John Buckler wrote:
>the information is filtered through our own views, ideas, and prejudices. I
>think perhpas that one way to diffuse that might be to diversify your
>knowledge, and to seek opinions and ideas outside of yourself. Use all the
>resources available to you, don't simply assume you understand the
>significance of an artifact. While an artifact may have great meaning to you,
>it might have an even
>deeper meaning to someone of that group. By realizing you might have a bias
>(unintentional or not), you can help to dampen it somewhat.
To me, this is the classic mistake we scholars tend to make when thinking
about race/class/gender in relation to our work. First, it seems to me
there is a great difference between the information filtered through the
experiential collanders of our individual lives, and the "great meaning" an
artifact may have for the individual. The latter must certainly inspire
the scholar in his/her work, but the former remains external to the
scholar. The shard, the will, the muster roll, the gravestone, the
proclamation, the bottle, the poem, the letter -- all the bits and pieces
of history which are accessible for examination -- are fodder for the
scholar's mind. The object of the game, as I understand it, is to gain as
clear a picture as possible. What Mr. Buckler poses as an antidote to the
race/class/gender bias is what we should be doing all along, and if this is
done with a modicum of integrity, it seems to me that the african-american,
the japanese-american, the irish-american, the
german-english-scottish-irish-french-italian-polish-swedish-russian-and
-anything-else-american archeologist or historian can be equally reliable
researching the Anastazi, the slave culture of the south, or any other site
or subject imaginable.
Well, I've had my say...talk amongst yourselves.
William M. Reger IV
(217)352-6930
[log in to unmask]
Department of History Voc. & Tech. Ed.
309 Gregory Hall, UIUC 345 Education Bldg., UIUC
(217) 333-1155 (217) 333-0807
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