As Matthew Johnson points out: Dowson and myself are both right. I am all
too painfully and financially aware of the art history that Dowson refers
to which is very much alive and well. I have too often had to answer in job
interviews the question of whether I consider myself an art historian or an
archaeologist. I merely wanted to point out that we weren't all like that
and that not all institutions are like that.
Art history has been so fragmented for so long that there is practically a
genre of "crisis literature" (for a good intro see Preziosi "Rethinking Art
History: Meditations on a Coy Science).
However, I am conflicted on the value of Julian's observation that:
> listening to, and arguing with, and agreeing to disagree with
>others is a mutually enriching process.
I find that a lot of the resistence is more than just metaphysical
assumptions, but that there is also a certain amount of resistance based
on feelings of intimidation re. new approaches and that many would rather
circle the wagons than engage in dialog which is also incommensurate
because of the different power relations that come into play. I think that
it is important to continue to analyze the distribution of power and to
analyze discourse in the different institutions and disciplines.
Incidentally, if I had a dollar (or a pound) for every professor (across
disciplines) I've heard say: 'nobody believes in postmodernism any more' I
could retire.
Louise
Louise A. Hitchcock, Ph.D.
Research Associate,
Institute of Archaeology, UCLA
and
Near Eastern Studies Center, UCLA
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Lecturer,
Dept. of Anthropology,
California State University, Dominguez Hills
and Dept. of Art History, UCLA
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