RE:Dushta Sikshana ! Dharma Rakshna !!
by Jai Tiwaree on Sep 12, 2007 10:48 PM Permalink
The remit of history to include the historian's pre-narrative assumptions and how we translate those assumptions figuratively as we construct our strategies of narrative explanation. Postmodern historians thus ask many fresh questions. Are facts best thought of as events under a description? Is all data ultimately textual and, if so, what are its implications? Should history be written primarily according to literary rules and, if so, what are they? What is the significant difference between literary and figurative speech in history and how does it create historical meaning? How do we distinguish the historical referent of a discourse and its constructed, i.e., its ideological, meaning? Can history ever exist beyond discourse? And the very big question, is history what happened, or what historians tell us happened? All these have to be addressed when we do history, to ignore them is to do only half the job.
