Perhaps the death-thread among these books is coincidence. Or perhaps it’s the logical happenstance of a historian’s life, especially of a historian like myself who studies medical history and the effects of infectious diseases (I have, of course, already gone “on the record” about my own preoccupation with death, religion, and writing). However, I suspect that Atwood might not see this is merely coincidence.  She writes:

Why should it be writing, over and beyond any other art or medium, that should be linked so closely with anxiety about one’s own personal extinction?

Surely that’s partly because of the nature of writing–its apparent permanence, and the fact that it survives its own performance–unlike, for instance, a dance recital.  If the act of writing charts the process of thought, it’s a process that leaves a trail, like a series of fossilized footprints.  Other art forms can last and last–painting, sculpture, music–but they do not survive as voice. ..and what that  voice most often does…is tell a story, even a mini-story.

Essentially Atwood argues, and artfully so, that our own fear of death is what inspires writing, and she also likens the author’s process to that of an underworldly journey, as a process of facing the possibilities of one’s own mortality.

As a historian, however, I suspect that much of my writing is also motivated by a desire to memorialize the lives of others, rather than to immortalize myself.  I crave knowing that others have felt  passions, joys, and heartaches that are similar to my own.  I find their stories are so worth the telling, and there is pleasure in knowing the intimacies of their individual lives. In my writing about the past, I cement my own place on the present. As Atwood says, “the dead may guard the treasure [of the past], but it’s a useless treasure unless it can be brought back into the land of the living and allowed to enter time once more–which means to enter the realm of the audience, the realm of the readers, the realm of change.”

As I am currently in the midst of dissertation writing–a process which can feel, at times, like an underworldly experience (especially on the days when self-doubt triumphs over efficiency), perhaps it’s not a complete coincidence that such morbid reading materials landed on my nightstand.  A fellow PhD student loaned me the Atwood, knowing of my interest in writing and my recent read of Alias Grace.  The Magic Mountain seemed a must-read after I saw so many references to it in other academic writing about nineteenth-century medicine, and Schama’s writing is repeatedly recommended by the historians that I’ve interviewed on the MHpodcast

What about you, do you find curious–or disturbing–themes among the books on your nightstand?  Do you agree with Atwood’s assertion about the permanence of authorial voice and/or the role of the historian as someone who can bring stories “back into the land of the living”  and the “realm of change?”

“Taking Liberties: Histories, Fictions, and Blind Spots”
A conversation with historians
Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore
Wednesday 21 January, 3 p.m.
Yale University
HGS 211, 320 York Street
All are welcome

Profs. Kamensky and Lepore will present their new book, Blindspot: A Novel (Spiegel and Grau, 2008), a collaboratively written work of historical fiction set in Boston on the eve of the American Revolution. Reviewers have called it a novel “as sexy as it is political, as accurate as it is outrageous,” combining “a tender love story, a murder mystery, and a brilliant sociological and political portrait of a turbulent time.”

The Promise and Pitfalls of Writing for Readers beyond the Academy
Friday, January 2, 2009: 3:30 PM-5:30 PM
Nassau Suite B (Hilton New York)

Chair:
Martha Hodes, New York University
Commentators:
Lewis H. Lapham, Lapham’s Quarterly and Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times
Deborah E. Harkness (The Jewel House), University of Southern California
Saidiya Hartman (Lose Your Mother: A Journey along the Atlantic Slave Route), Columbia University
Stephen A. Mihm (A Nation of Counterfeiters), University of Georgia

The Pleasures of the Imagination
Friday, January 2, 2009: 8:30 PM-10:30 PM
Trianon Ballroom (Hilton New York)

Chair:
Gabrielle Spiegel, Johns Hopkins University
Panelists:
Linda Colley, Princeton University
Natalie Zemon Davis, University of Toronto
John Demos, Yale University
Jane Kamensky, Brandeis University
Jill Lepore, Harvard University
Robert A. Rosenstone, California Institute of Technology
Jonathan D. Spence, Yale University

Oh….and grad students might want to check out the panel session where I’m speaking, too.

On the console, paint is worn away and dirt permanently applied. Unexplained keystrokes are not unknown. Above the hard drive, the metal is warped away from the rubber lining, so that one more spill could spell calamity. Where the power cord connects, the metal is so misshapen that the charger must be threaded into place, as it fits only one way. Even then it glows an angry, unforgiving red-orange—it’s not described in any manual, but so far it has not meant a total cessation of function. And of course these problems aren’t covered by the warranty, which has expired now anyway.

But, then again, this computer is finished. Despite aged software and questionable printer drivers, despite an overloaded hard drive that no longer communicates directly with its backup, my computer has completed its mission. Purchased in May 2005, on the cusp of my dissertation research, it organized archival trips, stored thousands of digital photographs, held hundreds of document transcriptions, and facilitated dozens of drafts. Never lost, never stolen, never broke down, it has survived. The goal has been reached—the dissertation is completed, printed, filed—and so the computer is done. Its gleaming replacement, upon which the dissertation will become a book and the next projects will be born, sits quietly in the box, waiting.

Serious writing demands its own environment, its requirements exacting but replicable. For me, that means sunlight and a vista with distance, however drab; the promise of regular, extended periods of silence; the space to pace; a chair supportive enough but not too hard on the muscles; the screen raised to the proper height; easy access to books on the shelves and files in the cabinet; and a tap for water within reach—but not so close as to bring the clatter of the kitchen pipes. At the center sits the computer, the keyboard angled correctly, the mouse movements registering on the screen. To work best, it should all stay arranged, so that scant writing time can be devoted to writing, not setup or packing up, not searching for files or wondering when that banging will stop. For the system to work best, it should go unnoticed for days at a time. And so it did.

And so, after these three years, when the laptop has finished its tasks and stands ready for replacement, I do notice.

These are the last words to be typed before the awkward process of file transfer commences. Under the inglorious name “Things I Need,” the folder of older items will migrate into unfamiliar territory. And a new computer, with a new name, will start a new relationship with me and my academic work, with the case unscratched, the keys undirtied, and the quirks as yet undiscovered.

I have been grandiose in my name choices. There was Nehemiah, who kept the visions of the prophet Ezra recorded; then Blue, reflecting a mood and the color of the curving iMac plastic, but also the possibilities of a jazz sensibility; then Be My Yoko, a play on an early project name (“One Night Only,” or ONO, for short), and reflecting the wish of The Barenaked Ladies’s chorus: You can be my Yoko Ono / You can follow me wherever I go—an excellent goal for valuable possessions, and especially a work laptop.

The new computer has a university bar code and the standard-issue name “Macintosh HD.” Changing it will renew my compact with another machine. It will maintain order and process queries while I get back to the process of writing history without thought to such physical requirements.  For that, once again, I will be thankful.

Getting a taste of history

Then there’s the seduction of constant navel-gazing. My readers seem to find me (and my self-absorbed stories) fascinating enough to return regularly (read: HUGE ego-boost). In meatspace I’m a fairly straightlaced and nondescript Mom living in the suburbs of the OC. On the blog I’m crass, cranky and quirky.

Yet what I find the most seductive about blogging is the continued experimentation. It’s a challenge to find something new to say every day and to find new ways of saying it (especially when my life is just a mundane mix of grad school, parenting, and spiritual seeking–it’s hard to imagine more boring story fodder). So I have to think about how best to ‘hook’ my readers, how to provoke a response, and how to write with such skill that my posts are linked by larger blogs.

Now that I’m addicted to blogging, I wonder how it will affect my professional life. Though I’m a few years from facing the job market, I can’t help my think that search committees might be put-off by my flower photos and rambling observations. Often I vow to stop blogging and focus my time on more legitimate academic pursuits (just think, people, of all the book reviews I could be writing instead of blogging!).

But then I consider this: Blogging lubricates my writing muscles. Pounding out a two paragraph post during my morning latte primes me for a day of historical inquiry. I’ve also learned plenty about the technical back-end of digital humanities that I wouldn’t have otherwise encountered. Creating a website? Easy. Putting together a podcast? Not too hard. Adopting new technologies for research? Not much of a learning curve.

Additionally, as a historian with interests in disability studies and radical feminism, blogging offers a groundbreaking platform for grassroots political activism and community-creation. On both of these fronts, I am convinced that we are making history with each blogpost.

Right now job-market uncertainties seem too far away to sweat about whether to continue sharing my shameful confessions. Yet for many months now I’ve kept my writing here on MHP fairly professional and dispassionate (read: dry). I’ve decided that it’s time to have a bit more fun so I can keep my continued interest in the podcast and blog. I hope you’ll come along for the ride and take the risk to jump in and leave a few comments, or even volunteer to join in the fray by contributing a guest post or a podcast interview.

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Links to some of Jeff’s favorite reads:

• Jonathan Spence, The Question of Hu
• Amitav Ghosh, In An Antique Land
• Mike Davis, City of Quartz
• Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air
• The travel writing of Pico Iyer
• Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

Wasserstrom’s latest book, China’s Brave New World, was featured on a list of Pankaj Mishra’s favorite books of 2007. Mishra writes, “In this book Jeffrey Wasserstrom shows why he is one of the most sensible writers on a subject that most Western writers spoil with either paranoia or excessive awe.” Jeff is also a member of The China Beat blog team.

Stay tuned for next week’s episode of MHP with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, AHA president-elect and author of Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.

Martha mentions some books that she recommends as inspiration for writing:

Erskine Clark, Dwelling Place
Clare Messud, The Emperor’s Children
Stephen Carter, New England White
Daniel Mendelsohn, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million

Some questions for discussion:

• Martha says that she finds much of her writing inspiration from fiction. Do you find inspiration from fiction? If so, what books would you recommend to other writers?

• When conducting your own research, do you find yourself looking for good stories to tell?

• She notes that in The Sea Captain’s Wife she leaves out the sentence that says “I argue that…” because she feels that the argument is evident from the historical narrative. Do you, in your own writing, find the need to explicitly spell out your argument for your readers or do you find that you can write in a manner that makes the argument obvious?

In this episode Martha discusses her undergraduate class in “Experimental History.” This previous post links to her Perspectives article on this topic and offers links to the books and articles that she uses in the classroom.

Following her reading, Martha discusses various stylistic choices she made in writing the narrative of Eunice’s life. Of particular interest are her thoughts about telling a “true” story.

Some questions for discussion:

• What part of this reading resonates most strongly with you?
• How do you feel about Martha’s discussion of the choices she made in quoting from Eunice’s letters?
• In what ways does telling the story of a remarkable figure like Eunice–a woman who married across the color line– help us to better understand the lives of other women in the nineteenth century?
• Will Martha’s example impact your own history writing? If so, how?

Note: click here to listen to this episode of Making History Podcast or subscribe to the feed for MH podcast.
Next Monday Part 2 of this podcast will be posted. Stay Tuned!

• How do those writing about the past convey what they have learned and the arguments they want to make?
• What rhetorical devices do they use to try to enlighten, capture the attention of, provoke, persuade, or even amuse their reader?
• Why do we think of some academic historians as especially good stylists or practitioners of the craft of historical writing?
• What place, if any, should there be in non-fiction historical writing for techniques and approaches more often associated with one or another genre of fiction?
  
• Why do some book reviews stick with us while others are immediately forgettable?

Below are the texts that we’re reading for the seminar (with hyperlinks). The books were all paired with relevant readings on the class syllabus. However, for ease of posting here, I’ve disrupted the connections and chronology. Many apologies to Jeff in this regard.

It’s my hope that this list, and other material at the Making History site, will be a catalyst for future classes on the craft of writing history, particularly experimental history:

Books:

Robert Darnton’s The Great Cat Massacre
Vanessa Schwartz’ Spectacular Realities
Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City
Mary Beard’s The Parthenon
Natalie Z. Davis’ The Return of Martin Guerre
Jonathan Spence’s The Death of Woman Wang
Lynn Hunt’s Inventing Human Rights
Amartya Sen’s The Argumentative Indian
Perry Anderson’s Spectrum

Articles:

Urban History, “Icons” issue multimedia companion
Mike Davis’ “The Flames of New York”
Jane Kamensky’s “Our Buildings, Our Selves”
Laura Mitchell’s “Beyond Tense: Encouraging Historians to Think Hard about Writing and Reading”
Martha Hodes’ “A House in Vermont, a Caribbean Beach: Beckoned by landscapes beyond the archive”
Jon Wiener’s “The Weatherman’s Temptation”
Mary Beard’s “A Don’s Life” blogposts
Hanchao Lu’s “The Art of History: A Conversation with Jonathan Spence”
Greg Grandin’s “Toward a Global New Deal”
Jill Lepore’s “No More Kings”
Martha Nussbaum’s “Body of the Nation”
Pankaj Mishra’s “Impasse in India”