Comments on: Some uses of fiction in teaching history.

By: Hemlock

Hemlock — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:23:42 +0000

A Bell for Adano is a great book. What about Hemingway and Steinbeck? Their work captivated me in high school. I also like E.L. Doctorow’s other stuff (Ragtime and the more recent Waterworks come to mind…Gilded Age and early twentieth century).

By: The Modesto Kid

The Modesto Kid — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:23:31 +0000

See now, if I could do trackbacks, I would attach this post of mine to this here post, if you accepted non-wordpress trackbacks. (A-and: the essay I discuss in the linked post mentions Dos Passos, a name that had not crossed my mind in a while until I read Chris’s comment this afternoon.)

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:08:43 +0000

Longtime lurker, first time commenter…

Nobody mentions Dos Passos? I read the USA books in a philosophy course touching on history. Great stuff.

By: Galvinji

Galvinji — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:18:23 +0000

Why, it’s almost as if such distinctions weren’t made in the post.

You expect an audience of professors, graduate students, and fellow travelers to read carefully? (I say this having asked the same redundant question.)

By: SEK

SEK — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:05:20 +0000

Why, it’s almost as if such distinctions weren’t made in the post.

Um, I thought I was commenting on Ari’s?

By: The Modesto Kid

The Modesto Kid — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:29:30 +0000

Is tracking back a standardized protocol? I was trying to figure out how to add trackbacks to my own (hand-rolled) blog, mainly so I could track back to other people’s blogs; but when I tried to find documentation for it everything seemed proprietary to the various blog proprietors, and like I would have to write separate code for tracking back to each one of them.

By: andrew

andrew — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:05:16 +0000

I think wordpress only tracks back to wordpress, at least in the free version.

By: eric

eric — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:01:02 +0000

Turn on the real ones, you two! I know you have them! You track your own damn selves back all the time!

The box is ticked. I don’t know why it’s not working. We’re using the abbreviated—but free!—version of WordPress; maybe that explains it.

By: eric

eric — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:58:24 +0000

this conversation leads to me insist on a conceptual distinction between 1) works written during a period (A Bell for Adano) and 2) works written about a period (The Killer Angels, American Pastoral)

Why, it’s almost as if such distinctions weren’t made in the post.

By: Galvinji

Galvinji — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:45:53 +0000

Is there a meaningful distinction between teaching works of fiction written in the period under study vs. historical novels?

I always tried to include a few works of literature on the syllabus, usually something short and fun that was designed to point out some aspect of cultural history (e.g., one of the lais of Marie de France to discuss “courtliness”). But it never occurred to me to include a historical novel on the syllabus — perhaps due to my undergraduate indoctrination as a “History and Literature” major I always assumed that, to take an undoubtedly bad example, Ivanhoe had more to say about the late 18th-early 19th century than the 12th.