Truth, Lies, And Deception

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Truth, Lies, and Method: Revisiting Feminist HistoriographyAuthor(s): Cheryl GlennSource: College English, Vol. 62, No. 3 (Jan., 2000), pp. 387-389Published by: National Council of Teachers of EnglishStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/378937Accessed: 09-02-2016 13:09 UTC

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387

COMMENT:

T r u t h L i e s

n d

M e th o d

evis it ing

F e m in i s t

Historiography

Cheryl

Glenn

I

ollegeEnglish

has invited me to comment on Xin Liu Gale'sreviewof

my

fem-

inist

historiographic study

of

Aspasia

of Miletus.

Gale reiterates her

1997

Intersectionsof

Feminism(s)

and

Rhetorics(s)

Conference

polemic

by

reaf-

firming

a

set

of

unquestioned

privileges

referred

to,

with

numbing

regularity,

as

tradition and

truth. Thus her

approach

takes the

reactionary

criticism

dujour

that

associates much

postmodern

thought

with the end of

truth and the

decline

of

standards

and reduces

it into a

simple

binary:

on

the one

hand,

there is

traditional

objective

historiography,

and,

on the

other,

subjective

feminist

fictionalization.

What

is

missing

is

the

recognition

that

postmodern

historiography

does not

attempt

to do

awaywith the notion of truth; instead, it attemptsto think of truth outside the con-

fines of

a

mythical

objectivity,

or,

at the

very

least,

to

decouple

the link

between

objectivity

and truth.

Ignoring

historiography's

mbrication

with

truth,

power,

and

ethics

results

in

a

reading

of

Susan

Jarratt,

Rory Ong,

and me

(and

presumably

many

others)

only

as

adversaries,

enemies of

tradition,

obstructionists of

the

Truth.

In

spite

of

these

difficulties,

the

discussion

offers several

instructive

points:

(1)

a

focus

on

Aspasia,

a

figure

who

deserves more

scholarly

attention;

(2)

a

thorough

min-

ing

of the

historical,

literary,

social,

and

political

research

n

my

own

discursivefoot-

notes;

(3)

a

comparison

of the

purposefully

different

methodologies

among

various

academic fields

(i.e., rhetoric, composition,

and

classics);and,

most of

all, (4)

a re-

articulation of

the tension

between

history

and

history

writing,

between

notions

of

Ch er

y

I

GIe n n

is

Associate Professor of

English

at Penn

State.

Founding

board

member and

immediate

past president

of

the

Coalition of

Women

Scholars in

the

History

of

Rhetoric

and

Composition,

Glenn is

the

author of

Rhetoric

Retold:

Regendering

he

Tradition

rom

Antiquity

through

he

Renaissance,

hich

won

best

book/honorable

mention

by

the

Society

for

the

Study

of

Early

Modem

Women;

the St.

Martin's

Guide

o

Teaching

Writing;

and TheSt.

Martin's

Reader

(forthcoming).

Her

historiographic

work

has

earned

her two

NEH

fellowships

and

the

Conference on

College Composition

and

Communication

Richard

Braddock

Award.

She

recently

initiated a

new

series for

Southern Illinois

University

Press,

Studies

in

Rhetorics and

Feminisms,

and is

currently

working

on

Unspoken:

Rhetoric

ofSilence.

College

English,

Volume

62,

Number

3,

January

2000


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3/4

388

College

English

truth

and method

that

I

rehearsed

throughout

Rhetoric

Retold:

Regendering

he Tradi-

tion

fromAntiquityThrough

heRenaissance. am

limiting my

comments to that

fourth

point

so

that

I can

revisit the

fruitful and

necessary

tension

between

history

and

his-

tory writing,

a tension

that scholars have been

grappling

with

for decades

as

they

read,

reread,

write,

and

rewrite

histories of various

discourses and

practices.

Those of

us who

write

histories of

rhetoric,

especially

those of

us who

write

women into

those

histories,

do so

in

response

to intellectual

and ethical

questions

(of

evidence,

power,

and

politics)

at

the same time that

we resist received

notions

of both

history

and

writing

history.

Speaking

only

for

myself, my goal

has not been to

sup-

plant

the master

narrative

of

rhetorical

history

with a mater

narrative,

hough

such

a

move has

long

been

considered

the

paradox

of

some feminist

scholarship.

Rather,

my goal has been to investigate a number of deeply contextualized narratives n an

attempt

to

bring

a

fuller,

richer-different-picture

into

focus.

But

regardless

of

my goal,

process,

or

product,

I,

like

every

other

historiogra-

pher,

face the

task of

connecting

the

real

with discourse

on the

real. As

Michel

de

Certeau tells

us,

at the

point

where this

link

cannot

be

imagined,

historiography

must

nevertheless

work

as

if

the real

and discourse

were

actually

being

joined

(xxvii).

Every

history

writer

faces

this

missing

link.

Thus,

the text

of

history

writing

initi-

ates

a

play

between

the

object

under

study

and the

discourse

performing

the

analy-

sis.

And

even

the

most

conscientious,

traditional

however

that

word

resonates),

and conservative history writer plays this game. Collapsing any binary of history

and

fiction,

Hayden

White

explains

the historical

as

narrative,

as

representation,

and

as

interpretation

(51).

Nancy

F.

Partner

describes

history

as

the

definitive

human

audacity

imposed

on

formless

time and

meaningless

event

with

the

human

meaning-maker:

language.

She calls

history

writing

the silent

shared

conspiracy

of

all

historians

(who

otherwise

agree

on

nothing

these

days),

who talk about

the

past

as

though

it

were

really

'there'

(97).

Consequently,

all historical

accounts,

even the

most

seemingly

objective

historical

records,

are stories.

And even

these

stories

are

selected

and

arranged

according

to the selector's

frame of

reference,

an

idea

I'm not

sure

I

fully

appreciated

until

I read this

rendering

of

my

own

logic,

method,

and

representation.

Why,

then,

should

we continue

to write histories

(of

rhetoric,

or

of

anything

else)

when both

writing

and

history

are

suspect?

when

the

past

was

not

really

there ?

when

we

agree

that there

was a

past

but

not what

the

past

really

was?

Well,

historiographic

practices

are

so

firmly

situated

in

the

postmodern

critique

of

rhetoric

that

many

of us

already

ake

for

granted

that

histories

do

(or

should

do)

something,

that

they

fulfill

our

needs

at a

particular

ime and

place,

and that

they

never and

have

never reflected

a

neutral

reality.

In

choosing

what

to

show,

how

to

represent

it,

and

whom

to

spotlight,

all these

maps

subtly

shape

our

perceptions

of a

rhetoric

englobed.




4/4

COMMENT:

Truth, Lies,

and

Method

389

That

is

not to

say,

however,

that all stories are created

equal,

that all histories

should or could be

equal.Historiography's

central

question

is not true or false.

Instead,

historiography

asks

us

to

consider

questions

of

knowledge

(in

what context

is

it

produced

and normalized?

whom does it

benefit?),

ethics

(to

what/whom are

these

practices

accountable?

what/whom do

they privilege?),

and

power

(what

prac-

tices

might

produce

historical

remembrances?

what are the effects of such

represen-

tation?).

At the nexus of these

questions

reside issues of

historical evidence: What

counts?

What is available?Who

provided

and

preserved

it-and

why?

How

and

to

what end has it been used? and

by

whom? Thus

history

is not

frozen,

not

merely

the

past.

It

provides

an

approachable,disruptableground

for

engaging

and

transforming

traditional

memory

or

practice

in

the interest

of both the

present

and the future.

Writing women (or any other traditionallydisenfranchisedgroup)into the his-

tory

of

rhetoric, then,

can

be an

ethically

and

intellectually responsible

gesture

that

disrupts

those frozen memories

in

order to address

silences,

challenge

absences,

and

assert women's contributions

to

public

life. Such a

gesture, particularly

one that

interrogates

the

availability,

practice,

and

preservation

(or destruction)

of historical

evidence,

simultaneously

exposes

relations of

exploitation,

domination,

censorship,

and erasure.

This

ethical

practice

not

only

accepts

the

possible

insufficiency

of

one's

understanding

of

history

and

implies

an

openness

and

reflexivity

in

one's

encounters,

but it

may

also

initiate a

restructuring

of

one's

understanding

of the

interrelation among the past, present and future; establishing possibilities for the

alteration of

one's

priorities,

evaluations,

and actions

(Simon 177).

Learning

to write new

histories,

histories

worthy

of the remarkablerevival of

rhetorical

consciousness,

means

embracing

new

opportunities

for

interrogating,

testing,

and

unfolding

the rhetorical

scholarship

that

has

come before so

that

we

might

advance our

re/thinking, re/assessing,

and

re/writing

of

rhetorical histories

and

futures,

theories and

practices.

Whether

they

result

in

advances

or

setbacks,

these risks

invigorate

our

field,

signify

our

progress,

and illuminate

possibilities.

But

they

will

not

always

be

understood,

let alone welcome.

WORKS

CITED

Certeau,

Michel de. The

Writing

ofHistory.

1975.

Trans. Tom

Conley.

New York:

Columbia

UP,

1988.

Glenn,

Cheryl.

Rhetoric

Retold:

Regendering

he

Tradition

from

Antiquity

Through

he

Renaissance. arbon-

dale:

Southern Illinois

UP,

1997.

Partner,

Nancy

E

Making

Up

Lost Time:

Writing

on the

Writing

of

History.

Speculum

61

(1986):

90-117.

Simon,

Roger

I.

Pedagogy

and

the Call to

Witness

in

Marc

Chagall's

White

Crucifixion

Education/Ped-

agogy/Cultural

tudies19.2-3

(1997):

169-92.

White,

Hayden.

Tropics

f

Discourse.

Baltimore:

Johns

Hopkins

UP,

1978.


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Truth, Lies, And Deception