Sunday, March 29, 2009

Thought for the day

Thought for the day



Apropos of discussions at Making Light, In the Middle, and A Corner of Tenth Century Europe (really, at Cliopatria, but I'm too lazy to find the link), I have a thought.


Historians are the Cassandras of the Humanities.

Discuss.

4 comments:

Jeffrey Cohen said...

If they were then nobody would be believing that particular prediction, though it is nonetheless true ... so I will have to say YES, historians are the Cassandras of the humanities, but by my stating that they now cannot be.

Discuss.

Another Damned Medievalist said...

There must be a way out of this particular box, Mr Schroedinger ...

Discuss.

Anonymous said...

The Cliopatria post is here, if that's any use. However, I think the correct responses can only be (i) "Well that sounds highly unlikely, also look at this cool wooden horse I found outside" and (ii) if what you're remarking on is how no-one pays any attention to what we have to say, where do you mean? In the world at large, or solely within the humanities? In either case, which humanity do you think has a bigger audience share? I think, for example, that the newspaper-reading world probably finds history more interesting than lit.-crit. or sociology, though sociology indubitably generates more bogus-sounding news articles. But does anyone believe those either?

Another Damned Medievalist said...

Actually, I think we are more the Laocoön