Post #9, Comments on Women and Gender in the American West (for 31 Oct seminar)
Post #9, Comments on Women and Gender in the American West (for 31 Oct seminar)
I also commented on Audrey's site and Dan's site .
Once again I am faced with a book that challenges my limited understanding of the West. In the collected essays in Women and Gender in the American West, I read and re-read alternate approaches to looking at the same question differently. Perhaps we are asking the wrong question.
Instead of dwelling on who did what to whom and positing that that action is more important that the previous discussions, maybe historians could embrace the Rodney King statement “why can’t we all just get along?” Wouldn’t it be nice to read a book that acknowledges the importance of a holistic picture vice a dogmatically-driven soda straw view of the elephant?
Is there anything wrong with openly acknowledging that the environment, topography, weather, wildlife, domestic animals and the people – all the people: men, women, indigenous nations, invading Europeans, mixed-race neighbors from the North and the South, Africans brought to North America in literal bondage but now constrained by social bondage, Asians deciding if they will build a nest egg and return home or remain here, and on and on – are vital to the tale of the West? And most importantly, could we also come to grips with the statement that the same could be said of any other region in the world?
In short, I am in favor of additive, vice alternative, history.
I also commented on Audrey's site and Dan's site .
Once again I am faced with a book that challenges my limited understanding of the West. In the collected essays in Women and Gender in the American West, I read and re-read alternate approaches to looking at the same question differently. Perhaps we are asking the wrong question.
Instead of dwelling on who did what to whom and positing that that action is more important that the previous discussions, maybe historians could embrace the Rodney King statement “why can’t we all just get along?” Wouldn’t it be nice to read a book that acknowledges the importance of a holistic picture vice a dogmatically-driven soda straw view of the elephant?
Is there anything wrong with openly acknowledging that the environment, topography, weather, wildlife, domestic animals and the people – all the people: men, women, indigenous nations, invading Europeans, mixed-race neighbors from the North and the South, Africans brought to North America in literal bondage but now constrained by social bondage, Asians deciding if they will build a nest egg and return home or remain here, and on and on – are vital to the tale of the West? And most importantly, could we also come to grips with the statement that the same could be said of any other region in the world?
In short, I am in favor of additive, vice alternative, history.
posted by john | 8:44 PM
1 Comments:
John, I absolutely loved your blog and its right-on thoughts; I couldn't have said it better myself, although I've certainly thought the same thing!
By the way, I want to tell you how much your and Dan's humorous blog repartee has brightened my day. I think you two are a big part of the class transition from MERE SUMMARY to ENGAGING INTERACTION! One of the greatest lacks in both Robbins and Women&Gender, in my opinion: a sense of humor. So serious and plodding....Life is too short!
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