So in preparation for qualifying exams in United States History, I get into a conversation with a fellow grad student from another country - also prepping for the exam. The conversation turns to American Indian History and he/she wanted to clarify exactly when American Indians migrated from India.
I was like "what?!"
Yeah....
Considering this person is from another country I don't think that question was so stupid. Maybe you can elaborate on why you think it is stupid other than saying "what?! Yeah."
ReplyDeleteI agree. Is it about the myth of US "discovery," its power to erase what came or who was here before? This kids lack of knowledge must be more than just his ignorance, right?
ReplyDeleteI agree. Is this post about the place of American Indian HIstory in the US Historiography? The power of the myth of "discovery;" its ability to "erase" what came before? Or is it just about some graduate student that is ignorant? (i'm sure his ignorance must be connected to something larger than his lack of historical context)
ReplyDeletefellow US historian (colonial period)
ps-is anyone else having trouble posting comments?
I'm not so sure what is more disturbing the post or the follow up comments.
ReplyDelete- American Indian Studies Scholar.
Can you elaborate on why you're not sure which is more disturbing?
ReplyDeleteWhat's disturbing about this post, and about the follow-up comments, is the same thing that's disturbing about the whole blog. Taking little snippets out of context and calling them "stupid" violates one of the first principles of dialogue: charity. Did the other student think really think American Indians migrated from India on the eve of his or her comps? Probably not. Did the original poster recount this little anecdote in hopes of vindicating the myth of discovery, or to deride historians from outside US borders? Probably not. And are the follow-up comments "disturbing"? No...but they are basically tweets, and you can't really be serious about communication via blurbs that take all of 30 seconds to type out. Maybe we should be going for funny instead of horrifed...just a thought. But hey, not my blog.
ReplyDeleteI think you should carefully read the other posts. The reason the blog works is because it resonates with folks who have had similar experiences. While the last blog is too short to really tease out any major themes/issues in academia, I think the blog as an entity is trying to get at what it means and feels like to be marginal in these spaces. The comments to the last blog are not tweets, but seem to me, to be asking the author to give us more detail and more insight about the larger context/politics of making such statements. IN other words, what you call tweets to me seem to be asking the author to do more intellectual labor, to elaborate. Both funny and horrified are too easy.
ReplyDeleteAnd charity in this case might be re-reading some of the posts and trying to really understand how marginal students relate to academic spaces.
pocho enough