Champion+What+are+Historians+for?

Read the article by Champion and respond to it using the 5 key questions.

=Somebody please submit something, Im starting to panic and that creates a whole new set of issues. If you have been writing something and thought it should have gone through let me know immediately please.=

Champion is very good as he takes a fairly strong post-modernist view, is writing fairly recently and this is what the examiners are after your ability to access some recent material. Champion also talks at length about the roles and responsibilities of historians and how the current academic climate tends to restrict the ability of historians to take part and be influential in piblic debate. He draws a clear comparison of the public debates in Australia and England. He also raises issues about the impact and importance of technology in the historians ability to get their message out there as well as the limitations and problems that making History with the 'new' technologies can create.

Also raises some really interesting points about the nature of truth and the historians involvement with it. He also has a fairly clear view about what is good and what is bad history and discusses the impact that society can have on the production of history.

In my view Champion seems to be arguing that historians need to take moral stands and stand up for what they believe is right as opposed to the idea of just doing the academic thing correctly and maintaining a degree of political correctness.


 * Response to Champion - Harriet - didn't know whether to create a new page or not so I just stuck it on here.**

Champion explores various key historical questions in his article "What are historian for?" The main debate he addresses is related to the aims and purposes of history and how he believes these have become misguided over time, excluding the public.

He believes history should be "ethical" rather than "empirical" and that it should "connect the past to the public" as a means of "educating the nation to an engaged and dynamic citizenship".He refers to the classic muse Clio who only recorded "the actions of the brave and virtuous heroes to provide models of emulation and admiration". While it may seem that this classic approach is very narrow because it is only representing the good figures in history, Champion purports that modern historians have gone too far the other way as 'worries about whether we are capable of telling the objective truth about the past - have meant that we have retreated into the increasingly dark corners of the academic community". In this way he thinks that history has begun to be a separate and exclusive practise as "professionalzation of the discipline" has meant that public connection and education is usurped by "footnote governed pedant". He does applaud some improvements as history begins to be conveyed through new technology (including radio and television - the BBC) and transforms to have a "present centred" focus in schools thus making it accessible and relevant to the next generation. In this way, Champion is trying to encourage a nurturing of history's educational role.

He emphasises that historians cannot achieve truth because "the history we produce...is indissolubly mixed up with our personal identities". In this way suggestomg that although the preservation of historical truth is important, it is more vital that history is disseminated to the public and that the pursuit of "pure knowledge" does not impede the opportunity for wider and more vibrant educational dialogue. Champion highlights Novick's claim that the stories of historians are only representations "they make no greater (but also no lesser) truth claims than poets of painters" because as Nietzche said "history stands in the service, not of pure knowledge but of life".

__Nice job Harriet now I want you to think how this article impacts on your developing philosophy of History. What do you believe history is and how does this article support, challenge or impact on your beliefs.__