other ways of conveying the otherness of the past

REVIEW SECTION REJOINDER Michael Grossberg’s Telling Tale

Other Ways of Conveying the Otherness of the Past

Brook Thomas

Michael Grossberg’s comments give me a chance to clarify some of my goals in reviewing his book (Thomas 1998) and to highlight some of our differences about the role of narrative. It is appropriate that I do so since one point I made in my review is that execution does not always match intention. Grossberg’s comments indicate that I was not as clear about some of my points as I should have been. Readers interested in the issues that we raise will, I hope, benefit from my renewed effort at clarity.

The first point to reemphasize-one that should frame all comments that follow-is that Grossberg has given us a fascinating account of the d’Hauteville trial. I did, however, feel that his declared intentions were not in complete accord with his use of the metaphor of the “law’s shadow” and his notion of legal hegemony. I will briefly respond to his explanation of both before turning to his argument about the need to convey the “otherness of the past.”

A great strength of Grossberg’s account is its interactive, dynamic model of the relation between law, society, and culture. Near the end of his response he declares, “It is this dynamic reality rather than a static sense of law as a constant set of institutions that I tried to capture with the shadow metaphor and the use of legal hegemony” (1998, 469). Nonetheless, he seems to grant that the metaphor of the law’s shadow is not always the most appropriate one to “capture” that reality, since it implies the law’s effect on social and cultural forces but not the reverse influence. Nonetheless, he does make a spirited defense of the notion of legal hegemony. Let me explain my problems with it.

Grossberg and I agree that the concept of hegemony can be useful because it replaces a simple notion of power emanating from political institu-

0 1998 American Bar Foundation. 0298-6546/98/2302-47 1$01 .OO 47 1

472 LAW AND SOCIAL INQUIRY

tions with a dynamic one of a complicated relation among political, economic, social, and cultural forces. Our difference is over the appropriate- ness of the notion of legal hegemony in the service of that dynamic model. Hegemony might offer a more complicated sense of rule, but for me it loses meaning when it is divorced from consideration of how some social groups maintain unequal power over others. A phrase like “law’s hegemony” makes that divorce possible because it creates an image of law itself in ascendancy instead of an image of some groups benefiting over others. Thus, rather than challenge-as Grossberg wants to-a “rule-of-law ideology,” the notion of legal hegemony reinforces it. Indeed, hegemony may be, as the Comaroffs argue, that part of a dominant ideology whose practices appear so natural that they do not seem ideological at all. But if it is, Abraham Lincoln would be advocating the triumph of “law’s hegemony” when he hopes to have rev- erence for the laws become the political religion of the nation, since the phrase implies that it is not a social class or a complicated alliance of social groups that rules society but law itself. In short, the phrase risks reifying the law and implying that the country did indeed reach a state where it had rule by law rather than men.

If a reified image of the law tells a story that Grossberg did not intend to tell, what about his stated intentions? In his comment Grossberg empha- sizes two “interconnected goals”: “to have readers experience the case itself, and to have them evaluate my argument about the meaning of such exper- iences” (1998, 462). These goals correspond, I assume, to what in his book he describes as a desire to have readers experience the trial “as the mael- strom it was” (1996, xv) and his desire to “recover” for us the “significance” of the trial’s “uncertainties and disagreements” ( 1996, xiv). Whereas Gross- berg sees these two goals as “interconnected,” I tried to show that they are also sometimes at odds with one another. By providing readers with authorial commentary on the trial’s significance, I argued, Grossberg undercuts his desire to bring the “case back to life” (1996, xv). After all, readers told the significance of an uncertainty probably no longer experience it as all that uncertain.

To illustrate a narrative technique that conveys a more immediate sense of a trial’s uncertainties I turned to James Goodman’s The Stories of Scottsboro (1994). Whereas Grossberg, I argued, draws on the tradition of nineteenth-century literary realism by intruding into his narrative to comment on the significance of the events he narrates, Goodman draws on the techniques of literary modernism to show rather than tell. That comparison, unfortunately, generated some misunderstanding, especially because I called Goodman innovative and Grossberg traditional. Grossberg therefore con- cluded that (1) I posit a simple methodological opposition: innovative with- holding of authorial commentary and traditional use of it, and (2) I prefer the former.

The Otherness of the Past 473

Let me try to clear up some misunderstanding and then focus on Gross- berg’s and my real difference. First, I completely agree with Grossberg that authors have a variety of options when it comes to their role in historical storytelling, each with “attributes and liabilities” (1998, 461). An earlier version of my review had a much longer section on the range of options, but forced to make choices, as all writers must, I dropped it to devote more space to Grossberg’s argument itself. Suffice it to say that as a student of narrative history, I am well aware of the differences between the autobio- graphical first-person narrative techniques of people associated with critical race theory such as Patricia Williams and Richard Delgado, the seemingly innovative “postmodernist” modes of authorial commentary by a historian like Robert Rosenstone in Mirror and the Shrine (1988), and the methods of Grossberg and Goodman as well as many other variations adopted by historians.

Second, for me, the terms innovative and traditional are not value laden. Grossberg writes that, “All of us, I assume, want to be considered innovative, and thus to be labeled traditional is inevitably a bit deflating” (1998, 461). As a literary critic, I do not share Grossberg’s assumption. On the contrary, I have great respect for traditional modes of narration. They have produced some of our best works of literature and history. Furthermore, by now in the field of literature, modernist strategies have a tradition of their own, so that many consider postmodem modes of authorial intrusion more innovative. In calling Grossberg’s strategy of narrative intrusion traditional, I had no desire to deflate; I was simply trying to be historically accu- rate about the use of authorial commentary in historical writing. On this matter, Peter Burke, whom Grossberg cites, would agree. Nonetheless, in a section entitled “Traditional Narrative versus Modern Narrative,” Burke in- sists that, in contrast to someone like Hayden White, he is “not arguing that historians are obliged to engage in literary experiments simply because they live in the twentieth century.” Burke also notes that, “Some innovations are probably best avoided by historians” (1992, 238). I agree with both of Burke’s comments.

A third point I need to clarify is that authorial commentary-or lack of it-is not the only possibility for innovation. Grossberg, for instance, cites as a model Natalie Davis (1973), whom Burke also cites as someone who has developed new ways to reveal social structures while narrating spe- cific events. And Grossberg quite rightly points out that Davis also uses authorial commentary. But Burke discusses Davis, not in the section “Tradi- tional Narrative versus Modern Narrative,” but in the section called “Thickening Narratives,” which is about historians’ use of what Clifford Geertz calls “thick description” to produce “micronarratives.” Indeed, in the same section Burke praises Jonathan Spence’s The Gate of Heavenly Peace as “exemplary” in this regard while adding that it “looks like a piece of con-


ventional history” (Burke 1992, 242-43). Spence’s and Davis’s innovation is not their use of authorial commentary, but their use of description. My comments on traditional versus innovative were meant to focus on the issue of authorial commentary. I am sorry if I did not make this focus clear.

What I hope to clarify is that for me the issue is not innovation over tradition; it is how historians can find the most appropriate strategy for the sense of history that they are trying to convey. Thus my comparison between Goodman and Grossberg simply tried to point out that, if historians want readers to experience the uncertainties of a trial in a more immediate fashion, Goodman offers a model of how to do s0.l A related point was that, although Grossberg announces two goals, ultimately the goal of recovering significance takes priority over the goal of bringing the “case back to life” (1996, xv). I believe that Grossberg agrees with me that this goal did indeed take priority when he argues that contextualization, which for him required authorial commentary, is not a task that “ought to be spurned in an effort to encourage readers to experience past events” (1998, 463). If there is a crucial difference between Grossberg and me, it is signaled by the imperative contained in his “ought.”

Grossberg’s “ought” indicates that, although he acknowledges a variety of narrative strategies each with “attributes and liabilities,” writers who do not “contextualize” fail to fulfill “one of the fundamental tasks of a historian.” Contextualization is so important for him because of historians’ primary responsibility to convey “the otherness of the past.” “Failing to contextualize the d’Hautevilles’ words, I feared, would mean that readers would give them present-day meanings” (1998, 463).

I agree that at least part of a historian’s task is to make readers experience the “otherness of the past.” In fact, I will go a bit further: contextualization is not only a fundamental task, it is an inevitable one-which is not to say that it is always done well. For instance, even an account that es- chews direct authorial comment provides a context for past events by select- ing evidence, by placing it within a narrative structure, and by juxtaposing some events with others. Grossberg, to be sure, has some legitimate worries over such strategies of contextualization. Direct authorial instruction, he seems to feel, is the best way to guard against presentism. Indeed, in his comment he recalls feeling “compelled to make more and more interven- tions” (1998, 462) in order to make “the ‘otherness of the past’ clear.” But if Grossberg has legitimate worries about the dangers of not using authorial commentary to contextualize, it is important to point out that his method has dangers of its own.

1. As accomplished as Davis’s narrative in The Return of Martin Guerre is, it does not give readers Goodman’s sense of immediacy since, as Burke notes, she frequently provides commentary telling us how her events reveal social structures. Clearly participants in the events themselves did not have a sense that they were part of the social structures that she retrospectively describes for us.


As a teacher of literature I constantly face students wanting to impose present-day meanings on past texts. As a historically minded teacher of literature, I have found that one relatively effective way to keep them from doing so is to use lectures as a form of “authorial commentary” to place the works they are reading in historical context. But my classroom experience also suggests various limits to this method.

First, my most rewarding classes have relied less on providing a context through direct commentary and more on providing one through careful se- lection of primary material. For instance, rather than read Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman (1905) and lecture on scientific racism at the turn of the century, I have students read works of scientific racism to create a context for Dixon’s novel and vice versa. Many people use similar pedagogical strategies. They are, I think, analogous to the narrative strategy Goodman uses. He selects and organizes his material so that his stories create a context for one another, and although he clearly has a sense of the significance of those stories, his readers are relatively free to discover it for themselves. To create such a context in both teaching and writing is no easy task, but when it is done well students and readers get more of a sense that a period or trial has been brought “back to life.” They must then do the hard work of understanding the past on its own terms rather than relying on the authoritative pronouncements of either teacher or author, neither of whom, despite pro- fessional expertise, has a mysterious access to the past that others do not. Indeed, one reason 1 find this such a rewarding pedagogical strategy is that students sometimes come up with insights that challenge my sense of the past’s otherness.

Second, when I provide students with a context through lectures I do my best to make “the ‘otherness of the past’ clear.” Still, I am fully aware that someone else could provide a different context that would alter our understanding of the works that we are reading. The context I offer, in other words, like a context that a historian creates for readers, is one of a variety of constructs about the past that we produce in the present. Gross- berg, of course, acknowledges this. But not all historians who share his acknowledgment feel compelled to intervene as he felt compelled to intervene.

Some, like Rosenstone, have used this acknowledgment to indulge in the very presentism that Grossberg wants to guard against. Rosenstone, like Grossberg, offers authorial commentary, but his breaks the aura of realism by self-consciously reminding us that we are reading an account of the past produced by him in the present. Others remind us that any effort to explain the significance of past events is not a simple act of recovering meaning, but instead an act of translating the meaning of something in the past into terms understandable today. Thus, despite our best efforts to understand the past on its own terms, we risk leaving out of our accounts those aspects that are


not translatable into present understandings; that is, precisely those aspects that make the past radically different from the present. Historians and literary historians aware of this risk, especially those influenced by Michel Fou- cault, like Stephen Greenblatt (1980, 1988), have therefore developed a narrative strategy that juxtaposes various bizarre and eccentric events and details that do not fit into existing historical accounts. The point is not to offer authorial commentary or contextualization that will explain their significance, since doing so would risk domesticating them by accounting for them. On the contrary, the point is to force us to confront their “unac- countability” as a way of experiencing something truly different about the past.

It should go without saying that these strategies, like others, have liabilities as well as assets, both of which I have treated at length in a book entitled The New Historicism and Other Old-Fashioned Topics (1991). The strategy does, nonetheless, highlight some risks involved in creating context through authorial commentary, and thus connects to a third lesson I have learned while trying to teach students to respect the otherness of the past. Grossberg fears that, unless he intervened to instruct readers, they would impose present meanings. My experience as a teacher, however, has taught me that no amount of “authorial commentary” will guarantee that I convey to students the “otherness of the past.” I have learned this not only because of the obvious point that students do not always listen to what I say but also because I have become more and more aware that my own sense of the past’s significance can exclude some crucial aspects of its otherness.

The inability of authorial commentary to guarantee that readers experience the otherness of the past does not mean that it should be abandoned as a narrative strategy. No other technique can guarantee that experience either. I fully agree with Grossberg that, “Ultimately, the past can never be completely accessible to those in the present, and thus its events can never be fully experienced” (1998, 463). Grossberg uses that insight to conclude that a fundamental task of the historian is, therefore, to contextualize, and he seems to assume that the best way to contextualize is to offer authorial commentary. In contrast, I use the insight to conclude that all narrations place the past in some context or other. Thus the question is not “To contextualize or not to contextualize ?” but “How should we contextualize to convey the sense of the past we want to convey?” Indeed, it is precisely because the past is never “completely accessible” that Alan Megill’s argument (1989) about historical narration is so important. Our experience of the past’s otherness is in large measure determined by how it is “recounted.”

Grossberg, to repeat, offers a fascinating recounting. But whereas he sees his two narrative goals as “interconnected,” I point out how they come into tension. If Grossberg had placed priority on letting readers experience the trial’s “uncertainties and disagreements” rather than recovering for us


their significance, he would have needed a different mode of recounting and we would have had a different experience of the past’s “otherness.” If he worries that such a recounting would have given readers too much freedom to impose present meanings on the past, it is important to remember that his expert authorial commentary also runs the risk of imposing present meanings. Indeed, as authoritatively as Grossberg has interpreted the otherness of a past trial for us, he would surely agree that not even he has told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about that otherness.

REFERENCES

Burke, Peter, ed. . 1992. New Perspectives on Historical Writing. University Park: Penn-

Davis, Natalie Z. 1973. The Return of Martin Guerre. Cambridge: Harvard University

Dixon, Thomas. 1905. The Clansman. New York: Doubleday and Page. Goodman, James. 1994. Stories of Scottsboro. New York: Pantheon Books. Greenblatt, Stephen. 1980. Renaissance Self-Fashioning. Chicago: University of Chicago

. 1988. Shakespearean Negotiations. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cali-

Grossberg, Michael. 1996. A Judgment for Solomon: The D’Hauteville Case and Legal Expe-

sylvania University Press.

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rience in Antebellum America. New York: Cambridge University Press. . 1998. How to Tell Law Stories. Law and Social Inquiry 23:459-71.

Megill, Alan. 1989. Recounting the Past: “Description,” Explanation, and Narrative in

Rosenstone, Robert. 1988. Mirror and the Shrine: American Encounters in Meiji Japan.

Thomas, Brook. 1998. Michael Grossberg’s Telling Tale: The Social Drama of an Ante-

. 1991. The New Histm’cism and Other Old-Fashioned Topics. Princeton, N.J.:

Historiography. American Historical Review 94:627-53.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

bellum Custody Case. Law and Social Inquiry 23:431-58.

Princeton University Press.

other ways of conveying the otherness of the past

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