tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6648409483330236099.post8662450931503725795..comments2024-03-29T00:56:07.277-07:00Comments on The Adventures of Notorious Ph.D., Girl Scholar: Why do all that medieval stuff?Notorious Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08700875559325201086noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6648409483330236099.post-10817668258417417662008-02-05T08:05:00.000-08:002008-02-05T08:05:00.000-08:00Good answer -- but I also think the question is on...Good answer -- but I also think the question is one we should all be asking ourselves, because it forces us to confront our own residual presentism. I can't pretend that questions about my own world aren't what inform my questions about the past. But as long as I remember that they are not me, and I am not them, I think it's entirely fair of us to ask questions of our past that we really want answered about our present.Notorious Ph.D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/08700875559325201086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6648409483330236099.post-86225110206638990532008-01-25T07:11:00.000-08:002008-01-25T07:11:00.000-08:00I thought that paragraph of Spiegel's was great. ...I thought that paragraph of Spiegel's was great. As an early modernist, I have always thought that history provided ways of thinking about questions where you were not sure what "side" you were on -- and that provides useful perspective. At my first job interview many centuries ago, one (sexist) faculty member asked how I could write about gender since my questions came from the present. And I said that while the questions came from the present, the present provided no sense that I wanted to find out one thing or another about 17th C women, precisely because it's so different.Susanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09716705206734059708noreply@blogger.com