'At the entrance to science, as at the entrance to hell': Historical Priorities for South Africa in an Age of Deconstruction

The departure point of this article is the postmodern critique of my book, The Dead Will Arise. The object of the article is not however to defend either the book itself or the 'constructionist' school of historiography to which it apparently belongs. The first part of the article seeks to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:African historical review Vol. 40; no. 1; pp. 58 - 76
Main Author: Peires, Jeff
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 01.06.2008
Subjects:
academic history departments
Clifton Crais
constructionism
Dead Will Arise
epistemology
Peires
Postmodernism
Sheila Boniface Davies
South African historiography
ISSN:1753-2523, 1753-2531
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The departure point of this article is the postmodern critique of my book, The Dead Will Arise. The object of the article is not however to defend either the book itself or the 'constructionist' school of historiography to which it apparently belongs. The first part of the article seeks to clarify the epistemological basis on which constructionist historians claim the right to engage with and interpret the past. In the process of doing so, it establishes a conceptual framework capable of defining relevance in the context of post-democratic South African historiography. It argues that historians have a duty to prioritise the 'scars' and 'pitfalls' of South African history failing which they become mere lapdogs, decorative but irrelevant. It is further argued that, although historians have the right to study whatever they choose, there is something intrinsically wrong with institutional mechanisms which produce nothing but lapdogs, and that university history departments need to take more of a lead.
ISSN:1753-2523
1753-2531
DOI:10.1080/17532520802249464