ahorbinski | Historiography, responsibility, duty, RPF (Reply)

Anna Wilson, with whom I am tangentially acquainted, has a great post on where the first duty of the historian lies, RPF, Procopius, and me, over at The Society of the Friends of the Text:

I like the insistence on the tension between our felt responsibility to those we are writing about, and to those we are writing for. I like that poking at that tension forces self-scrutiny, forces me to ask myself who, or what, my work is for, after all: other postgraduate scholars? Undergraduate students? Myself? Where does my loyalty lie? Asking the same question of other historians can often generate surprising moments of understanding that help separate personal context from historiographical content, or at least come to a higher level of understanding about their interrelation (I felt a great “OH!” moment when I read, in Norman Cantor’s Inventing the Middle Ages, that Charles Homer Haskins, a historian of medieval government and university institutions, worked for the CIA).

I'm not sure what to say to this, other than that it's a crunchy post that bears repeated cogitation. Personally, while I find myself frequently sympathizing deeply with my research subjects, my first sense of responsibility always lies, fairly equally, with both the present and the future--everything I write, I hope will carry forward to posterity as well as speak to the present moment. It's a large ambition, but a true one, and for that I make no apology.