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May. 4th, 2012
There is a huge gulf of toleration between respect and banning. In a free society, people should be allowed to do what they want wherever possible. The loss of liberty incurred by any alternative principle is too high a price to pay to stop people making dicks of themselves. But, if people are using their freedoms to make dicks of themselves, other people should be able to say so.
David Mitchell, If Britain decides to ban the burqa I might just start wearing one, The Observer, 25 July 2010
Clio is an amateur of amateurs
May. 4th, 2012 03:11 pmI was linked recently by a fellow-spirit to this article, in THE: Times Higher Education, on independent scholars.
And being sort of in that category myself, since I don't earn my daily crust in a university history department, I find it interesting if possibly missing some of the points.
Whether you're a professional or an amateur, it's highly beneficial to keep up with the literature and the debates within the field rather than thinking that you are necessarily bringing Amazing New Insight to whatever area, or to be missing stuff that would be helpful to what you are doing.
This doesn't only apply to people - Who Shall Be Nameless - who work outside the field entirely or have decided to work in subdisciplines not their own, within which they are not entering into the wider conversations, in fact sometimes we suspect that they are not entirely aware that there are those flourishing and vibrant subdisciplines, and produce sensationalist &/or conspiracy-theory work.
It also applies to those enthusiasts who mole away compiling masses and masses of material on thing about which they are keen, but have no idea a) how to organise it and b) how their topic relates to a wider perspective. (Retired members of A Certain Learned Profession, and Certain Biographers have felt the lash of the codfish on this one.)
I would be the last person to doubt that people can bring strengths from their non-academic backgrounds to historical research (yo, my dearios, have I not ranted extensively about Hystoryanz B So Iggerant about Arkyvyz? they b heerin it on the moon). On the other hand, I do think that acquiring necessary skillsets should also be on the agenda:
"I can't read early 16th-century orthography," she says, "so I had to use only written sources."
Hello? there are various palaeographical courses available specifically directed at the non-professional, though the usual constituency is, I would hazard, family historians. But if genealogical hobbyists can do it, if you want to write a definite bio of C16th figure (and Englit types, is Wyatt all that minor? or am I assuming too much on the basis of, well, he figured in Margaret Irwin's novels and I've come across his poems in anthologies?) surely you should equip yourself to do the job properly?
