Great podcast title, right? Those words still trigger a sort of survival reflex in me, based upon experience with an eminent professor. When he said those very words, you could bet that he would be talking for at least the next ten minutes, seemingly without commas, certainly without periods. By minute five you began to wonder if it was really possible to sleep with your eyes open; by minute eight you began to suspect that words could beat you to death.

Detail of " Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c.1555" (oil on canvas) by Bruegel, Pieter the Elder (c.1525-69)

Today in our continuing series on historical thinking we're talking with David Staley about what “context” actually means.  The official podcast definition of context, which as always is in the form of a question, is “what background knowledge helps us understand these documents?” For example, a sentence in a memoir reading “After our wedding, my husband travelled alone to California” has different weight if it was written in 1850, then if it was written in 1935—the difference between the California Gold Rush, and the Dust Bowl; or to be literary, between Mark Twain and John Steinbeck.

David Staley is an associate professor of history at The Ohio State University, where he also holds courtesy appointments in the Departments of Design--where he has taught courses in Design History and Design Futures--and Educational Studies. His research interests include digital history, the philosophy of history, historical methodology, and the history and future of higher education(following him on Twitter @davidstaley8). This is his third appearance on the podcast; he has previously been on to talk about alternative universities, and the history of the future—wherein we talked with my friend Brent Orrell about life after COVID, four months after COVID hit the United States.

 

For Further Investigation 

Julie Flavell, When London Was Capital of America

Crane Britton, The Anatomy of Revolution

David Bell, Men on Horseback: The Power of Charisma in the Age of Revolution 

David Armitage, Civil Wars: A History in Ideas

Alan D. Beyerchen, Scientists Under Hitler: Politics and the Physics Community in the Third Reich