Maybe it seems odd to call someone a historian who is not a professor of history giving lectures and writing books.

It’s not odd at all. There is academic history, and there is public history. Not really different things, but broadly different ways of engaging with history.

"Academics tend to think of public history as a field of study, like one of the nearly 300 specialized subjects that the American Historical Association lists when it asks its members to identify their research and teaching interests. More socially engaged historians, on the other hand, consider public history a calling designed "to help people write, create, and understand their own history." Still others believe public history should influence the formulation of public policy. But a majority probably just defines the field by the workplace: academic history, they assume, is practiced within the university, public history elsewhere." (Weible 2008; citation removed)

For the most part, public historians are those who work for museums, corporations, and the like. They are employed as professionals whose job is to do work related to history. If they weren’t so employed, they’d be independent historians.

But there’s some professional angst here, at least among academic historians.

"The question is: if historians in and out of the academy are trained in the same institutions, if they share an educational mission, and if they produce work that holds up to professional scrutiny, then what is the difference between public historians and more traditional ones?" (Weible 2008)

There’s a struggle here. The audience for academic historians is other academic historians. That’s the very essence of peer-reviewed work. On the other hand, the audience for public historians is, commonly, the public.

And there’s the danger. The consumers for whom public history is created are not historians. The result is a kind of history that is market-driven and democratic. There is a risk, then, that it will be less rigorous academically.

"Consider for a moment that most historians know that the Founding Fathers were more influenced by the Enlightenment than by the Bible, that the Holocaust really happened, and that Saddam Hussein never planned the attacks of September 11th. There are, of course, lots of people who understand things differently. Why? Possibly because they are influenced by those who interpret the past more loudly—if less rationally—than others, often on radio, television, and the internet, or in churches, bars, and political campaigns. If we have learned nothing else in recent years, it is that history is very powerful and can be dangerous in the wrong hands, whether in local communities or the nation's capital. It seems that in an idealized marketplace in which everyone is his or her own expert and all ideas are equal, self-proclaimed champions of democracy can legitimize their potentially unlimited authority, not by grounding their truth in objective, scientifically determined facts, but by concocting and selling self-serving histories that play on public fears, prejudices, and greed." (Weible 2008) 

I’ve seen a variety of answers over the years, but none of them satisfactory. I tell people that if they don’t have a background in history and historiography, the best way to judge quality is to look for general agreement among historians.

If someone tells you the Merovingian dynasty were descendants of Jesus, it’s easy enough to figure out this is a minority conclusion, and one that’s universally rejected by academic historians. Go ahead and enjoy the story, but don’t sign on to become a True Believer.

• Robert Weible. “Defining Public History: Is It Possible? Is It Necessary?” Perspectives on History <historians.org>, March 1, 2008. Retrieved May 20, 2020.

Milman Parry was a Harvard professor. In the 1930s he traveled through Yugoslavia, collecting ballads and folk songs. As a result of his research into these particular forms of oral history, he developed the idea that Homer’s poems have a formulaic structure that shows they were originally oral compositions.

This is one of the stories he collected.

"[There are] two lovers kept apart by a meddling mother who doesn’t want her son to marry beneath him. He is forced to marry someone else, and, in keeping with local custom, the couple is locked into a bedroom on their wedding night. Instead of consummating the marriage, however, the young man sings to the new bride and explains that she will never replace his true love. At the conclusion of the song, the young man dies on the spot.

"The bride, though upset, cannot leave the room until morning. When the mother enters the room in triumph, she sees instead that her son has died. In place of a celebration the bereft mother prepares a funeral procession, which passes by the window of the young man’s true love. Her heart breaks apart at the sight, and she dies instantly. The two are buried in adjacent graves, from which two trees sprout and grow intertwined."

Very tragic, very romantic. It’s supposed to be a true story, but actually it’s not although it’s based on remembered events.

When Parry investigated the story he discovered that an old woman in the next village was one of the tragic young lovers. She was still alive, and furthermore, the villagers of her generation knew she was still alive and also knew she was the woman who died in the song.

I’ve mentioned this story before. Most recently in Daughter of Time (Apr. 21, 2020). We read this story in college. Probably for European Ethnology, although I could be wrong about that.

The story, partly true and partly fiction, holds an important cautionary lesson for genealogists about the evolution of oral history: there is a tendency over time for stories to improve.

Details fall away. The plot changes in subtle ways to make the story “better.” And the personality of the storyteller might also affect the story. Some people are better at “improving” stories than others.

In my opinion family traditions and oral history are always worth investigating, even when they are unlikely to be true or unlikely to add anything. There is no story about family history so silly or absurd that I won’t spend some time investigating, even if not a lot.

More Information

• Emily T. Simon. “Mining a trove of old ballads gives women a new voice.” The Harvard Gazette </news.harvard.edu/gazette>, Mar. 13, 2008. Retrieved May 20, 2020.

We watched Sita Sings the Blues the other day. Haven’t seen it? Picture this. A cartoon that tells the story of the Hindu goddess Sita set to 1920s Blues music. Cool stuff. And it turns out to be a famous instance of copyright problems.

Everyone knows copyright can be a pain in the butt but is it also bad for the creator? Nina Paley thinks so.

Bad for the creator? I wouldn’t have guessed, although the evidence is right there for everyone to see. Genealogists bicker about copyright, seemingly endlessly, and it’s now routine for people to claim “Fair Use”, thinking that’s an all-purpose loophole for any use without permission.

My experience is that even attorneys who claim expertise in copyright are often woefully inept on the ground. They’re so used to making certain pro forma arguments they’ve never bothered to understand either the theory or the case law. Just rote rules. (To avoid being sued, I’m not going to name names.)

So, here’s what happened with Sita Sings the Blues.

Nina Paley created an animated film she wanted to place in the public domain. And it would have worked, except changes to copyright law brought the songs of jazz vocalist Annette Hanshaw back into copyright. As a result, Paley was thrown into a needless copyright storm. In the end, she had to buy the rights to use material that had been in the public domain when she created her film. (You might have to read that a few times to understand how dysfunctional the copyright system can be.)

"Nina Paley's first feature film, Sita Sings the Blues, was a huge critical success: it received 100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes —which is incredibly rare. She used music by the 1920's singer, Annette Hanshaw, which can no longer be heard through legal channels unless you happen to own her old 78's or watch Nina's film. This video tells the story of why Nina joined Question Copyright.org and encourages artists to ignore copyright law."

• Grey Valenti. “Nina Paley: Journey to Intellectual Disobedience.” Youtube <youtube.com>,

Paley makes two key points. First, copyright holders were using their power to suppress individual artists. Second, it did not benefit her to copyright her work. As a result, she now advocates what she calls “intellectual disobedience”. Ignore the law. Let disobedience become so common, enforcement collapses.

But on the opposite side, my generation remembers clearly and often painfully the death blow to the music industry from unrestricted copying. In the early days of the Internet, the technology to restrict distribution just wasn’t there. Many of us probably haven’t thought beyond that.

Paley acknowledges there are ongoing efforts to reform copyright law, for example, by limiting the copyright term, but she points out that as a creator her own time would be wasted if it were spent on legal reform rather than on creating her films. Good point. And she thinks efforts like Creative Commons that use an end run, miss the real point. I’m not sure I agree, but maybe.

I would like to see more public discussion about the value of copyright. Is it true that all creative work is derivative? (It seems so.) And, what practical social benefit do any of us gain from extending copyright terms as long as we do?

Nina Paley

• Nina Paley, at Question Copyright. “Sita Sings the Blues.” Youtube <youtube.com>, Oct. 23, 2009. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
• TEDx Talks. “Copyright is Brain Damage | Nina Paley | TEDxMaastricht.” Youtube <youtube.com>, Oct. 21, 2015. Retrieved May 13, 2020.

Copyright

• CGP. “Copyright: Forever Less One Day.” Youtube <youtube.com>, Aug. 23, 2011. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
• Process Arts. “Creative Commons licences explained.” Youtube <youtube.com>, Oct. 12, 2011. Retrieved May 13, 2020. Creative Commons is a popular alternative path for creators to license their copyright material.
• Question Copyright, a 501(c)(3) organization devoted to copyright re-education.
• truTV. “Adam Ruins Everything – How Mickey Mouse Destroyed the Public Domain.” YouTube <youtube.com>, Nov. 30, 2015. Retrieved May 21, 2020.

Attribution

I’ve written before about my own experience, having my work hijacked: Copyright Problems (Feb. 6, 2019). The problem hasn’t been infringement; it’s been attribution. We should be clear attribution is a separate issue. I want my work to be distributed. And I want to get credit for it.

• Question Copyright. “All Creative Work Is Derivative.” Youtube <youtube.com>, Feb. 9, 2010. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
• Question Copyright. “Copying Is Not Theft.” Youtube <youtube.com>, Apr. 1, 2010. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
• Question Copyright. “Credit Is Due (The Attribution Song).” Youtube <youtube.com>, June 27, 2011. Retrieved May 13, 2020.

Updated May 21, 2020 to add link.

I pulled this old article by James Palmer out of my bookmarks last night. I’ve found my interests wandering lately from the Middle Ages to the American West.

Don’t know why that is. If I had wanted to do western history, my parents were total geeks. I was mysteriously attracted more to medieval stuff, and now I’ve been doing it for 50 years or more.

So, I’m asking myself, “why study the Medieval world?” I’ve been particularly interested in the processes of ethnogenesis and group identity.

Palmer teaches a course called Power and Identity after Rome. He says, “This is a good topic to get students into. Arm them with some ‘origin legends’, some medieval historical writing, and a bit of archaeology, and get them to assess the relative merits of the two sides. Students can quickly find themselves developing critical skills to form cogent arguments on the basis of fragmentary evidence, while working on the ability to make independent judgements. Plus they are engaged in a current debate while doing so, namely what it means for an individual or group to invent, develop or appropriate a particular identity label.“

Does talking about how to learn medieval history seem off-topic for a post about my wandering interests? It’s not. There’s an intimate connection between how you learn and what you learn.

Palmer continues, “Exploring the past is often to enter an intellectual gymnasium. It is a place to practice critical and analytical skills, while one learns to be forensic in one’s approach to information and the construction of arguments. It is a place in which the imagination can be used and trained. Hopefully my students can take the skills they develop and do interesting things with them.“

This, I think, is why this Palmer article interests me. History is an intellectual exercise. It’s hard. It’s work. It requires discipline and reading and thinking. I’ve wandered away from the world where there are people with an academic interest. The people I know are having fun with wild, crazy, way out stuff. Many of them, genealogists included, want to play modern fantasy with some medieval color.

So, the American West is the more grounded option right now. And, I’m learning something from it. I always thought it was like a fish trying to study water. For someone embedded in the American West it’s hard to get distance. I’m learning, though, that the modern West is not the Old West. I’ve missed out here, assuming I already know. More on that later.

More Information

• James T. Palmer. “Teaching Power and Identity After Rome.” Merovingian World <merovingianworld.com>, Sept. 18, 2014. Retrieved Apr. 15, 2020.
• George Schöpflin and Geoffrey Hosking, editors. Myths and Nationhood. Routledge, 1997.
• Ian Wood. The Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages. Oxford Univ. Pr., 2013.

Have you ever thought about the ways all stories are the same? They’re all about a “descent” followed by a “return”. Think about Joseph Campbell and The Hero’s Journey. 

Genealogists love stories. They’re the very essence of why we collect our kin, so I think it’s worth pushing our skill and understanding. We should want to get better at stories, the same way we get better at research as we gain more skill.

I have YouTube video about stories in my bookmarks because I’m fascinated by this idea of descent and return: “Every Story is the Same” by Will Schoder (Nov. 23, 2016). A good intro to this idea. Click through to the video. You’ll love it.

Dan Harmon tells us how to practice seeing the pattern of descent and return in stories. He’s talking to writers, but he could just as well be talking to genealogists:

“Start thinking of as many of your favorite movies as you can, and see if they apply to this pattern. Now think of your favorite party anecdotes, your most vivid dreams, fairy tales, and listen to a popular song (the music, not necessarily the lyrics). Get used to the idea that stories follow that pattern of descent and return, diving and emerging. Demystify it. See it everywhere. Realize that it’s hardwired into your nervous system, and trust that in a vacuum, raised by wolves, your stories would follow this pattern.” (“Story Structure 101: Super Basic Shit“, at channel101.fandom.com, visited April 3, 2020).

I first encountered this idea as an undergraduate, in a Greek Mythology class. I did my final paper on the myth of Arachne (Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 6). Arachne was a talented weaver. She boasted she was more talented than the goddess Athena. Athena challenged her to a contest. Athena wove a tapestry showing the punishment of mortals who had defied the gods. Arachne wove a tapestry showing gods abusing mortals. Predictably, Athena destroyed Arachne’s tapestry. Arachne hung herself. Then Athena turned Arachne into a spider.

I read the myth as a story about the contest between humans and gods for the right to weave human destiny. Arachne confronted the goddess, and paid a penalty for it. Descent and return; changed by the experience. I still think about it often. She was turned into a spider. She was changed by the experience; a huge price to pay. But she and her kind are still weaving. We humans won an important piece of the battle.

Parting Shot

Some of my friends might be interested to know what brought this idea to the forefront today. Is it something to do with the devastation of the Corona virus? No. Something much more in line with my usual patterns of thought.

I was listening to the Sunstone podcast last night. Somewhat unusual for me. They’re the folks who say there’s “More than One Way to Mormon.”

One episode caught my attention, and turned out to be well worth the investment of time. Episode 51: Returning to Church Without Returning to Church (Feb. 3, 2020). “Stephen Carter argues that eventually returning to church is essential—but for reasons that would surprise both orthodox Mormons and post-Mormons.”

The surprising reason is that the return is the necessary conclusion of the Hero’s Journey.

More surprising to me is that in 30 years of using this analytical framework for stories and for personal experiences, it never once occurred to me that it would apply here. I’m intrigued. One podcast on this topic was not enough.