Marine [and] his-story; rape; "Negro"

Sat Oct 16 20:43:12 UTC 2010

Joel, Adhikari writes "Michener's 'his story,'" w/o a hyphen.  Sorry to
violate her spelling, but I believe that most dictionaries would add one.

Yeah, things are always worse than even I think.  Like many others, the
professor (undoubtedly a wonderful person) seems determined to blur the line
between history and fiction.

 If anyone wants to believe on the basis of "alternative history" (a frankly
fictional genre) that the South won the Civil War, or, on the basis of "new
insights" (i.e., creative fantasies), deployed or was ready to deploy
battalions of slave infantry, I can't stop them.

And just for the record, in case anyone is hankering to admonish me, yes, I
know that history as written is not "always" "accurate."  [Note scare
quotes.]  It is subject to "revision" on the basis of new "evidence" and
"insights."   Of course, _Tales of the South Pacific_ is squarely
and completely in the spirit of postwar American liberalism (or
"triumphalism"), making it a strange example of revised history - if it
*were* history.  But maybe "revised" just means "seen from a
different vantage point."   I will not colonize other minds by pretending to
judge!

JL

On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 4:05 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Marine [and] his-story; rape; "Negro"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 10/16/2010 12:01 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >"Argus-eyed, prissy journal editors" whose gaze is fixated on what exactly
> >in this case?
>
> Fixated on an author's use of "Negro" outside a
> quotation.  The following was during discussion
> about editing of an article of mine on an event
> in18th century colonial American history, when
> "Negro" (and with a capital N) was predominant,
> "African-American" was not used, and "black" was
> rare.  I quote the then (Dec. 2007) editor of
> _Slavery & Abolition_, Dr Tim Lockley, Dept of
> History, University of Warwick, in email to me:
>
> "If you think that any respectable journal would today publish the word
> 'negro' without it being in quotation marks, you are mistaken. It is a word
> that is no longer acceptable in academic parlance."
>
> Note that he did not write "without it being
> within a quotation", which leads me to infer that
> he would object to an article author's using the
> single word itself without putting it within quotation marks.
>
> (However, he managed to write it to me without an
> initial capital, as though he were back in the
> 19th or early 20th century.  I had never written it with a lower case "n".)
>
> The editor of the South Carolina Historical
> Magazine, which printed my article, also wrote me
> (excuse the "shout" capitals; he used all
> capitals for his interpolated responses to my email messages):
>
> "WE DO NOT USE THE WORD NEGRO OR ANY OF ITS VARIATIONS EXCEPT WITHIN
> QUOTES."
>
> We did manage to achieve conformance to this
> rule, in a couple of cases via my suggestion of
> expanding quotations to move "Negro" inside
> them.  I was willing to compromise with him on
> this because he was willing to compromise with me
> on other editorial changes that he wanted and which I had resisted.
>
> >I hesitated to mention the use of _rape_ for exactly the reason Joel give,
> >but in context it seems to be intended to convey none of the violence
> >usually associated with similar usages.
>
> I didn't have the extended context that might
> have told me Adhikari did not mean "violent".
>
> >It's just a distortion, or matbe
> >even an imposition.  I've read enough recent lit-crit to get the feeling
> >that, like other terms I've posted in the past, it's just becoming one of
> >those words a certain kind of writer likes use. But more evidence is
> >required.
> >(Don't forget that all human relationships, including "reader/writer" are
> >regarded by many cultural theorists as "victim/perpetrator" relationships,
> >of which "victim/colonizer" is a subset. In fact, I just saw a reference
> to
> >"the violence of reading," but charitably declined to post it.
>
> I do my violence by burning such lit-crit,
> especially when it intrudes into writing about
> history.  Like Adhikari's article.
>
> >Also, I should have thought that one example of "Negro" within scare
> quotes
> >would have been enough to protect all concerned.  But there are several in
> >quick succession. Since when are academic writers supposed to encourage
> the
> >presumed ignorance of their presumably academic audience?  Don't answer
> >that.
>
> OK, I won't.
>
> >...
> >
> >"His-story" is worth notice, I think, because it's a new word used by a
> >professional educator in a professionally edited journal. It also alludes
> to
> >the well-established, unfunny _herstory_, which alludes to the well
> >established, unfunny _history_.
>
> Did Adhikari use a hyphen in "his-story"?  (Jon
> has written it both ways.)  Does that matter?  Is
> it new to Adhikari?  I suspect not, but it's more
> than a bit difficult to locate relevant citations via Google.
>
> Ultimately, I really don't think it alludes to
> gender at all, but, as I said, to "(factual)
> history" vs. Michener's "his story (invented) of history".
>
> For someone who uses quotes around words and
> phrases ceaselessly, see Michael J. Colacurcio's
> _The Province of Piety: Moral History in
> Hawthorne's Early Tales_ (1995).  It would take
> me a while to dig up an exact analogy to
> Adhikari's use. But for something I feel is
> similar, in one example of Colacurcio's use of
> quotation marks to clue the reader that the word
> he's using may mean more, or less, than what it
> normally means, he writes "Hawthorne may have
> wished fully to 're-cognize' the sense of his
> sources as significant expressions of
> intellectual culture, and thence to speculate
> about the Influence of Puritan Literature on American Life" (p. 3).
>
> Joel
>
> >As I've said before, I don't search for these things.
> >
> >BTW, I too noticed _empirical_ 'factual,' but didn't think it was worth
> >noting. Dave has changed my mind.
> >
> >JL
> >
> >
> >  On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 11:22 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net>
> wrote:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > > Subject:      Re: Marine [and] his-story; rape; "Negro"
> > >
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > A few comments on the linguistic aspects.  I may
> > > make some (negative) comments on Adhikari's
> > > hiostoriography later, after I've read his article.
> > >
> > > At 10/15/2010 01:27 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > > >P. 52: "In Michener's 'his story,' Tony Fry becomes a hero."
> > >
> > > [And later, Jon wrote:]
> > > >Though not "herstory," it seems absurd to call Michener's book
> > > "his-story,"
> > > >since one of his major characters is a Navy nurse and another is a
> > > To[n]kinese
> > > >woman. But maybe "his-story" means "history (which includes fiction)
> > > written
> > > >by a man." Who knows?
> > >
> > > I think "his story" is merely an attempt to be
> > > clever and call attention to the writer's
> > > (Adhikari's) distinction between "history", as
> > > commonly thought to mean the facts, and "his
> > > story", meaning "what Michener creates as having
> > > happened".  (Too cute for my taste.)  Thus it is not an allusion to
> gender.
> > >
> > > >Also, _rape_ = 'serious distortion.'
> > > >
> > > >P. 44: "Plausible documents need to be created to bridge evident gaps
> [in
> > > >historical records]. This is not a rape of history but a generous act
> to
> > > >give credibility and continuity to it."
> > >
> > > If we instead take "rape" = '*violent*
> > > distortion', this does not seem to me to be
> > > unacceptably far from rape n.3 sense 2.c, "In
> > > extended use".  A few quotations from the OED:
> > >      1677 R. GILPIN Dæmonol. Sacra I. xii. 94 If
>  > > thou yield, will not God account it a rape upon thine integrity?
> > >      a1704 T. BROWN Satire French King in Wks.
> > > (1707) I. i. 92 Old Jerom's Volumnes next I made a Rape on.
> > >      1815 J. HUTTON Fashionable Follies Pref.,
> > > Sir, you have committed a rape upon my play.
> > >      1975 Times Lit. Suppl. 10 Oct. 1217/5 It is
> > > his job to save Juli from the hangman and, in the
> > > final court scene, he does it by the public rape
> > > of the boy's secret personality and the destruction of his genius.
> > >
> > > If one can rape integrity, volumes, plays, or
> > > genius, surely one can rape history, which is
> > > merely (apart from artifacts) what is written in volumes (and other
> > > documents).
> > >
> > > At 10/15/2010 09:58 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > > >Why _Negro_ is repeatedly in scare quotes I can only guess.  That is
> > > indeed
> > > >the word Michener uses - the same as most polite people of every race
> in
> > > the
> > > >1940s.
> > >
> > > The answer, I think, is:  "Because 'Negro' is a
> > > word polite people of every race are not supposed
> > > to use today, therefore I put it into quotes to
> > > show that I am not using it either, I am just
> > > displaying to you that Michener used it."  But I
> > > sympathize with authors today who are faced with
> > > earlier documents using various forms of the
> > > N-word (and with Argus-eyed, prissy journal
> > > editors) -- where and how does one admit it
> > > (them), or does one not use it/cut it out
> > > entirely?  (It should not be altered in quotations.)
> > >
> > > Joel
> > >
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> >
> >
> >--
> >"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
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