ABSTRACT
Postmodern/poststructural thought permeates every field and has turned social research upside down. This is especially true for historiography, and those of us interested in keeping history engaged in contemporary themes must begin to consider some of the challenges of postmodernism and post-structuralism. We must consider how history can be written given the rejection of transcendental reason and foundational thinking, the decentering of subjectivity and culture, the declaration of the ‘end of history’, and the textualization of the social. This essay will address some of these themes by telling a story of one person’s reflections on his own work and thinking as a result of reading postmodern and poststructural writing. This intellectual journey will attempt to reveal, not only in its content, but also in its form, some of the influences of these new themes. However, this essay does not presume to be another treatise on postmodernism and poststructuralism; rather, it traces the impact of such writing on one person’s construction of history and, in so doing, provides new insights into the researching and writing of interpretive history. (For excellent discussions of postmodernism and poststructuralism, see Foster, 1983; Harland, 1987; LaCapra, 1987; Nicholson, 1990; Ross, 1988; for an excellent example of postmodernism in education see Boston University, 1988.) In 1985 I published an oral history titled, ‘The Complex Visions of Female Teachers and the Failure of Unionization in the 1930s: An Oral History’ (see chapter 10). I attempted, among other things, to portray a culture of women teachers who had taught in Hamilton, a small city in Ohio, during the Great
Depression. My research identified four metaphors which I claimed represented this culture. The four metaphors contradicted each other and, in fact, suffered from internal contradictions. For example, two of the metaphors, ‘the subordinate authority figure’ and ‘the school as a family’ suggest contradictions between the need for women teachers to be both subordinate to the authority of male administrators while authorities over children, and to be both a ‘mother’ to children in school while being prevented from being a real mother outside the school. In exploring this culture I became convinced that it revealed no unitary themes, no central patterns; that culture appeared complex and contradictory. While my empirical findings led me in this direction, I had no theoretical basis for dealing with my findings. I was convinced of my research, but I had difficulty linking it with a clear theoretical statement.
