Paper for grad class

Not the best thing I've ever written but not too shabby.  Enjoy.

Grow You Some Nails!

The High Violence and Low Stakes of Academic In Fighting

            The structure of this paper will first outline the argument made by all three parties, paired with immediate analysis.  For the sake of space the historiographic significance will be included at the end as a separate segment. This will hopefully allow the reader to follow the trends of history data collection, and the usage of data in the construction of narrative.

Dude Whines Like a Lady

            Finlay’s essay “The Refashioning of Martin Guerre” found in The American Historical Review is less of a rebuttal to an admittedly creative historical restructuring, as much as it is an attack on another author’s success.  However, what Finlay illustrates to the reader is that new methodology in the recovering of historical voices is a serious and worthwhile endeavour. Perhaps, not what he had intended.

            Robert Finlay lays his case almost chiefly on the assumption that there is no evidence for the inferences made by Davis in her book, The Return of Martin Guerre.[1]  What starts as an acceptably aggressive thesis soon devolves into what could be read as academic one-upmanship.  Beginning with thinly veiled backhanded compliments Finlay begins to schmooze the reader into his corner.  “Davis eschews that temptation” speaking of the modern stereotype to project misogynistic ideas onto historical figures, Finlay applauds Davis’ ability to avoid such a pitfall.[2]  “One of the strength of her book is its portrait of Jean de Coras as a thoughtful, humane scholar, fully capable of recognizing female intelligence and of looking beyond elitist and patriarchal prejudices in his pursuit of truth.”[3]  It is too bad, of course, that Finaly himself is not such a “thoughtful, humane scholar” as he would immediately have recognized the very sincere insight bolstered by intense research that Davis did to create this deconstructionist reading of the case.  Finlay goes on to demonstrate the patriarchal attitude that he allegedly dislikes.  “The four sisters of Martin Guerre were apparently displaying typically feminine calculation in siding with the pseudo-husband against his accuser.”[4] In this Finaly implies two very disconcerting ideas. First that it is appropriate to read women as conniving manipulative creatures.  Second, that making assumptions about historical figures based on inference from evidence is okay… so long as you are NOT Natalie Zemon Davis.

            Taking issue with Davis’ lack of information is only half the battle.  Finlay criticizes the use of inference Davis must rely on to tell the story adequately.  Final takes exception to what he sees as a feminist voice in Davis’ retelling of Martin Guerre.  “Davis fails to show that her view of women in peasant society is relevant to the case she is examining.  Instead, she imposes her notion of peasant women on Bertrande, whose conduct and character thereby are seen as if Bertrande had regarded the pseudo-Martin with the same calculating, self-interested eye that was supposedly characteristic of peasant women in general.”[5]  Finlay lambastes Davis’ assumption that Bertrande, the wife of Martin Guerre and eventual wife to his imposter Arnaud du Tihl, would behave like other women of her time and location.  What Finlay appears to find so infuriating is that Davis is going beyond creating a narrative, but is diving head-first into creating a character.

            Davis’ reconstruction of the story places a larger emphasis on Bertrande. While Martin retains the title, it is clear that Bertrande is the main character, and why not, the reader will spend the most amount of time with her.  According to Davis Bertrande is a complicit voice in the relationship with Arnaud, the imposter Martin, or “new Martin” as Davis will term him.[6]  However as Finlay argues, “when she considers the relationship between Bertrande and Arnaud, the linchpin of her book she is faced with a central difficulty: the historical record indicates that Bertrande was universally regarded as the impostor’s victim, not his accomplice.” [7] Davis lacks the evidence of what was going on inside Bertrande’s head. Unfortunately Bertrande failed to leave behind a diary, or even a note reading “I was in on it” but what Davis does to understand her is a little sociological footwork. Unfortunately Finlay was too lame to do his.

Sister Streetfighter

            Natalie Zemon Davis defends her book with precision seldom witnessed outside of kung fu movies in her essay “On the Lame” also found in the American Historical Journal[8].  Immediately on the offensive Davis makes short work of Finlay’s attacks citing that she “cannot blame Robert Finlay” for essentially stealing her methods and applying them to his own attack on her.  She then goes on to detail where the methodological differences between Finlay and herself lie.  “Both of us would like to know ‘what happened’ when Arnaud du Tilh arrive in the village of Artigat and stay there as Martin Guerre for three years and more.”[9]  Davis believes what happened was that there was a mixed bag of reactions with some of the towns folk and family members being fooled and some being suspicious.  Davis states directly that in Finlay’s interpretion Arnaud the actor, managed to fool every soul in town.  A marvelous feat since it included his wife of several years who was duped and remained so until seeing her real husband in court years later.

            Davis takes Finlay to task stating that he is willing to walk away from the sociological and cultural data that would imply Bertrande could possibly be a willing accomplice.  The boxing gloves go on as Davis writes, “Finlay gives short shrift to my material on Basque customs, migration, property and land sales, inheritance, women’s work, judicial practice, and the rest as ‘context’ and ‘color in historical reconstruction’”[10].  Clearly, if this man is going to complain over a lack of evidence then it would have been a stronger argument had Davis not been practically drowning in evidence.  She takes the time to comb through seemingly endless supplies of court documents, social custom accounts and memoirs left behind by the judges.  Meticulously researched and overly generous in a bibliography The Return of Martin Guerre is a prime example of creative non-fiction, enough to drive Truman Capote insane with jealousy.

            What Davis does and what will influence later historic story-tellers is to create a historical work that reads like a movie.  The books begins with “an expository style for the first part of the book that could provide the equivalent of cinematic movement, with flash-forwards rather than flashbacks.”[11]  Creating a readable and empathetic view of the true protagonist, Bertrande, not Martin or Arnaud, after all, it is called the RETURN of Martin Guerre, implying that he is absent most of the book.

            The large argument, aside from creativity and lack of evidence that Finlay lays at Davis’ feet is based on a single statement she makes in the books “the touch of the man on the woman.”  Finlay, like most people reading a statement like that would initially roll their eyes, after all, gentlemen, you are not that memorable.  Sorry, fact.  But what Finlay failed to notice were the quotation marks around the word, implying that this was not a statement that Davis had created but one that she was borrowing from another source.  Finlay credits her with this and takes it to the gutter, believing that the touch can only be read as sexual.  Davis corrects him by laying out all that a touch is.  “But the ‘touch of the man’ is a broader idea.”[12]  Davis argues that this is not just a bedroom reference, but a bodily reference.  “Let’s remember that the resemblances between Arnaud  and Martin was solely a matter of face and lineaments – not perfect, for some testified that Martin was darker than Arnaud and had a pug nose, but good.”[13]  Davis is setting up for the knockdown punch of inference and evidence in her final statement that her heroine would identify an imposter easily “when Bertrande finally found herself in the embrace of Arnaud du Tilh, she was feeling a body quite unlike the one she had lain next to and held for nine or ten years, unclothed as well as clothed (early woodcuts of couples in the marriage bed shot them with nightcaps but naked).”[14]

            Davis’ use of creative re-reading, and unbounded research makes a strong case for the probability of Bertrande’s complicity in the reconstruction of Martin Guerre.  Taking research from the surrounding area to create a sociological reading of the mentality of peasant women in the Basque region Davis creates a plausible interpretation of the events. More than a feminist modern reading of events, as Finlay alleges, Davis constructs a historic character motivated and acting in her own agency. It is creative and interpretative, but it is equally plausible and competent.  Thanks to Davis women have a historic character to represent them as normal humans. Not queens or warriors or nuns.  But as normal everyday figures that occupy homes, and villages and fields. People who work and live and die, just like men. These are the historical figures that, through lack of voice, haunt the countryside looking for outlets.

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

            Haunted history is the very detail that Ethan Kleinberg seeks to establish in his essay “Haunting History: Deconstruction and the Spirit of Revision” appear in History and Theory.  Kleinberg initially takes the high road of the argument, trying to avoid the stray bullets.  He identifies that the real danger in these essays is the use of deconstruction, which seeks to question any ability to truly record and understand history.  “The deconstruction strategy is to approach a text (historical or otherwise) as a site of contestation and struggle, though one that is hidden because one element in the text asserts itself as the source of order by establishing a hierarchy of meaning.”[15]  Kleinberg notes the danger in doubting everything.  Deconstruction allows a contemporary historian to take a text, such as the legal documents surrounding the imposter Arnaud du Tihl, and to take the central focus off of the wronged party, Martin Guerre, and refocus the interest on an overlooked character, Bertrande.  At first glance this is not necessarily dangerous, however when put into the large frame of historical knowledge, it opens the door to questioning knowledge in general.  To approach a text as a site of contestation is to immediately look to pull it apart, to question what is valued, and what should be re-established in the “hierarchy”.

            But the hierarchy is established by the author, not the data.  As Kleinberg writes, “the reconstruction of a historical event requires imagination in constructing a compelling argument and narrative.  Deconstruction exposes the ordering of the events or argument, laying bare the authorial choices at work in it.”[16]  Davis made authorial choices in her recreation of the story, and created a new hierarchy of importance in the story. Martin Guerre, the abandoning husband, Arnaud du Tihl, the opportunistic stand-in, are replaced by Bertrande, the thoughtful willful wife.  But what Kleinberg fails to understand is that Davis was aware of her creative choices.  “Both Davis and Finlay seemed to agree that being overly ‘literary’ or imaginative was a bad thing for historians.”[17]  It is easy to see that Davis would disagree, depending on the level of overly.  Davis would agree that complete fabrication is inappropriate, however she does assert that it is necessary in many cases that imagination is mandatory in restoring voices to those whom history has silenced.

            Of the three essays, it is Kleinberg’s that really drives home the danger of deconstructing history, making the ghost real.  While Finlay and Davis argue over the fine points of her story, they do not really delve into the inherent danger in making history, and knowledge, meta.  But Kleinberg asserts that while the “ghost story is fully formed” it is an exorcizable demon.[18]

An American Ghost Story

            In collection of essays[19], Kathleen MacDonald, brought the attention of the historic narrative world to the very real problem that the Hollywood film industry is causing.  History, as a misrepresentation is nothing new. No one complained when Gerald O’Hara assumed that since Lee had surrendered Georgia would too, even though he was wrong. No one was really terribly offended when Hitler died in an explosion in a movie theater. But McDonald argues that while they may not be offended something very dangerous is happening.  That the American Film Industry may, in the future, be a source of data, which is a amazing as it is barely a source of entertainment currently.  Movies like Inglorious Basterds and National Treasure are fun, and anyone caught taking those films seriously is schooled quickly by his or her friends. However some films prove the danger in application of Davis’ method. For example, films like The Hurricane vindicate a man tried and convicted of murder twice while vilifying and grossly generalizing the population that put him in prison.

            The good of Davis’ method is apparent in the creation of new narrations.  Books that focus on widely misunderstood commonalities like Outliers, or Freakanomics would never have found a voice were it not for Davis’ technique of finding data then creating a narrative from it.  Both books deal in statistical data that addresses norms and anomalies about the human existence, both with highly provocative creative narratives. However, within the books lay the danger of Davis’ method of seek-and-ye-shall-find.  Steven Levitt, economist, and Steven Dubner, New York Times writer, both were heavily criticized for their work, specifically the theory that Roe v. Wade brought down the crime rates[20].  This theory implies that the children who were aborted post the Roe v. Wade decision had potentially crime shaping lives ahead of them[21].  These unborn children failed to live up to the promise of becoming America’s violent youth and therefore America was saved the impending doom that the Regan administration and Chuck Norris movies promised.  Obviously, this theory has several problems, children of broken homes, or impoverished families do not necessarily commit crime, and this theory is quite obviously racist. Both Stevens stick to their guns claiming the numbers back up their beliefs, however it is arguable that this book could fuel a dangerous fire if the idea fell into the wrong mind.

            Creating narrative and probabilities is never a bad idea. It helps bridge the gap of time, allowing a modern day reader to empathize with a historic actor. This can also work to the highly valuable end of creating empathy between historically divided cultures. Muslims, Christians and Jews do share a common ancestry, and perhaps creating a narrative allowing members of these groups to better understand that shared history could create modern day empathy, or at least open a dialogue.  The danger is in the direction of probabilities and the reader.

            First, Americans have never been good with probabilities[22].  Americans are binary people at heart, and that’s a valuable attitude in tough times. But it is a dangerous attitude in times of change.  However, walking away from a philosophical argument and into a more concrete argument I would like to point out that the direction of empathetic narration is a very dangerous field.  Davis chose to enlighten her reader on the mindset of a small group of people living in a specific and narrow corner of the world. Unfortunately, so did Thomas Dixon.  To compare Davis to Dixon is unfair. However Davis admitted to writing an imaginative history, which I am certain Dixon would admit to as well.

            Creative neo-narrations of historical fact are an essential point to the creation of the historic record. If not for people like Greenblatt and Davis and even Hurston history would be a bland recollection of white men killing other white men while owning women and non-white men.  Davis works to re-enfranchise a group that history has disenfranchised, women of peasant clases.  This is all well and good, however what about groups that have been disenfranchised for good reason? What about the Ku Klux Klan, or Neo-Nazi, or for that matter, Nazis in general? Shouldn’t they have a say in the historic record? Do they not have a folklore that gives value to their action and inspires empathy to their cause?  NO, OF COURSE THEY DON’T! However it is the crazies that historian must worry about.  Faurisson’s anti-semitism came to a beautifully crazy head in his letters to Le Monde where he revealed his findings that the gas chambers of the concentration camps were merely an imaginative creations.  While Faurisson uses the very clever Bill O’Reilly techinique of merely asking questions, like were Anne Frank and Elie Weisel liars, it is not him that historians must worry about. Robert Faurisson is a nut case. He is a well-educated, well-spoken, well-dressed nut case. He can put on a suit, and get a doctorate, but people, people with good sense, will ultimately walk away the minute he starts on a bat-shit crazy rant. It is Noam Chomsky that historians must worry about.  Chomsky, famously defended, not Faurisson’s findings, but his freedom to speech, signing a petition that read, “We strongly protest these efforts to deprive Professor Faurisson of his freedom of speech and expression, and we condemn the shameful campaign to silence him. We strongly support Professor Faurisson's just right of academic freedom and we demand that university and government officials do everything possible to ensure his safety and the free exercise of his legal rights.”[23]  While Chomsky, channeling Voltaire, does make a compelling point that freedom of speech must be use to protect the speech that we abhor, it is wrong to assume that it should be extended to the speech that will get people killed.  Robert Faurisson[24] and academic freedom aside, at some point it will fall on history’s shoulders to set the record straight… and in stone.

This paper is the property of historypapersonline.blogger.com  http://historypapersonlineforfree.blogspot.com/
Bibliography

            Davis Natalie Zemon, "On the Lame," American Historical Review, 93, no. 3 (1988): 572-603, JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web.  12 Jan. 2013. P578.

            Davis, Natalie Zemon.  The Return of Martin Guerre.  Cambridge.  Harvard University Press.  1985.

            DiNardo, John. "Freakonomics: Scholarship in the Service of Storytelling". American Law and Economics Review (Oxford Journals) 8 (3): 615–626.

            Finlay, Robert. "The Refashioning of Martin Guerre." The American Historical Review Jun. 93.3 (1988): 553-71. JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web. 12 Jan. 2013.

            Kleinberg Ethan, "Haunting History: Deconstruction and the Spirit of Revision," History and Theory, 46, no. 4 (2007): 113-143, JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web.  12 Jan. 2013.. P116.

            McDonald Kathleen, The Americanization of History: Conflation of Time and Culture in Film and Television, (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publication, 2011).

            Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. William Morrow/HarperCollins. 2005.

            Vidal-Naquet, Peirre (1992). "On Faurisson and Chomsky, Assassins of Memory, Columbia University Press.

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[1] Finlay, Robert. "The Refashioning of Martin Guerre." The American Historical Review Jun. 93.3 (1988): 553-71. JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web. 12 Jan. 2013.

[2] Finlay, Robert. "The Refashioning of Martin Guerre." The American Historical Review Jun. 93.3 (1988): 553-71. JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web. 12 Jan. 2013.

[3] Finlay, Robert. "The Refashioning of Martin Guerre." The American Historical Review Jun. 93.3 (1988): 553-71. JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web. 12 Jan. 2013.

[4] Finlay, Robert. "The Refashioning of Martin Guerre." The American Historical Review Jun. 93.3 (1988): 553-71. JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web. 12 Jan. 2013.

[5] Finlay, Robert. "The Refashioning of Martin Guerre." The American Historical Review Jun. 93.3 (1988): 553-71. JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web. 12 Jan. 2013. P557

[6] Davis, Natalie Zemon.  The Return of Martin Guerre.  Cambridge.  Harvard University Press.  1985.

[7] Finlay, Robert. "The Refashioning of Martin Guerre." The American Historical Review Jun. 93.3 (1988): 553-71. JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web. 12 Jan. 2013. P557

[8] Davis Natalie Zemon, "On the Lame," American Historical Review, 93, no. 3 (1988): 572-603, JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web.  12 Jan. 2013.

[9] Davis Natalie Zemon, "On the Lame," American Historical Review, 93, no. 3 (1988): 572-603, JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web.  12 Jan. 2013.  P573

[10] Davis Natalie Zemon, "On the Lame," American Historical Review, 93, no. 3 (1988): 572-603, JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web.  12 Jan. 2013. P573.

[11] Davis Natalie Zemon, "On the Lame," American Historical Review, 93, no. 3 (1988): 572-603, JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web.  12 Jan. 2013. P575

[12] Davis Natalie Zemon, "On the Lame," American Historical Review, 93, no. 3 (1988): 572-603, JSTOR. ITHAKA. Web.  12 Jan. 2013. P578.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Kleinberg Ethan, "Haunting History: Deconstruction and the Spirit of Revision," History and Theory, 46, no. 4 (2007): 113-143, www.jstor.org/stable/4502287 (accessed March 30, 2013). P114

[16] Kleinberg Ethan, "Haunting History: Deconstruction and the Spirit of Revision," History and Theory, 46, no. 4 (2007): 113-143, www.jstor.org/stable/4502287 (accessed March 30, 2013). P116.

[17] Kleinberg Ethan, "Haunting History: Deconstruction and the Spirit of Revision," History and Theory, 46, no. 4 (2007): 113-143, www.jstor.org/stable/4502287 (accessed March 30, 2013). P117.

[18] Kleinberg Ethan, "Haunting History: Deconstruction and the Spirit of Revision," History and Theory, 46, no. 4 (2007): 113-143, www.jstor.org/stable/4502287 (accessed March 30, 2013). P.134.

[19] McDonald Kathleen, The Americanization of History: Conflation of Time and Culture in Film and Television, (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publication, 2011).

[20] DiNardo, John. "Freakonomics: Scholarship in the Service of Storytelling". American Law and Economics Review (Oxford Journals) 8 (3): 615–626.

[21] Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. William Morrow/HarperCollins. 2005.

[22] All of American history is my proof.

[23] Vidal-Naquet, Peirre (1992). "On Faurisson and Chomsky, Assassins of Memory, Columbia University Press.

[24] Letters in Le Monde and his “findings”.