ABSTRACT
This chapter is about the ethical implications of our attempt to make general sense of things through the idea of history. It shows how contemporary historians such as Weisner-Hanks, Joan Wallach Scott and Lynn Hunt have identified gender and sex as key means for initiating an examination of the assumptions that marginalise, subordinate or render invisible the experiences of individuals or groups in historiography. The chapter explores Derrida's concepts of the trace and home in the writings of Helene Cixous. Early modern European history is weird at the best of times. Merry Wiesner-Hanks' Marvelous Hairy Girls sits broadly within this wave, contributing to an important discussion on whether being human implies continuity in identity. with many other Early Modern European historians, Wiesner-Hanks sees the micro histories of the Gonzales sisters as drawing upon and as contributing to wider themes in feminist history, postcolonial theory, queer theory, disability theory, and monster history.
