Comments on: OAH wrap-up, part I: Borderlands, Oysters, Strangers, and–who invited Norovirus?

By: OAH wrap-up, Part II: Gender and Sexuality in Early American History : Historiann : History and sexual politics, 1492 to the present

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:03:09 +0000

[...] the Organization of American Historians’ annual meeting in Seattle. (In case you missed it, Part I of my wrap-up is here.) As I was pulling myself together for my 8:30 a.m. session, I ran into Tenured Radical, who [...]

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:00:58 +0000

gotcha! mais oui.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:27:19 +0000

Please, Indyanna–let’s say nothing about republicanism itself!

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:10:52 +0000

It seems that high-concepts in historical work are kind of like time-release capsules. They metabolize fairly quickly in their specific contexts and then the patent runs out and they go generic. Anybody can use them for anything. I’m not sure that White’s retrospective caveat is all that unusual. I think, for example, of how Linda Kerber’s republican motherhood got carried all over creation. To say nothing of republicanism itself.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:43:01 +0000

GayProf, Bolton was mentioned–Turner wasn’t. Turner was my addition to the mix, although the work Jane Merritt cited all referenced Turner in terms of the evolution from his concept of a “frontier” to a contemporary North American borderlands approach.

I think the pre-1848 stuff is where borderlands-as-buzzword is taking off. Post-1848 and especially modern U.S.-Mexican borderlands is really a different animal, I think, because it is so focused on that border and not on the U.S.-Canadian border. Whereas pre-1848 Northern borderlands people like me are trying to make that connection to S/SW borderlands scholarship. (At least, it seems like most of us read the S/SW stuff, but I’m not at all convinced that the S/SW people read northern/NE borderlands books and articles at all.)

By: GayProf

GayProf — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:13:33 +0000

We in Chicano/a studies have been suspicious of the relatively recent interest in “borderlands.” Indeed, it’s interesting that a panel on “borderlands” would start with Turner rather than Herbert Eugene Bolton, the guy often credit with inventing “borderlands” studies. And I’m sure nobody even bothered to mention Américo Paredes.

You’re right about buzz words and trends. They live for a bit and then burn out.

But, then, I think of myself as doing a “borderlands” topic.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:00:30 +0000

dance–to be clear, no one on the Robert Love panel talked about Atlantic World history. Salinger’s and Dayton’s work is firmly within an Anglo-American colonial urban history context, despite the title of the panel. I agree with you, BTW, about AW and borderlands being more useful than “middle ground” turned out to be. (Richard White was himself rather amazed by how so many people picked up that term and ran with it, when he was clearly writing about a specific time and place and not proposing it as a model for Euro-Indian relations in North America generally.)

Andrew Mc–HA! But, I think Pacific World/Pacific Rim studies are hot now, aren’t they?

By: AndrewMc

AndrewMc — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:29:19 +0000

I realized that “Atlantic World” had lost all meaning when I spoke to someone who claimed to be an Atlanticist. Subject of hir book? The Phillipines.

By: dance

dance — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:58:08 +0000

I was going to defend both borderlands and Atlantic world as useful—but then the Robert Love bullet seemed to exemplify exactly how Atlantic has lost any explanatory power. But I think they both still offer lots for people who are actually *doing* borderlands or Atlantic work, rather than just leaping on a trendy title. I feel like both borderlands and Atlantic have already proven stronger than “middle ground” (as has Mediterrean), but that may just be my perspective. They are also both very good teaching units, I think—bigger than national histories but much more coherent than world.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:28:58 +0000

Thanks for the sympathy, Susan. Others we both know were afflicted, too!

As for the buzzword du jour: as with “middle ground” and “Atlantic World,” there will be an initial flurry of interest, but the field will coalesce around a key historiography that really is integrated and speaking to each other. And the flurriers will scurry after the new next thing!