History, understood broadly and removed from academic convention, encompasses all expressive forms that shed light on past events. This definition shifts history from a field of academic study to an active process of storytelling and argumentation, with outcomes in a variety of mediums—from podcasts to puppet shows to video games—alongside more traditional forms such as manuscripts and articles.1
To return to our Venn diagram metaphor from Monday’s class: this would mean that the entire historic craft would fit within the larger practice of storytelling. This categorization does not dismiss history as a practice, because crafting stories does not inherently mean they are fictional. Storytelling is accomplished by putting a series of individual pieces together to create a narrative that communicates something to an audience; with this understanding, the work of lawyers and musicians also falls within the domain of storytelling. While musicians string together notes into a symphony and lawyers build their cases from evidence, historians piece together primary sources and bits of information about the past to put together a historical narrative. Some histories are more narrative-heavy than others, but just because one mode of doing history is more data-driven does not take away its storytelling elements. Take a historical archive, for example. While an archive’s primary function may be to house primary sources, how those sources are organized (and the fact they were identified as needing preservation in the first place) conveys a distinctly expressive argument about the past even when the documents are not being explicitly interpreted by archivists. The same applies to any data-driven social histories or mapping projects; the ways historians use and organize data tell a story about the past in and of themselves.
As discussed, stories about the past take various forms. Some are told directly to an audience, such as in podcasts, YouTube videos, books, documentaries, and more. Others let the audience uncover or tell the story themselves, as with many historical video games that allow for nonlinear exploration of story elements.
Though I am partial to the visuality of YouTube videos, podcasts make up a large portion of directly narrated histories, including those produced by the RRCHNM.2 After listening to episodes from The Green Tunnel and Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant, I realized that both series took a conversational approach to presenting history. Instead of the hosts sitting down and reciting a straightforward narrative, they engaged with experts in various fields to discuss and learn more about the stories they tell in each episode. Coupled with music cues and dramatic story beats, the conversations not only created a more engaging presentation style, but also allowed the highlighted histories to be examined from multiple different viewpoints. In this, both podcasts check the boxes for public accessibility and scholarly collaboration.
As for nonlinear histories, historic digital games have established themselves in the cultural mainstream. From hyperlink-based Twine games that simulate a day in the life of a plague victim to a 16-bit medieval farming sim to a fully rendered Renaissance Italy in Assassin’s Creed II, digital games’ seemingly endless potential offers a unique way for audiences to engage with stories about the past. Experimenting with Twine in class was my first time creating a nonlinear historical narrative; it was difficult to find keystone choice events that would affect the story enough to be interesting, but would not derail the game’s historical narrative entirely. Inspired by the human-focused narratives in Cait Kirby’s COVID-19 game, Karine and I developed a game that explored the emotional reactions of one government employee receiving historic news that federal support for their agency was dwindling. Individual-focused narratives like these are one of many ways to communicate ideas about the past, but are uniquely powerful for instilling historical empathy in an audience. By allowing the audience to put themselves in the shoes of someone navigating historical circumstances, digital historic storytelling can be a truly influential medium and, as Kirby argues, an “effective way of getting people to change their minds” about a historic event.3
Until next week,
Go forth, and tell stories.
Alexa
- This working definition of history is my own, but has been shaped extensively by Dr. Gabi Tayac’s courses in public history and exhibit curation. ↩︎
- If you’re looking for suggestions, one of my favorite historical YouTube series is Tasting History with Max Miller, in which Miller explores cultural histories from around the world by making old recipies. ↩︎
- Megan Zahneis, “A Ph.D. Student Simulated a Day in the Life of a Covid-19 Era Campus. It Went Viral, But It Wasn’t Pretty.” Chronicle of Higher Education, July 1, 2020 ↩︎
I think your analysis of The Green Tunnel and Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant as “conversational” is very interesting — I had been thinking of these as traditional, linear documentary narratives, but there is something interesting about how they also function as conversations. It brings different characters and perspectives in in a way that a purely spoken narrative could not do on its own.
Hi Alexa, I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I think the way you’ve defined the larger practice of storytelling by incorporating its usefulness in other professions was great. Looking at digital storytelling through a historical lens was really interesting, and using Twine made it even more fun, but it helps to think about the larger definition of a skillset while you’re learning something new. I really enjoyed this week’s class, nice post!
The idea of history as storytelling really resonated with me, which is why I fell in love with it as a child. I remember watching Gettysburg as a kid, and though it was a Hollywood movie and not fully accurate to what really happened, I couldn’t help but get sucked into the story of these men who lived long ago. The idea carries forward to DH tools in telling the stories of history. Anytime we research or argue a point, we are interpreting historical data to tell a story. In the end, we are just storytellers.