ART H 531 Seattle Campus Seminar in Tribal Art Methodological and cross-disciplinary problems in the visual arts of precolonial Africa, Oceania, and America.
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While I would not phrase my concerns in quite the same way, I do agree with many of Vansina's assertions that we have been poor historians - that our attempts at thinking historically have often been tentative and na ve, our approaches idiosyncratic, and our results reflective of an absence of the sustained and systematic research so vital to the pursuit of historical truth. I believe that most art historians, whatever their area of interest, but specifically those dealing with the non-Western World, have still not given much thought to history or its many methods. We will begin by carefully reviewing Vansina's volume and wrestling with the criticisms he levels at art historians, and then examine a number of case studies that reveal how we have read and continue to misread historical materials. These case studies will focus upon artistic and ritual responses to specific historical encounters, ranging from those during the colonial period to the present, between westerners and third world peoples. Such a review should help alert us to the fact that it is not enough to embroider our writings with snippets and quotes from the past and present events and observations, for merely citing such documents and evidence can only result in empty evocations of the past.