozen of the other. does RHAENYRA know what mushroom is saying?

my college thesis was about historiography and i've always been hugely interested in the massive grey area overlapping fact and fiction, so i deeply respect the hotd patriots for writing a show based entirely around that ambiguity. they mean everything to me

[constant-and-immovable]

Do you have any nonfiction book recs about pirates (specific people or pirates in general?)

Okay so I kept meaning to make a Long And Serious list of recs with this one, however I keep not doing that (sorry), but I can say the basics:

Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly is usually suggested as THE pirate history book. It covers a lot of ground, going deeper with a few of the big names, and how they tied into their era. He tends to waver back and forth between admiration and trying to go "well these men were actually bad people." The opening chapters also get into pirate literary and cinematic history, which is great, especially for someone new to nonfiction on the subject.

The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard is excellent too, and he covers the 101 needed to know where in history you are, but still, having a background in the Ongoing Fiasco that was Charles I to Queen Anne and the Fiasco of George I of England makes it a lot better. It's firmly rooted in the Caribbean Golden Age of Piracy, and never outright says that these men were among first to organize and more or less (if only temporarily) succeed in separating from Great Britain, but it shows it. Truth stranger than fiction and all that. It's definitely a zoomed-in look, and probably better read after Under the Black Flag

The Last Days of Blackbeard by Kevin Duffas. Okay, so this really isn't a requirement, but it's a requirement in my heart. Genuinely. It sounds like bullshit. Blackbeard wasn't from England, but from North Carolina, and he and his loyal men were highly involved with the governor who knew Exactly what they were doing, who purposeful structured rumors and myths about himself to keep the British away. It sounds fake. It sounds like a conspiracy theory. As my friend ninjagiry said, "I want to believe but where are your citations?" Kevin brought the receipts. Sometimes, literally, receipts. By the time I spent a week walking in these men's footsteps and hearing from Duffas among others, I was made convert. I

AVOID:

The Life and Tryals of the Gentleman Pirate, Major Stede Bonnet by Jeremy Moss. Written by a lawyer with no background in historiography or history writing, it's written like an undergrad book report that relies far too heavily on the first two titles I listed, name dropping them several times within the text or outright summarizing sections. I read this about six months before the show aired hoping to learn something new, and I did Not. There's a reason that this was self published and not picked up by a major imprint.

Why We Love Pirates by Rebbeca Simon It's not actually about why we love pirates, the author tacked on some tired and over discussed remarks about pirate stories and pirate movies and pirate popular culture to fluff up her dissertation synopsis about how the trials and execution of Captain Kidd are what lead to the immense public interest, fascination, and even admiration of (specifically) the Caribbean pirates. However, whoever edited this one missed several egregious errors in the first couple chapters. My thought is: if I, someone who is NOT a historian, caught these mistakes, what would a historian find? I want to use this book's research on Kidd, but I don't think I should trust it. I was so excited for this one too.

Avoid anything that relies heavily on Captain Johnson's Historie of Pyrates. Not exactly a solid source.

I haven't finished Born to Be Hanged yet, which is a new release this year, focusing on a small group of pirates hired by an Indigenous leader to rescue his daughter and several other women from their community from slavery and sexual abuse at the hands of the Spanish, but I'm wildly hype for it. After years, years of having to hear "these people were actually bad! you can't like them! if you're going to read about them I will tell you they're all evil and bad every page!" its refreshing to encounter "well, its not all that cut and dry, or that morally black and white."

[phoneybeatlemania-bit-the-dust]

How did you get round to doing all this research? Maybe it's the peer pressure but I'm around your age and I'm kinda jealous how you're so knowledgeable about a 60 year old band in like, our grandparents' day lol. But I'm impressed! Keep it up ❤️

Firstly, thank you! I had a very shitty night at work last night so when I came home and saw this message it cheered me up a bit <3 Honoured that you think im knowledgeable on them!

Onto the actual question though - ive always loved the Beatles (I used to watch Yellow Submarine every week when I was about 5 or 6 or so) and I would consider them my first favourite band! But it was only at the start of this year during lockdown that I started heavily reading into them; no idea why, just suddenly became obsessed. For the first few months though, I remember I didn’t actually have much of an opinion because I just didn’t know what to make of the history - but once I started participating in discussions and stuff, that prompted me to garner more of an assured perception.

The tips and advice I would give (other then neglecting school work) are:

1. I Read A Lot!

I just tend to read a lot of books in general, and so once I became captivated with the bugs, my first instinct was to buy a book on them - so I bought Phillip Normans book on John Lennon because id heard good reviews, and then it all just spiralled from there and now ive read about 7 different books on them this year (and ive got tons more that I want to get to!). Reading different books and essays on them is a great way to get a nuanced and reasonable perspective on them, albeit an imperfect way of navigating their historiography, because naturally every biographer will be biased in some sense.

A lot of people post quotes and sections from various books and essays onto this website, so if reading isn’t really your thing or you don’t have the time etc. you can still often find the important bits on here! But personally, reading Bealtes books is sort of like comfort food to me, so I typically have one on the go.

2. Tumblr & Forums

Part of my love for the Beatles I think has been perpetuated by having this position in an online community. There are other websites in which people discuss the Beatles, and ill occasionally use them (like ill check out reddit every once in a while), but overall, I just find the Tumblr community to be the most open to actual discussion, especially if it differs from the "established" Beatles narrative presented by biographers and documentary makers etc. for the past 50+ years.

Beatles fans using sites and forums like Reddit I feel are more focussed on the bugs actual music - which is fine of course, but im not so interested in discussing that, because for the most part I like to talk about their actual characters rather then their artistry. Also from my experience in interacting with people through those sites, people are quite closed-minded when it comes to drifting from the consensus. Whereas with the Tumblr community, it feels a lot more like an actual community. Like different users have their own sense of personality and their own opinions, and I just feel like we all tend to be pretty friendly here, or at the very least, tend to be respectful. People on Tumblr also seem to be a lot more open-minded to discussing less comfortable topics rather then immediately shutting down the conversation because it doesn’t fit within the “official” Beatles narrative.

Finding accounts who you would deem trusty and then sending them questions I find is also a good way to get some perspective. If im not sure what I make of situation concerning the Beatles, sometimes ill send users who I find to be quite perceptive an ask, and get their view on the subject; I might disagree with them in the end, but its still a good way to get some perspective. Also adding to or even starting discussions is another way of getting some info!

3. Second hand stories

I don't know that many people who are as into the Beatles as I am (because, shockingly, 17 year olds dont tend to obsess over bands that broke up 50 years ago 😳) but if I meet someone who does like them, sometimes ill pick up some new stories id never heard before in books or on Tumblr. Like a couple months ago my Dad told me about the time Paul McCartney drunkenly started taking the piss out of David Blaine (x), and I thought it was so funny and bizarre, I was surprised no one on Tumblr had ever mentioned it. So if you come across a bug fan, you might be able to weasel from them a couple stories you've never heard before!

4. Documentaries & Podcasts

I haven't actually watched/listened to that many Beatles related documentaries or podcasts so far, but going off of what ive seen id recommend:

Lennon/McCartney documentary on youtube

The "One Sweet Dream" and "Another Kind Of Mind" podcasts

Ive been watching the docu-series called "1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything" recently, and I think its fab! Its not solely focussed on the Beatles, but they are discussed a lot, as well as dozens of other great musicians from the era, and other wider contexts.

This (x) podcast episode on the psychology of John Lennon

5. Interviews

Not a lot to say here, just that finding interviews of them (or people who have known them) can of course be very insightful :)

6. Find The Topics that interest you

One way that I go about researching them is that I seek out essays or forums focussing tightly on topics that I am interested in. I know that my main focuses (at least for the time being) tend to be related to the interpersonal relationship between John and Paul, and their psychology’s and upbringings etc. So for example, I might actively search for information on John and his possible ED or Pauls parents etc. In comparison, whilst I obviously still love George and Ringo, I know that they just don’t interest me quite so much, so I just don’t tend to seek out information on them.

Figure out which topics resonate with you personally, and seek out information and discussions specifically regarding them!

[qqueenofhades]

Some additional points about that grave find in Finland that you may or may not find interesting. And that may or may not be dated, because I studied history 20 years ago. That said, I'm not sure if 1000 years ago is firmly middle-ages in this context? At least back in my uni days, they told us that here middle ages got going slowly during 1100's and 1200's when Sweden started converting the population to Christianity and the prehistorical era gradually ended. Maybe they teach differently now.

More about the grave. I don't know why The Guardian would talk about Vikings in this context at all, because the erstwhile population of current day Finland is not considered to have been Vikings, afaik. They were similarly warlike, and the graves from that era have a lot of weapons, and they certainly encountered Vikings, but they never participated in the raiding, and isn't that what makes Vikings Vikings? Their language and religion was also different. But anyway. I don't mean to correct you because the larger point stands. When I saw the headline in a Finnish news paper about that grave and traditional gender roles my first thought was, well, maybe the gender roles hadn't become traditional then yet. Just some additional context, which could be illuminating or could be totally dated.

I did the stupid thing and sent you asks about the Suontaka burial before reading the Cambridge article about it: I'm reading it now, and my comments seem fairly useless. Feel free to ignore with extreme prejudice. We're in agreement on the guardian article.

Aha, well, we all make mistakes from time to time, so no worries! However, since you do touch on a few points that I would like to discuss, I'm going to go ahead and answer, whether for you or anyone else who might find it useful. (It's the teacher in me, I'm afraid.)

First, I have to say that I had a definite "eeegh" moment at the idea that the eleventh/twelfth century isn't "medieval" in Finland just because it (at least prior to the Baltic/Northern crusades, if we're considering them to begin with the Wendish Crusade in 1147) wasn't yet fully Christianized. Scholars pretty universally accept "medieval history" as referring to the time period between 500--1500 CE (the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Renaissance). These, of course, are horribly Eurocentric frames of reference, but there you have it. Any event or culture taking place within that span of dates, no matter where in the world it is or what its socio-political circumstances may be, is medieval. We have to call out the pernicious equivalence of "medieval" with "Western Christian European," since that seems to be the underlying assumption. This is also what makes people mistakenly think that the medieval world (which, y'know, was just as big as it is now) is exclusively about white Christian Europe, and that no other global regions have a medieval history. Either way, the eleventh/twelfth century is actually closer to the end of the medieval era than it is to the start. I'm certainly not suggesting that you were consciously implying this; I have no trouble believing that that is indeed how they taught it twenty years ago. But yeah, the idea that still-largely-pagan eleventh-century Finland couldn't be "medieval" until it's Christian is definitely not the case as understood now.

The idea that anywhere in eleventh-century Europe is still "prehistorical" in any sense of the word is likewise a little baffling, tbh. Once more, it associates "history" only with "Christianity," and that would get quite a bit of pushback if included in a paper on medieval studies today. That is what also annoys me deeply when I see people describing the pre-Columbian Americas as "prehistoric" (read: pre-white-people-historic). If the chief marker of "history" is "written history," sure, there is a very narrow pedagogical argument to be made that these societies don't have narratives or chronicles in the standard historiographical sense. But also, uh, European colonialism and conquest destroyed vast swathes of records that we have never been able to read, understand, or even access, because they're just not there anymore. There is ample evidence that the ancient (and I do mean ANCIENT, up to thousands of years BCE) and early-to-late-medieval Mesoamerican societies had complex systems of writing, astronomy, calendar-keeping, and other history-recording practices, right up until 1492. There are something like four (FOUR) pre-Columbian Mayan scrolls still in existence, out of probably thousands and thousands, because the Spanish destroyed the rest. So "prehistoric," unless you're literally referring to the Stone Age, is never a politically neutral word or a word to use uncritically...

...and speaking of the Stone Age, we actually have histories for that too! Or rather (iirc) the Ice Age, because for example, Aboriginal Australians transmit their history orally and require each new generation to memorize it, word for word, exactly as taught to them. Some of these histories stretch back over ten thousand years, which means that we actually have first-person accounts of life during the end of the Ice Age, and scientists recently discovered that these traditional narratives accurately reflected the archaeological and geological record of Australia during the time period in question. (Indigenous people know what they're talking about and should be listened to, example number 85,000.) Of course, the Western-white-supremacist model of historiography calls these just "legends" or "myths" or "folktales" rather than history, because I guess not writing it down in a chronicle as a monk in a European Christian monastery in the year 1015 or whatever doesn't qualify as history for some people. (I don't have strong opinions about this or anything. Welp.)

I likewise don't know why the Guardian article brought up the Vikings, aside from the fact that they were quoting someone who explicitly used the Vikings in a hypothetical scenario about "traditional gender roles." This person expressed surprise that an intersex person living in a medieval Scandinavian society could rise to a high social role, by citing the widespread belief that "Vikings" were all dedicated to being very manly at all times and nobody with feminine qualities/feminine-coded social power could rule over them. I don't know if this was just a bad phrasing (plus, it obviously overlooks the often-egalitarian nature of medieval Scandinavian societies and plays into the favored white supremacist stereotype of the Vikings as some Master Aryan Race Where Men Were Men, etc) or what, but yeah, it's wrong across the board. Viking is the name of an occupation, not an ethnicity. It comes from the word wicing, meaning "seafarer" or "sea raider," and referred only to those guys who went out on their longships and stole a lot of stuff from their neighbors, most notably in the eighth to eleventh centuries. Their families back at home were part of the exact same society and benefited from those raids, but strictly speaking, they weren't vikings. We use the word "Viking" to describe any member of a medieval Scandinavian society, but it's similar to describing everyone living in the eighteenth-century Caribbean, no matter who they were or their social status or ethnic background, as "pirates," which is obviously inaccurate.

As you correctly point out, the Finns aren't considered quite the same as the Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes (as anyone can tell from looking at their written language; N/D/S are mutually intelligible and derive from the same linguistic family, while Finnish is COMPLETELY different and comes from an altogether separate branch of the tree) and therefore it's even more baffling that the person quoted in the Guardian article would cite them as an example of a "Viking" society. Likewise as you note, the whole phrase "traditional gender roles" is intensely problematic in most contexts, and especially here. It assumes that modern Western ideals of sex and gender have been static and unchanging throughout history, and that means that we tend to read our own (biased) assumptions onto the historical record and then get surprised when, shock of shock, they don't fit. The burial at Suontaka seems to have been of a biologically intersex person (i.e. someone with Klinefelter syndrome), but this is also the case when it comes to people assigned the usual male or female at birth, without any complicating genetic conditions. I'm working on a book review for an entire edited volume that discusses the intense gender-fluidity and proto-transgenderism in some medieval saints' lives, and how obviously the fact that they have been held up as a holy example, while explicitly subverting the so-called Traditional Gender Roles of the Middle Ages, means that it was (and is) a lot more complicated than shallow stereotypes and Bad Medievalism would have it.

Anyway, this is long enough (especially considering that you graciously offered me the chance to ignore it) so I think we'll stop here for now. But yes, there you have it. :)

[mysticalmusicwhispers]

HELLO sorry i had an extremely busy past week so i left this to stew for weeks T_T (my term break was Not a term break in any sense of the word. f)

OH OF COURSE SHE HAS A BLACKLIST.... vietnam keeping a list of students who are Brats is really so valid.. i'm willing to bet that in future when that dubious list of students grows up many of them will go on to commit morally dubious acts lmaoo including yao himself. and if they get arrested or if rumors spread she'll just be like "lol called it"

Also yes go get her friendship Aditya hopefully it will mellow you out a little as well - YEAHH their personalities are like. polar opposites tbh because he's Dramatic And Extroverted and she's very much Not... but for some reason i can just see them really bonding (over things like coffee if i had to make a guess though i haven't really thought about these two in depth.. )

“Admissions officers think Yao’s amazing and contributes greatly to the classroom environment and Vietnam is like “yeah, in a way, as long as you don’t mind someone who thinks every word you say is somehow wrong and will fight you to prove it lol. just take him, I’m trying to get rid of him”

JUST TAKE HIM I'M TRYING TO GET RID OF HIM THIS IS SO FUNNY WTF also aww baby yao's Going Places!! he comes back for like teacher's day or something and vietnam is like "okay so how many of your teachers and your classmates have you antagonised" and yao's like "my teachers love me and my classmates fear me. or they're begging me to help with their homework. or they're potential friends/accomplices >:)" and vietnam is like ugh love to see that you're terrible as usual

Since there’s essays involved I’m assuming she teaches either history or literature? Kinda on the fence because I feel like she’d be good at giving a no-nonsense version of history filled with interesting details and prompts that make you think (and also hosts monthly debates on controversial issues), but I also want Yao to be as un-confident as possible in his abilities in her class, and I feel like he would be less comfortable/sure of his answers and thoughts in a lit class than a history one. I’m not sure though

honestly i would really want her to teach lit so bad but history would be so cool too.. as someone who suffered through lit for the first month of school (though i think i'm getting the hang of it now :D) i also want yao to suffer through the feelings of inadequacy when the teacher gives an evaluation that is COMPLETELY different from yours while also awkwardly trying to tell you your evaluation is wrong without crushing your ~passion for learning~ or something... but at the same time vietnam has such strong history vibes??? and they would probably clash over like different methods of historiography and methods for interpreting sources BUT historiography isn't really taught in-depth here at high scholl level ... And at the same time lit is the best place for one to feel Insecure so i really don't know because vietnam has such History/art vibes.. i think you should decide this i have no idea 😔

Context

“she'll just be like "lol called it"” that’s such a mood honestly, watching your former bratty students grow up to be bratty adults 😅 At least Vietnam’s predictions for the future are vindicated and she gets self satisfaction from it lol. (maybe she sends emails to them sometimes like ‘are you aware that people think you committed tax fraud’ and the reply is just a simple ‘yes. sincerely, Yao’ lmao)

ooh yeah I think they’d be interesting; definitely agree with what you said about India being really flamboyant and Vietnam being more honest/down to earth and definitely someone who hates when people put on airs (which Aditya does to a fairly large extent...). I think she’d like him just a tad more because he isn’t super condescending and gets along with his classmates pretty well; she knows he’s trying to impress her (lollolll they’re all trying to get teacher points for recommendations) but at least he’s friendly and participates in class and stuff. Also I think India’s good at small talk, makes an effort in getting to know people, and is very emotionally in tune with other’s feelings (even if he’s a bit stupid/oblivious sometimes) so even if Vietnam is kinda closed off to him at first (she’s nicer to him than Yao though, that’s for sure) he can get along with her quickly by picking up on what she likes talking about and accommodating her interests. Yao could theoretically be charming like Aditya but he just doesn’t make an effort lol. YES to bonding over coffee, especially raging about how Starbucks is Inferior™™™™ (idk if Aditya would drink coffee but I think Vietnam brews her own Vietnamese iced coffee at home and bring it to class because she needs Fortification for putting up with Indchuran lol.) However, I also want to see her popping his bubble and whenever he’s exaggerating one of his accomplishments, Vietnam just shuts him right down. “No, he actually didn’t go all out; I’ve had students turn in whole ass dioramas for that project so your meager offerings are nothing special :}” (Vietnam has the pleasure of crushing each of their egos in turn hehehe)

Yao came back to visit her!!! Looks like someone caught feelings (platonically ofc) :) She sees right through his excuses for coming back and is like “haha bastard you got sentimental and Attached to me >:)”, but then Yao proceeds to remind her exactly why that’s a bad thing lmao (also... what if... we smashed this au and bros for life together.... and Vietnam is the first person to see that they’re hopelessly pining on one of their visits to see her..........and she calls them out on it....o-o)

“"my teachers love me and my classmates fear me. or they're begging me to help with their homework. or they're potential friends/accomplices >:)"” LOVE TO SEE YOU’RE TERRIBLE AS USUAL ALDSjSDLSD Yao dashed my hopes of him becoming somewhat of a model member of society but seeing him as an unchanging bastard is still quite alright. Headcanon that Yao really hates helping with homework though, because he’s like “WHY DON’T YOU GET THIS” after about 5 seconds of trying to explain something. Pity, he would be good at teaching if only he had the patience for it :} Also I propose that he really hates that teaching isn’t enjoyable for him because it would be great blackmail material (i.e. “if you do this to me I’ll stop giving you the answers to the problem sets *winks in a threatening manner*”)

SAME literature is the one class that makes you thoroughly question your comprehension and understanding of everything in life everything ever written, but HISTORY. she would be such a fun history teacher and I can see her having her students really dig into events for themselves and make their own evaluations of why things happened and who’s “right”. YES THEM CLASHING OVER HISTORIOGRAPHY hmm... maybe we could get around historiography not being covered much by having Yao be Extra™? For example, maybe one day Vietnam offhandedly mentions there’s a lot of interpretations around x period (and whether it was a success or failure) depending on which type of historiography you subscribe to; Yao, who was already feeling strongly on the subject, does some research (“what is historiography” “interpretations of x” *rabbit hole of articles ensues*) and then goes to class the next day armed with 10 sources and a full on debate about the subject ensues, resulting in him being late to lunch by half an hour. 

What about a compromise, where Yao has a ferocious literature teacher (who??? idk) but Vietnam is teaching history, and when he gets comfortable in her class he starts complaining about the lit teacher and she thinks oh finally, a teacher that he’s intimidated by. I am at peace now. 😌. 

[slaygentford]

I'm sorry if you've answered this before, but I'm curious what exactly is it you study? I'm new to your blog and I'm gathering it's something classics/history/lit related, but I guess what period of time do you specialise in? and why did you pick it?

In undergrad I double majored in lit (mostly modernist) and classics (focused in hist and latin) and now in grad I’m double-doing an mfa in fiction writing and one in literary translation! Cool fact I did about half a neuroscience/psych double degree before I flaked which is not pertinent but I think funny.

I picked modernist lit because it was a small department and no one taught Middle English or Shakespeare in any serious capacity, which makes me sad, bc it means Ive never had formal training with those things, and I lvoe them. A lot. Within ancient hist I focused in 4th c Macedon/persia and the late roman republic. I picked Macedon because I am too into the Argeads like a weird amount. The combo of dumb luck, skill, and bloodlust which contributed to their rise is interesting narratively, but ladel on top of that the first instance of “globalization” in any meaningful capacity + historiography and how historiography-ography is its whole own thing w this period... yeah. Roman republic i kind of just fell into, mostly because I decided to focus on latin over Greek (we could pick which one to do more intensively). I think the republic is kind of inherently hilarious narratively and I love jokes. That is a bad, but truly my most honest, answer for why I picked that.

For grad school my translations are primarily latin to English and for my thesis I’m doing a chopped and screwed Aeneid about, what? Doubling. Picked it because I’m obsessed with it, no other answer. Fiction I’m doing because it’s my truest passion in life or whatever. I write about all kinds of stuff and my thesis for that is a big ass novel but I do short stories sometimes. I get paid the small bucks to teach writing workshops at my institution and get paid the big bucks (lmao) to do a bunch of stuff that has to do with educating people who were previously in my position (crazy, poor etc)

I am in gridlock traffic rn which is why this is so extensive. Ok ilu i can answer any questions about studying this stuff any time

[cassatine]

I'm curious, what is it about this whole Force philosophy and Whills thing that sparked your burning interest in it? :0

Weeell. Long story short? I dig the Force philosophy - it’s a system to work out, and I like that. It’s my kind of work - building something coherent out of fragmentary data. It’s also nothing like it, because it’s fiction

Okay also the thing is I’m an archaeologist but my research specialty? Historiography and epistemology of prehistory (it’s a real thing I swear). Thinking about how fictional world-systems work and are made to work is way more useful than it could seem when it comes to studying the way we built-d models of prehistoric times out of fragmentary data and pre-notions. There’s probably a simpler way to put it but I’m still working on that. Star Wars is a really fun sandbox, because it’s galaxy-sized, it covers millennia of history, it’s a collective endeavor, and I happen to love it.  

The Whills tho. Best puzzle ever. A real delight. The thing that should have been but wasn’t, seized upon by the thirstiest of fandoms, brought back but not quite, the key to a whole other layer of story and meaning, so very deeply embedded in the fabric of a franchise in which it appears so little, a myth built upon misquotes and second-hand sources -

*sighs* beautiful I tell you. It’s like it was made for me to pore over and unravel. And now that I’m pretty satisfied with what I wrangled out (it’s lacking in the historiography aspects but I’d need time and funds to correct that, so!) I get to see that mythos grow again! Which is just as interesting if kind of slow going.

[chronicleofmemes]

hey! first of all i love your blog :) second of all, i'm starting uni in september studying history and politics, and was just wondering what you could tel me about studying history at uni? thank you! xxxx

hey! thank u so much thats so sweet of u anon much love xx also YES a fellow joint honours student welcome 2 my twisted degree 

reading. be prepared for a lot of reading. i obviously cant tell u about other unis so i dont know if this is a blanket experience, but at my uni history students read more than any other discipline - geography, law, english, u name it we fuckin beat it. its ridiculous BUT! if ur interested in history it shouldnt be a problem (i literally enjoyed reading an article about the roots of lay enthusiasm for the first crusade a few weeks ago). also as a joint honours student u have waaaaay more choice in what u do because u only do like 50-75% of the course so u wont have to do as many core modules and stuff so u can pick the good stuff and leave the poor old single honours kids to suffer x the transition from a level to uni was actually pretty okay for me and my uni made it really nice and easy giving us a lot of formative assessments (ones that dont count towards ur grade) before any summative (ones that do) so we could kinda get the hang of things (but depending on where u go to uni ur first year might not count towards ur degree anyway - mine doesnt). i really enjoy history at uni because u get a much more in depth view of a broader period of time but historiography. boy let me tell u. the amount of historiography u have to do sincerely upsets all of us they expect u to work it in everywhere and i had to do an entire unit and write a whole essay of just historiography which is probably why my will to live is at about 3% right now. thats literally the only negative tbh tho overall its a super rewarding degree n i absolutely L O V E studying history im so glad i do and good luck in ur summer exams if u have any! 

[billiefitzgerald]

Weird question, I noticed you said you work on collective memory (yay!). I'm thinking of writing my senior undergraduate thesis on the memory of the Third Reich and the Holocaust in the two German states. I was wondering if you had any suggestions for just general readings on collective memory.

Hello, first of all, many thanks for your question. I’m actually very exited to be asked about something that relates to my thesis in some way.

Second, this is such a great and interesting topic! You should have no problem finding works in which to situate your argument. There is such a large historiography and collective memory and commemoration!

Third, before I make my suggestions, I would advise you to browse the blog @historicity-was-already-taken, the moderator is a public historian who is well-versed in these topics. You might find some works in her bibliography useful. 

Now, on the question of collective memory in the two Germanys and in the re-united nation:

Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (1998) by Jeffrey Herf

“Historians and Nation Building in Germany after Reunification” by Stefan Berger in Imagining Nations (1998) edited by Geoffrey Cubitt 

Facing the Nazi Past: United Germany and the Legacy of the Third Reich (2001) by Bill Niven 

Ambiguous Memory: The Nazi Past and German National Identity (2001) Siobhan Kattago

“Coming to Terms with the Past: Illusions of Remembering, Ways of Forgetting Nazism in West Germany” (1993) by Alf Lüdtke“The Hour of the Woman: Memories of Germany’s ‘Crisis Years’ and West German National Identity” (1996) by Elizabeth Heineman

“Genre Memories and Memory Genres: A Dialogical Analysis of May 8, 1945 Commemorations in the Federal Republic of Germany” (1999) by Jeffrey K. Olick

As you can see, some of these are a bit dated but it’s important to recognize key contributions such as those in your own work. You can then supplement you paper with more recent monographies and articles. 

Now, as for works on collective memory:

On Collective Memory [1925] 1992 by Maurice Halbwachs edited and translated from French by Lewis A. Coser (I’m not certain that it will be necessary for your to read Halbwachs. You should simply be aware of his importance in memory studies.)

How Societies Remember (1989) Paul Connerton

The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (1993) James E. Young

Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (1996) by John R. Gillis

History and Memory after Auschwitz (1998) by Dominick LaCapra

Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory (2003) by Andreas Huyssen

State Repression and the Labors of Memory (2003) by Elizabeth Jelin

Memory, history, forgetting (2004) by Paul Ricœur (if you are feeling ambitious) 

Memorial museums : the global rush to commemorate atrocities (2007) by Paul Harvey Williams

DifficultHeritage : Negotiating the Nazi Past in Nuremberg and Beyond (2009) by Sharon Macdonald

The Collective Memory Reader (2011) edited by Jeffrey K. Olick, Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, Daniel Levy

The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust (2014) Marianne Hirsch (While I don’t know the direction you plan to take with your paper, this is still a classic that had to be mentioned.)

Writing the History of Memory (2014) edited by Stefan Berger, Bill Niven

“Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire” (1989) by Pierre Nora (I’m not convinced about this article’s usefulness but since Nora will be cited by everyone and he is part of the memory studies canon, you should be familiar with his work)

“Trauma, Absence, Loss” (1999) by Dominick LaCapra

“Memory, history and the claims of the past” (2008) by Ross Poole

*You will notice that while some scholars talk about “collective memory” others refer to it as “cultural memory,” “social memory” or even “collected memory.” Memory studies is a multidisciplinary field. Scholars have yet to better theorize it. Although you don’t need to take position on this debate (especially not for a paper of this size), it might be a good idea to explain, even if very briefly,  why you favour a particular term. It may simply be that you want to align your work with that of a particular scholar, make that clear in your introduction.

Finally, I hope she won’t mind but I know @virtual-tonks is German, perhaps a little conversation with her might help you better imagine your project.

That is all. I hope you find this useful! Good luck on your paper!