Martin Meenagh blog

  The Civil War: Coverage and Coherence  These lecture notes have been cross-posted to my wix account.    I: The nature of History   If we begin at the beginning of things, history the writing and pursuit of history itself is the obvious starting point. By History, I mean to convey the nexus of professional, non-academic, personal, oral, social, and archaeological evidence and dispute which constitutes our understanding of the past. As a proven lawyer, I should also note that by evidence I mean the testimonial, circumstantial, forensic, and expert interpretation of the accretion of events. Counterfactual and inductive histories, which proceed from what didn’t happen, and from analogy and the perception of the observer as to what they think happened, aren’t really history, though they can be fun, and I feel duty bound to exclude them.   History is often called the Queen on the Arts. This idea, which emerged in the setting of the English traditi...

 Some undergraduates have in the past benefitted from advice about papers. Here is some about papers which are focussed on the historical meaning or importance of architecture. It relates to paper writing in general.  There are several ways of including a location or building in a paper. One should first of all define clearly whether one wishes to adopt a narrow or a broad view; are you looking at a place for itself—its aesthetics, structure, or impression to you—are are you going to connect the place, your impression of it, or its history to some greater thing? So—crudely, set up a tickbox. Am I talking about architecture or the way architecture reflects and builds society? Am I talking about a place or building or collection of buildings or is my primary focus the history of something greater?   It may help to focus upon an activity or person connected with the place. So, for instance, fleet street seems apt to connect to newspapers or to the way in which the ...