This thread reminds me of the current situation in archaeology as a whole
(and to some extent academic enquiry in general...). 'Critical'
approaches, however defined, are now well established in some areas, to
the extent of becoming an orthodoxy. At the same time scholarly
traditions of a previous generation continue unaffected in other areas.
Disciplines, rather than moving in one direction or another, have merely
fragmented into very different traditions, each of which thinks that it
has been intellectually victorious (I think of the historian who has just
confidently assured me that 'nobody believes in postmodernism any more'
and another who had never heard of it in the first place).
As a result, it seems to me that it is quite possible a)for Thomas Dowson
to characterise a great deal of art history in the way he does and
b)Louise Hitchcock to protest that in her Department art history is not at
all like that. They are both right!
Perhaps what is needed is not a comparison of the relative merits of
different disciplines, but rather an analysis of how we can tolerate such
fragmentation -- how such different and apparently contradictory
viewpoints continue to coexist and even fail to acknowledge the others'
existence? When does diversity and a broad church (good) become
fragmentation and isolation (bad)?
Matthew
Prof Matthew H Johnson
Dept of Archaeology
University of Durham
South Road
Durham DH1 3LE
U.K.
Tel 0191 374 4755
Fax 0191 374 3619
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