1. Text and Context The Uses of History John Haynes, History Dept. LT901 Research Methods in Literary and Cultural Analysis

2. Outline Introduction Three uses of History Reflections on Soviet motherhood Summary

3. Why historicise? Limitations of text-centred approaches –The canon; close readings; formalism; structuralism/poststructuralism Literary studies and the ‘turn to history’ –Marxism; reception/spectatorship; new historicism; cultural materialism Hayden White –Historiography as narrative discourse –All ‘history’ as ‘text’; texts and contexts –writing of historical fiction & writing of ‘History’

4. Texts responding to historical events History as more than ‘background’ How is event re-presented/mediated? –What aspect(s) of event focused upon? What is left out, and why? –How organised into a perspective? –Is this perspective made convincing? Appealing? And to what kind(s) of audience? Any evidence concerning reception? Any other questions? Any other responses?

5. 9/11 and graphic novels

7. Texts responding to historic events Retains focus on text Need to focus on how text works, and for whom History can also help in understanding how these texts help to shape wider responses

8. Critical and popular reception studies Text becomes artefact/evidence –Avoids abstraction --> ‘grounded’ analysis Increases understanding of meaning(s) attached to texts at specific historical moments –Allows for difference Situate & reflect on our own understandings Need to apply critical approach Where to find evidence?

9. Critical and popular reception studies Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) New York Times, October 29, 1939 Evidence of response on Capitol Hill Engage critically & contrast readings History can help turn abstract consumers into real people with real motivations

10. Text, Context, & Intertext Text as inextricably part and parcel of material social and cultural world All ‘history’ as textual - intertextuality All authors are historical agents Nature and function of discourses Texts taking part in wider conversations, intervening in debates; will affect readings

11. ‘Reconstruction or Reproduction?’ Two films of the ‘Thaw’ era contrasted as interventions in debates around motherhood Context of Khrushchev’s ‘secret speech’ denouncing Stalin Role of fantasy - notion of social fantasy Critical history of films - contextual readings History helps us to understand the uses of texts

12. Conclusions: history can help… Understand production, circulation and consumption of texts Turn abstract consumers into real people Add dimensions of difference Illuminate texts & meanings as contested Situate our own analyses more reflectively Finally, advise a pragmatic approach

13. Workshop exercises 1.Using Sarah Waters as an example, compare and contrast the writing of ‘History’ with the writing of historical novels. 2.Discuss The Cave as a response to the Russian Revolution and Civil War. 3.How might we account for the critical response to Do the Right Thing as ‘a racist incitement to riot’? 4.How does intertextuality function in The Lives of Others?