Archival Intimacies: Empathy and Historical Practice in 2023

Q2 Arts and Humanities

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Pub Date : 2023-08-07 DOI:10.1017/s0080440123000099

S. Fox

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Abstract

This article explores the use of empathy in historical research. Using evidence collected from a number of academic historians working in UK higher education institutions in 2022, this article uses empathy as a window into historians’ attitudes towards the professional self, the appearance of objectivity and their relationship to the historical subject. It explores the role of empathy in learning history, teaching history, in historical research including the selection of sources, and in the communication of historical research to different audiences. It discusses empathetic historical approaches, suggesting that these can be categorised into three distinct taxonomies: historical empathy, where the researcher engages with the historical subject using professional detachment to manage their affective response; historicised empathy, where the researcher employs deep knowledge of historical context to understand and appreciate the worldview of their historical subject; and empathy as historical approach, so person-centred (rather than system-centred) accounts of history. Finally, this article tests its hypotheses by exploring histories in which empathy is absent.

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档案亲密关系：移情与2023年的历史实践

本文探讨移情在历史研究中的应用。本文利用2022年从英国高等教育机构的一些学术历史学家那里收集的证据，将同理心作为一个窗口，了解历史学家对职业自我的态度、客观性的表现以及他们与历史主题的关系。它探讨了移情在学习历史、教授历史、历史研究（包括来源的选择）以及向不同受众传播历史研究中的作用。它讨论了移情历史方法，表明这些方法可以分为三个不同的分类法：历史移情，研究人员使用专业超然来管理他们的情感反应；历史移情，研究者运用对历史语境的深刻了解来理解和欣赏他们的历史主体的世界观；同理心是一种历史方法，因此以人为中心（而不是以系统为中心）的历史叙述也是如此。最后，本文通过探究移情缺失的历史来检验其假设。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Arts and Humanities-History

CiteScore

0.50

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0.00%

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期刊介绍： The Royal Historical Society has published the highest quality scholarship in history for over 150 years. A subscription includes a substantial annual volume of the Society’s Transactions, which presents wide-ranging reports from the front lines of historical research by both senior and younger scholars, and two volumes from the Camden Fifth Series, which makes available to a wider audience valuable primary sources that have hitherto been available only in manuscript form.