APG-L Archives
Archiver > APG > 2009-04 > 1240326247
From:
Subject: Re: [APG] genealogy and academia
Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:04:07 -0500
In-Reply-To: <51A2B2A7AFB14853B225E7EF59386FBF@acer511eba12df>
Any door that's open is better than one that's shut. Certainly our most
scholarly practitioners try to position us as historical researchers. But
"quickly gain wider legitimacy"? I wish, but biography and geography aren't
doing so well.
And a great deal of what's published as genealogy in periodicals -- outside of
the three or four flagship journals -- is likely to set professional
historians' teeth on edge in the same way that an online family tree with dead
people having children sets ours on edge.
Harold
> Should genealogy be a separate academic discipline? I've mixed feelings on
> the question myself. I think it would benefit more from being a
> sub-category under a department of History, maybe as a social history
> sub-discipline but I have something of a background in historical research
> so maybe a bias there.
>
> As a sub-category of a discipline like History that has a long and valued
> tradition, I think genealogy would quickly gain wider legitimacy and
> acceptance within academic circles.
>
> The boundaries between many disciplines are becoming blurred, and that would
> be true for genealogy as well. It will continue to straddle several
> disciplines, drawing concepts and approaches from each. At that point maybe
> it would become viable as a separate entity (or a collective subject
> approach).
>
> Larry
>
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> -------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message
Harold Henderson
Research and Writing from Northwest Indiana
home office 219/324-2620
http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com
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