Historical deconstruction and re-creation by narrative
illustration, evoking the multiplicity of unheard narratives
within historical experience

Barrett, Edmund

You are here : University of Gloucestershire > Research > Research Repository

Historical deconstruction and re-creation by narrative illustration, evoking the multiplicity of unheard narratives within historical experience

Tools

Barrett, Edmund (2024) Historical deconstruction and re-creation by narrative illustration, evoking the multiplicity of unheard narratives within historical experience. PhD thesis, University of Gloucestershire. doi:10.46289/GMEI5659

Preview

Text (© Edmund Barrett (2024))
16585 Barrett, Edmund (2024) Historical deconstruction and re-creation by narrative illustration.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License All Rights Reserved.
Download (38MB) | Preview

Official URL: https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/16585/

Abstract

In this interdisciplinary practice-research project, I use drawing to interrogate historical theory and to evoke a multiplicity of potential historical narratives. I also use drawing to interrogate and challenge traditionally established assumptions about the practice of history, such as the adequacy of written language to represent the past, or the idea that historians should be objective and detached. To do this, I use an historical case study as a vehicle for my experiments: William Shaw’s Bowes Academy, 1814-1840. I distinguish between drawing (as a research method) and illustration (as a way of visually communicating an idea). In my work, I use drawing to discover, interpret, describe, interrogate, express, and process ideas, and the understandings that I create based on traces of the past. I use illustration to communicate my ideas for a broader audience, with the aim of encouraging them to explore and manipulate their interpretations of my images in order to create their own narratives, as historians would explore and manipulate their interpretations of traces of the past to create narratives. Positioning myself as a deconstructionist historian, based on Munslow and Jenkins’ categorisation of historical genres, I understand that there can be no final or single ‘true’ story, and that we can never know everything. I also advocate the distinction between the past (as that which is gone) and history (as ideas communicated about the past). I do not believe that the past can be adequately represented using language of any kind (visual or verbal), and, rather than supporting distanced and impersonal impartiality, I actively draw attention to my own subjectivity and presence in my work. I present my thesis using integrated drawn and written elements, designed to be ‘read’ together to build a broader and more nuanced understanding of my project and the ideas that I explore in my work.

Item Type:

Thesis (PhD)

Thesis Advisors: