Historical scholarship, periodization, themes, and specialization: Implication for research and publication

Journal of Scholarly Publishing

Volumn 39, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 144-155

  Hérubel, Jean Pierre V M ^a  

^a PURDUE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Disciplines; Historical scholarship; Periodization; Scholarly communication; Specialization

Indexed keywords

EID: 40949161459     PISSN: 11989742     EISSN: 17101166     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3138/jsp.39.2.144     Document Type: Article

References (23)

1. See F.E. Sparshott, 'Notes on the Articulation of Time: A Symposium on Periods,' New Literary History 1, 2 (Winter 1970): 311-34.
2. See Robert Stalnaker, 'Events, Periods, and Institutions in Historians' Language,' History and Theory 6, 2 (1967): 159-79.
3. The Renaissance and, for that matter, the Middle Ages pose serious scholarly concerns over just what constitutes these periods. For a fascinating examination, consult Wallace K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought. Five Centuries of Interpretation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1948).
4. For a historical and very informative account, consult M. De Fillipus, 'The Renaissance Problem Again,' Italica 20, 2 Uune 1943): 65-80;
5. for additional thoughts on the complex historiographical ramifications, see Otto Gerhard Oexle, 'The Middle Ages through Modern Eyes: A Historical Problem (The Prothero Lecture),' Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 9 (1999): 121-42.
6. For such discussions, see Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval and Modern (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1994);
7. see also the American historical profession's recent commentary on advanced training and specialization: Thomas Bender, Philip Katz, Colin Palmer, and the American Historical Association Committee on Graduate Education, The Education of Historians for the Twenty-First Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press 2004).
8. For a sound and revealing discussion, see Theodore S. Hamerow, Reflections on History and Historians (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 1987).
9. Among interesting articles, see Richard Yeo, 'Reading Encyclopedias: Science and the Organization of Knowledge in British Dictionaries of Arts and Sciences, 1730-1850,' Isis 82, 1 (March 1991): 24-49; there exists a highly honed and penetrating corpus of scholarship concerning the culture of the encyclopedia, especially the European and North American traditions.
10. For insightful discussion of the importance of encyclopaedia writing for scholarship, see Lawrence E. Sullivan, 'Circumscribing Knowledge: Encyclopedias in Historical Perspective,' Journal of Religion 70, 3 (July 1990): 315-39;
11. William W. Brickman and Francesco Cordasco, 'Paul Monroe's Cyclopedia of Education: With Notices of Educational Encyclopedias Past and Present,' History of Education Quarterly 10, 3 (Autumn 1970): 324-37.
12. An interesting and fruitful foray into the multifaceted and many-layered constellation of historical research and scholarly activity is D.R. Woolf, ed., A Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing (New York: Garland Publishing 1998);
13. see also the masterful Kelly Boyd, ed., Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, vols. 1 and 2 (London: Fitzroy Dearborn 1999).
14. For an instructive history of the history journal, see Margaret F. Stieg, The Origin and Development of Scholarly Historical Periodicals (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press 1986).
15. An interesting example is the carefully nurtured field of library history and its flagship journal: see Andrew B. Wertheimer, 'Quantifying the "Goodness" of Library History Research: A Bibliometric Study of the Journal of Library History/Libraries & Culture,' Libraries and Culture 40, 3 (Summer 2005): 267-84;
16. Edward A. Goedeken, "What We Wrote About and Who We Were: Historical Writings in JLH/L&C, 1966-2000,' Libraries and Culture 38, 3 (Summer 2003): 250-65.
17. For an analysis of this field's journal literature and the scholarly publishing of library history, see Jean-Pierre V,M. Hérubel and Edward A. Goedeken, 'Journals Publishing American Library History: A Research Note,' Libraries and Culture 29, 2 (Spring 1994): 205-9. A further example would be History of Universities, a journal devoted exclusively to the history of universities within the larger field of the history of education.
18. An analysis of the American Historical Review offers some additional historiographic perspective on its evolution vis-à-vis periodization, themes, and specialization; see Jean-Pierre V.M. Hérubel and Edward A.Goedeken, 'Trends in Historical Scholarship as Evidenced in The American Historical Review. 1896-1990,' Serials Review 19, 2 (Summer 1993): 79-83.
19. Studies of other history journals include Jean-Pierre V.M. Hérubel and Anne L. Buchanan, 'Disciplinary, Interdisciplinary, and Subdisciplinary Linkages in Historical Studies Journals,' Science and Science of Science 3 (1994): 15-24;
20. Anne L. Buchanan and Jean-Pierre V.M. Hérubel, 'Interdisciplinarity in Historical Studies: Citation Analysis of the Journal of Interdisciplinary History,' LIBRES. Library and Information Science Research Electronic Journal 4, 2/3 (August 1994): 1-13, http://serials.infomotions.com/libres/ libres-v4n02-3-buchananinterdisciplinarity.txt.
21. Ulrich's Periodical Directory, http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ ulrichsweb/. A perusal of the directory database on 30 January 2007 revealed 7,406 active history journal titles and 2,124 active titles available in English.
22. It is the science and technology fields that have sustained the burden of exponential growth; see Derek 1. de Solla Price, Little Science, Big Science - and Beyond (New York: Columbia University Press 1986).
23. See Margaret Stieg Dalton,. 'A System Destabilized: Scholarly Books Today,' Journal of Scholarly Publishing 37, 4 (July 2006): 251-69.