History and Story: Unconventional History in Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient and James A. Michener's Tales of the South Pacific

"Literary history" is a cross between conventional (scientific) history and pure fiction. The resulting hybrid provides access to history that the more conventional sort does not (in particular, a sense of the experiences of the historical actors, and the human meaning of historical events). This claim is demonstrated by an analysis of two novels about World War II, The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, and Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener. These two very different novels in English are by writers themselves very different from each other, writers from different times, different social and political backgrounds, and different points of view. Their novels examine the effects of the Second World War and the events of 1942 on the human psyche, and suggest how human beings have always searched for the silver lining despite the devastation and devaluation of values. Both novels resist any kind of preaching, and yet the search for peace, balance, and kindness is constantly highlighted. The facts of scientific history are woven into the loom of their unconventional histories. The sense of infirmity created by the formal barriers of traditional history is eased, and new possibilities for historical understanding are unveiled.     

Translating the Self: Language and Identity in Iranian-American Women's Memoirs

In recent years, a number of Iranian American women have written and published memoirs of a return to Iran. One motif that these memoirs share is their concern with language as a key element of cultural identity. The article examines these memoirs as negotiations of identity through language. Relying on Joshua Fishman's anthropological definition of language and ethnicity as being, doing, and knowing, and on Taghi Modarressi's notion of “accented writing,” this article examines these writers in terms of their relationship to Persian as a key component of the self. As these memoirists narrate their journeys between Iran and the United States, they perform a translation of self across the boundaries of language. Some narrate an “accented identity” that celebrates hybridity; others acknowledge their assimilation into American society and into the English language. All attempt to reclaim Persian as an artifact, if not a medium of cultural belonging.     

Court Historiography of the Seljuq Empire in Iran and Iraq: Reflections on Content,Authorship and Language

This paper reexamines the Arabic and Persian historical literature of the Seljuq period (1040–1194), concentrating on works produced in circles connected with the sultanic court. It considers the relationship between the Arabic and Persian works, the authors' motives for composition, and the reasons for choice of language. It also compares these works with their predecessors, especially the historiography of the Ghaznavid court, with a view to assessing the particular characteristics of Seljuq historical writing, which is often considered rather slight and unimpressive. One reason that is often adduced for this is the absence of dynastic history writing under the Seljuqs, and the alleged lack of interest of the Seljuq court in patronizing historiography, themes which we also investigate here.     

贵州史学界的大家——论王燕玉的史学贡献

贵州沙滩文化的最后传人王燕玉：不固成说,挑战权威,开贵州古史专题研究之先河,对贵州地方历史和文化的研究作出了巨大贡献,成绩斐然。但贵州史学界对王先生的观点及研究成果一直未给予应有的重视,使得生长于贵州这块土地上的我们自己的史学大家几近湮没。     

论史学理论与史学史之间的关系

史学理论与史学史在学科结构中属于同一个二级专业,这其中反映了二者具有紧密的内在联系。探索史学理论与史学史的关系,首先应当跨过一个理念的门坎,即区分“历史理论”与“史学理论”。确认史学理论是对历史学的概括和总结,而不是研究客观的社会历史。厘清这种概念上的区别与联系,大有利于史学理论与历史理论的研究。如20世纪80年代中历史认识论研究的兴起,即得益于此。这里,需要防止像西方某些史学流派那样割断史学理论与历史理论的关系,批判那种取消历史理论研究的说法。在当今,史学史研究的可靠成果,应是史学理论研究的基础。揭示史学发展的规律,是史学史学科与史学理论研究共同的任务,将二者结合在一起的探索,大有学术开拓、理论创新的广阔前景。     

新中国史学的初建:郭沫若与中国马克思主义史学主导地位的确立

郭沫若对新中国成立后中国马克思主义史学主导地位的确立及走向与发展具有重要影响。他在1949年后任中国新史学研究会筹备会和中国史学会主席,提出史学发展六个方面的转向,规划了中国史学的发展前景。他创办并主持的《历史研究》杂志提倡历史研究应史料与理论并重。郭沫若礼待陈寅恪,邀请其出任《历史研究》杂志编委和中国科学院社会科学学部委员。郭沫若重启中国古史分期问题的讨论,引发了研究一系列重要历史理论问题的热潮。在郭沫若和其他马克思主义史学家的努力下,新中国史学初步形成了发展规模。     

Comparative Historiography: Problems and Perspectives

Just like history, historiography is usually written and analyzed within one spatio-temporal setting, traditionally that of a particular nation-state. As a consequence, historiography tends to localize explanations for historiographical developments within national contexts and to neglect international dimensions. As long as that is the case, it is impossible to assess the general and specific aspects of historiographical case studies. This forum, therefore, represents a sustained argument for comparative approaches to historiography. First, my introduction takes a recent study in Canadian historiography as a point of departure in order to illustrate the problems of non-comparative historiography. These problems point to strong arguments in favor of comparative approaches. Second, I place comparative historiography as a genre in relation to a typology that orders theories of historiography on a continuum ranging from general and philosophical to particular and empirical. Third, I put recent debates on the “fragmentation” of historiography in a comparative perspective. Worries among historians about this fragmentation—usually associated with the fragmentation of the nation and the advent of multiculturalism and/or postmodernism—are legitimate when they concern the epistemological foundations of history as a discipline. As soon as the “fragmentation” of historiography leads to—and is legitimated by—epistemological skepticism, a healthy pluralism has given way to an unhealthy relativism. As comparison puts relativism in perspective by revealing its socio-historical foundations, at the same time it creates its rational antidote. Fourth, I summarize the contributions to this forum; all deal—directly or indirectly—with the historiography of the Second World War. Jürgen Kocka's “Asymmetrical Historical Comparison: The Case of the German Sonderweg” examines the so-called “special path” of Germany's history. Daniel Levy's “The Future of the Past: Historiographical Disputes and Competing Memories in Germany and Israel” offers a comparative analysis of recent historiographical debates in Germany and Israel. Sebastian Conrad's “What Time is Japan? Problems of Comparative (Intercultural) Historiography” analyzes the conceptual linkage between Japanese historiography and specific interpretations of European history. Richard Bosworth's “Explaining ‘Auschwitz’ after the End of History: The Case of Italy” charts in a comparative perspective the changes since 1989 in Italian historiography concerning fascism. All four articles support the conclusion that next to the method of historical comparison is the politics of comparison, which is hidden in the choice of the parameters. Analyses of both method and politics are essential for an understanding of (comparative) historiography.     

20世纪西方史学对兰克史学的批判与继承

兰克史学是19世纪西方史学的代表,被长期尊奉为西方史学的“样板”。20世纪以来,西方史学经历重大变迁,兰克史学的支配地位不复存在。在西方史学转型过程中,兰克史学既是当代西方史学学术批判的对象,也是学术继承的对象。文章系统考察了当代西方史学与兰克史学的批判与继承关系,认为兰克史学的一些合理思想和方法已融入当代西方史学,20世纪西方史学的变迁不是简单地否定传统,而是在突破传统中继承传统。     

Historiography and historians of neuroscience: towards diversity in the ISHN

This article introduces and critiques the historiographical tradition of the history of the neurosciences as it has been established in the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences (ISHN). The founding members of the ISHN were practitioner-historians, practitioners of the neurosciences with an interest in the great moments, ideas and controversies in the history of their field. The historiographical precedent set by these clinician-historians emphasized those aspects of history most interesting to them. Academic historians bring a different approach to the history of neurosciences, particularly an interest in studying the intellectual and cultural contexts of both the inherited and the forgotten ideas about the nervous system. Their approach to history has not been well presented in the ISHN, in part because the current historiographical tradition does not address their interests. This article highlights the methodological and epistemological differences between academic and practitioner-historians and discusses the difficulties that other historical societies have faced in trying to bring them together. The article then suggests ideas for symposia that might facilitate an interdisciplinary dialogue and a revised historiographical tradition that speaks to the needs of both academic and historians and practitioner historians.     

The Un-European Idea: Vichy and Eurafrica in the Historiography of Europeanism

Imperialist and collaborationist conceptions of Europeanisms have generally been excluded from mainstream historiography with reference to their alleged un-Europeanness. However, by discussing the ideas and writings of two French Europeanists—Louis Le Fur’s and René Viard’s—in the years 1940–41, I argue that it is precisely their Vichyite and imperialist conceptions of Europeanness that underpin their political ideas of a united Europe. Their works therefore call into question a prevailing historiographical narrative of Europeanism as a benign counterpoint to a dark European past. Since, as demonstrated in this article, French Europeanist visions have often been bound up with both collaborationist and imperialist interests, I argue for the need to develop a more inclusive and critical historiographical perspective on the history of Europeanism.     

Shades of Orientalism: Paradoxes and Problems in Indian Historiography

In Orientalism, Edward Said attempts to show that all European discourse about the Orient is the same, and all European scholars of the Orient complicit in the aims of European imperialism. There may be “manifest” differences in discourse, but the underlying “latent” orientalism is “more or less constant.” This does not do justice to the marked differences in approach, attitude, presentation, and conclusions found in the works of various orientalists. I distinguish six different styles of colonial and postcolonial discourse about India (heuristic categories, not essential types), and note the existence of numerous precolonial discourses. I then examine the multiple ways exponents of these styles interact with one another by focusing on the early‐twentieth‐century nationalist orientalist, Sri Aurobindo. Aurobindo's thought took form in a colonial framework and has been used in various ways by postcolonial writers. An anti‐British nationalist, he was by no means complicit in British imperialism. Neither can it be said, as some Saidians do, that the nationalist style of orientalism was just an imitative indigenous reversal of European discourse, using terms like “Hinduism” that had been invented by Europeans. Five problems that Aurobindo dealt with are still of interest to historians: the significance of the Vedas, the date of the vedic texts, the Aryan invasion theory, the Aryan‐Dravidian distinction, and the idea that spirituality is the essence of India. His views on these topics have been criticized by Leftist and Saidian orientalists, and appropriated by reactionary “Hindutva” writers. Such critics concentrate on that portion of Aurobindo's work which stands in opposition to or supports their own views. A more balanced approach to the nationalist orientalism of Aurobindo and others would take account of their religious and political assumptions, but view their project as an attempt to create an alternative language of discourse. Although in need of criticism in the light of modern scholarship, their work offers a way to recognize cultural particularity while keeping the channels of intercultural dialogue open.     

历史学的课题：可能之事

在实际的历史写作中,部分历史学家运用反事实的方法,探究历史上的可能之事。无独有偶,海德格尔的主张也与此相似,他认为历史学的主要课题不是特殊的个体事件,也不是超乎个体事件的普遍规律,而是曾在的生存可能性。这两种观点不是为了探究历史上不曾发生过的事态,而是借此重新规定历史学的题材、性质和写作方式。但是,反事实研究所谓的可能性主要是指现成事物的偶或可能性,而海德格尔所谓的生存论上的可能性则是指此在的某种生存方式,两种可能性有着根本区别。     

新史学:历史学者的永恒追求 --并以此纪念《史学月刊》创刊300期

作为史学发展进程中一种带有规律性的史学现象的新史学,是历史学发展的内在要求和历史学者的永恒追求。史学史表明,历史学的发展历程,在本质上就是一个一代一代的历史学者在传承既有史学文化遗产的基础上追求新史学的永无止境的过程。历史学者对新史学的追求,是历史学者史家主体意识的鲜明而集中的体现。历史学者所追求的新史学,虽有明确的方向性,但一般只是一个模糊的轮廓。正是通过、并且正是在历史学者对新史学孜孜不倦的永恒追求中,史学不断实现着对自身的超越。     

浅论史学活动中的价值判断

在历史研究与教学中,我们常常要回答,某个事件的历史意义是什么?当我们对这些问题做出回答时,事实上正在做出一种价值判断。但是,我们往往并没有反思自己做出价值判断所处的立场,思考其中是否遵循着什么原则;如果这些原则存在并且发生了改变,     

历史学与国情教育

今天的中国是历史中国的发展,要想认识今天的中国,首先得认识历史的中国。所以,国情教育在很大程度上就是要对国民进行本国历史的教育,其内容广博而丰富,作用巨大。这里主要阐述了环境、历史文化传统、民族精神、伦理道德、历史规律等几方面的教育功能。     

从宋代义理化史学到清代实证性史学的转变

在中国古代史学发展史上,如果从史学思想的角度考察问题,就会发现我国传统史学经历了从宋代义理化史学到清代实证性史学转变的过程。这两种史学思潮在史学本体论、史学认识论和史学方法论各方面都显示出截然不同的特征。揭示由宋代义理化史学到清代实证性史学转变的内涵及其意义,有助于阐明中国传统史学发展中某些内在规律。可以进一步深化史学史的研究。