Historiography and Historiophoty is the name of an essay by historical philosopher Hayden White first published in 1988 in The American Historical Review. In the essay Hayden coins the term Historiophoty to describe the representation of history and our thought about it in visual images and filmic discourse. Hayden says historiophoty "..is in contrast to Historiography which is the representation of history in verbal images and written discourse,". Hayden White is a historian in the tradition of literary criticism, perhaps most famous for his work Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (1973). ... Historiography is writing about rather than of history. ...
Hayden originally coined the term as a rhetorical device in response to an essay by Robert Rosenstone in the same issue of AHR entitled "History in images/History in words: Reflections on the possibility of really putting history onto film". Hayden for the sake of exploring Rosenstones premise (that history can be portrayed on film) created the term historiophoty as a description of the study of history through film. As a philosopher by trade and nature it can not be assumed that Hayden thought historiophoty was a real thing, but rather his essay was a thought experiment on what it would be like if in fact such a thing did exist, in effect taking Rosenthals conclusions to the next level.
Whatever Haydens intention since the publication of his 1988 essay the word historiophoty has entered in to public and professional discourse. For example Brian Le Beau wrote "Historiography Meets Historiophoty: The Perils and Promise of Rendering the Past on Film" in American Studies Volume 38, no. 1 (Spring 1997) [1] (http://www.ku.edu/~amerstud/1997.spring.html). A book has been published titled History of Western Historiography, History of England, Historiophoty by Chou, Liang-kai.
White, Hayden. "Historiography and Historiophoty (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28198812%2993%3A5%3C1193%3AHAH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U)". The American Historical Review, Vol. 93, No. 5. (Dec., 1988), pp. 1193-1199. Available online through JSTOR.
JSTOR (Journal Storage) is an online system for archiving academic journals. ... JSTOR (Journal Storage) is an online system for archiving academic journals. ...
Historiography and Historiophoty is the name of an essay by literary theorist of history Hayden White first published in 1988 in The American Historical Review.
Hayden says historiophoty "..is in contrast to Historiography which is the representation of history in verbal images and written discourse,".
White was not necessarilyclaiming that historiophoty exists, or that it ought to; his essay was a thought experiment on what historiophoty would be like if in fact such a thing did exist.
The first is that of the relative adequacy of what we might call "historiophoty" (the representation of history and our thought about it in visual images and filmic discourse) to the criteria of truth and accuracy presumed to govern the professional practice of historiography (the representation of history in verbal images and written discourse).
It is obvious that cinema (and video) are better suited than written discourse to the actual representation of certain kinds of historical phenomena--landscape, scene, atmosphere, complex events such as wars, battles, crowds, and emotions.
He indicates that many of the problems posed by the effort to "put history onto film" stem from the notion that the principal task is to translate what is already a written discourse into an imagistic one.
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