Nor do I think that Dimitri has developed a perspective on what public history should do, and at times it appears he’s abandoned narrative altogether in favor of some sort of hypercard exercise where he holds the answer key to the correct path.

The problem, as I see it, is that Dimitri’s own approach leaves him to appear like a smug crank, and that detracts from his message. Sometimes I think we take him more seriously than he does himself. Maybe we should take a pass on deconstructing Dimitri.

Thanks for clarifying. I’ve been dealing with so many comments of late that I probably ran roughshod over yours. Sorry about that.

Certainly Dimitri’s approach has been to merely “suggest” a larger position without fleshing it out, which allows him to dispense with established historians in a flurry of sarcastic potshots — whereas you approach your area of interest with actual research and writing, and through open engagement with other historians. I don’t think anyone fails to make that distinction.

I guess if Dimitri allowed comments I would be able to share my thoughts directly on his blog. By not allowing comments he is able to remain concealed. I disagree that the memory project to which I am focused on is somehow fleeting or carries as much legitimacy as Dimitri’s negative stance. I’ve managed to do some scholarly research on one aspect of the Lost Cause while he has done nothing. Thanks for the comment.

I appreciate the fact that Dimitri never takes the bait, and never returns fire. He does his thing, and you do yours.

dw

The Blight piece seemed a little too sharp for my tastes, because it really did sound like their was a reeducation project in the offing, in which incorrect thinking would be replaced with correct thinking. I think we’ll find the 150th anniversary of the war about as disappointing as we are finding the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth to be.

Thanks for the comment. First, I think we agree that one can find historians of memory who fail to apply the same critical standards applied to earlier schools of thought to their own interpretation. As I see it, however, this is no different than any other area within the discipline. It may be more pronounced in memory studies given the implicit moral assumptions that come attached to certain critiques, especially when centered on race. I like your idea of the “impermanence of historical interpretation.”

I’ve heard more than once that memory studies are fast approaching the point of diminishing returns, but have yet to see it. Let’s hope we can maintain it until I finish this damn Crater manuscript. I also agree that the most interesting aspect of this branch of study is its connection to ongoing public debates and it will no doubt continue to fuel scholarly interest. I suspect that my interest in blogging has much to do with the fact that it allows me to bridge the divide between more scholarly reading concerning memory and an interest in the shape of related public debates.

Your question re: Blight’s work is difficult to answer. His Race and Reunion was one of the first books I picked up on the subject, so from that perspective it seemed very fresh. Of course, now that I’ve read quite a bit more I can see how certain narrative threads and themes have evolved over time. Perhaps a word on why I am interested in historical memory. As a graduate student in philosophy I was and am still very interested in how individuals construct self-narratives. Much of that self-narrative has a historical component, which we interpret and inevitably reinterpret. At one point I started to look into how groups formed and maintained memory, which led me to the work of David Thelen, Michale Kammen, Maurice Holbwachs and others. The conceptual analysis was quite interesting, but I soon found that I was even more interested in actual examples of how groups/nations form and maintain memory. What I mean to share is that my interest in this stuff has much more to do with an interest in what I would call applied philosophy than anything having to do with whether a particular study fits into the historiography. In that sense these books continue to bear a great deal of fruit for me. I hope that helps.

I see the “memory project,” as you call it, going the same way of the “New England colonial town” project of the late 1960s-early 1970s. That is, we are rapidly approaching the point of diminishing returns in terms of scholarly findings. What will keep it alive is its interface with continuing public understandings of the war, as well as some of the scarecely-concealed agendas behind certain popular understandings.

Rather than focus on Dimitri’s shortcomings or caustic remarks (too easy a target, Id say) or his failure to construct a definition of the “centennialist” interpretation (or to realize that his own comments about the “lost cause” could be turned with equal justice on his personal hobbyhorse), let’s uncover what the “memory project” is really about: an engagement with the public’s understandings of history. Let’s understand that in the process one of the problematic issues in the “memory project” is that it implicitly fails to apply its own tools to its own interpretations of history … that the “memory project” suits certain people’s present agendas even as it exposes the agendas of past participants. How different is it from other schools of historiography in its efforts to correct previous misunderstandings with a new and improved version of the past that will stand for the foreseeable future? If the practice of history teaches me anything, it is the impermanence of historical interpretation.

Thanks for the comment. I guess my difficulty here is with the way you lay out the memory project. No doubt, there are scholars who believe that the deconstruction of previous schools of thought is a step in the process of historical understanding. Personally, I hate the metaphor of “approaching dispassionate objectivity” as I don’t believe we are approaching anything. For that matter I also have little patience for the idea that we “mirror the objective world” – an idea that is foundational in much of modern analytical philosophy. I also agree that there are those who use labels such as “Lost Cause” to dismiss w/o any attempt at serious analysis.

You seem to have more of an idea of what Dimitri is up to here. The problem with D’s analysis of historians like Gallagher, Blight and others who focus on this topic is that he rarely shows that he has read the relevant studies. Take for instance, his commentary about Blight. Yes, he read his short piece on the conference, but has he ever read anything by Blight? I have no idea. The only thing that I am sure of is that Dimitri has read and reread a great deal of James McPherson’s writings on the Lincoln-McClellan relationship. Some of that is really sharp analysis on D’s part.

One of the ways to avoid structuring one’s own narrative is to spend one’s time deconstructing previous narratives.

After all, many memory practitioners use “Lost Cause” loosely as a way to dismiss a good deal of work with a sweep of the hand, the very way Dimitri uses “centennialist.” I wonder what folks twenty or thirty years down the road will say about an approach that is becoming increasingly formulaic. Sure, Dimitri should develop exactly what he means by “centennialist,” but, once he does, tell me how that differs from “lost cause,” not in substance, but in approach.

I’ll now prepare for the incoming fire that’s sure to follow.

I actually agree with you that Dimitri should write up a historiographical piece on McClellan that begins with the so-called “centennialists” and works up to the present. He clearly has read much of the relevant literature and I would be very interested in his analysis. Taking his analysis beyond the blogging format would force him to minimize the “smart-ass comments.”

Brief smart-ass comments and labels only understood (apparently) by a select few are no substitute for critique.

If Mr Rotov has a critique of “Centennialist history”, or a cogent defence of George McCelllan, he should write a paper and get it published, or put it on his blog (in digestible segments). Quite often he seems to be speaking a language understood only by himself.