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Mar. 14th, 2006 09:21 amSince I am in researcher mode (blame the Winchester maps that continue to obsess me) this week my blog is mostly about sources of history. Historians use such a wide variety of sources that it always surprises me when people claim there is no information or no possible way of finding out about women.
Women in the speculative fiction world, for instance, can be approached from so many ways. There is a good book by Camille Bacon-Smith on women in fandom that takes one approach and one by Justine Larbalestier that takes another (I have already linked to the website-of-the-book when I mentioned Asimov and women).
What sorts of sources do these articles and books use? There are the obvious ones. Printed material: you can analyse texts or you can analyse the things that appear in texts. An instance of the latter is here - how many women were actually published in major speculative fiction magazines http://brassman.xtra-rant.com/women_write/
If you wanted to study women in fandom there are *so* many possible places to go. SF cons and all their accompanying documentation. Interviews. Fanzines. Websites. Groups of fans. Newspaper articles. Blogs. Lots of material and lots of ways of looking at it.
Why do my attempts to think about history always turn into these catalogues of sources and lists of questions that can be addressed? Maybe it's because when most people talk history at me they want to stick to names-and-dates and the history I do is not that at all. My history is all these issues: who is mentioned by writers and in fanzines and why; do women appear; do mythical figures; do table manners.
Except my books and my fanzines are mostly Medieval. I love it when Guiborc (or Oriabel - her name changes according to her level of conversion) refuses to let William of Orange into his own home.
"You go away for two years and never send a postcard and just expect to walk back in here without so much as a 'sorry dear' or a 'I missed you, you know'. Besides, how do I know you're my husband? You're wearing a helmet. You could be anyone.
'I won't let you in. This is my home and these are my armed guards and until you say you are very sorry and prove you are William, that big gate I installed will stay very firmly closed.
'If I change my mind and let you enter, I reserve the right to be angry. I don't care how many towns you say you captured or how brilliantly crusading you claim to be, when you return like this - an army at your heels - and knock on the door and announce 'I killed two of your cousins last week - damned pagans' I am tempted to leave you out there forever.'
And William talks and cajoles and takes his helmet off to prove the shape of his nose is recognisable even if nothing else is. And there is one of those 'how romantic' moments, but we *know* that Guiborc defended the castle in William's absence. No empty threats: one very strong woman. My favourite from the Old French epics.
Women appear in all sorts of places. What my beginning-of-a list was trying to show was that there are lots of ways of hunting them out and enjoying them. Dry-as-dust documents can be illuminated and can reach out and touch your soul. That's why I love being an historian. You find a marginal notation on a manuscript and suddenly you have a gloriously living being.
The past is only dead if we allow it to be. And women only have no history if we refuse to look for it.
Women in the speculative fiction world, for instance, can be approached from so many ways. There is a good book by Camille Bacon-Smith on women in fandom that takes one approach and one by Justine Larbalestier that takes another (I have already linked to the website-of-the-book when I mentioned Asimov and women).
What sorts of sources do these articles and books use? There are the obvious ones. Printed material: you can analyse texts or you can analyse the things that appear in texts. An instance of the latter is here - how many women were actually published in major speculative fiction magazines http://brassman.xtra-rant.com/women_write/
If you wanted to study women in fandom there are *so* many possible places to go. SF cons and all their accompanying documentation. Interviews. Fanzines. Websites. Groups of fans. Newspaper articles. Blogs. Lots of material and lots of ways of looking at it.
Why do my attempts to think about history always turn into these catalogues of sources and lists of questions that can be addressed? Maybe it's because when most people talk history at me they want to stick to names-and-dates and the history I do is not that at all. My history is all these issues: who is mentioned by writers and in fanzines and why; do women appear; do mythical figures; do table manners.
Except my books and my fanzines are mostly Medieval. I love it when Guiborc (or Oriabel - her name changes according to her level of conversion) refuses to let William of Orange into his own home.
"You go away for two years and never send a postcard and just expect to walk back in here without so much as a 'sorry dear' or a 'I missed you, you know'. Besides, how do I know you're my husband? You're wearing a helmet. You could be anyone.
'I won't let you in. This is my home and these are my armed guards and until you say you are very sorry and prove you are William, that big gate I installed will stay very firmly closed.
'If I change my mind and let you enter, I reserve the right to be angry. I don't care how many towns you say you captured or how brilliantly crusading you claim to be, when you return like this - an army at your heels - and knock on the door and announce 'I killed two of your cousins last week - damned pagans' I am tempted to leave you out there forever.'
And William talks and cajoles and takes his helmet off to prove the shape of his nose is recognisable even if nothing else is. And there is one of those 'how romantic' moments, but we *know* that Guiborc defended the castle in William's absence. No empty threats: one very strong woman. My favourite from the Old French epics.
Women appear in all sorts of places. What my beginning-of-a list was trying to show was that there are lots of ways of hunting them out and enjoying them. Dry-as-dust documents can be illuminated and can reach out and touch your soul. That's why I love being an historian. You find a marginal notation on a manuscript and suddenly you have a gloriously living being.
The past is only dead if we allow it to be. And women only have no history if we refuse to look for it.
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