Feminist Historiography, Journalism History, and the Problem of Human Agency


I have posted pdf files of my dissertation, "Feminist Historiography, Journalism History, and the Problem of Human Agency," on my .Mac website. I completed this in 1994. Although it is somewhat outdated, particularly in its discussion of various theoretical versions of feminism, as well as its discussion of the state of journalism historiography, much of it is still relevant.

Abstract below.

This dissertation explores the implications of feminist theory and feminist historiography for journalism historiography. In particular, I address what I see as some of the fundamental theoretical assumptions about the nature of historical inquiry that currently set the boundary conditions for historical investigation in this field. These assumptions determine the kinds of questions historians may ask and the explanatory frameworks they may use.

I consider the earliest criticisms of "masculinist" or "phallocentric" history made by feminist historians and connect those criticisms to the problem of women's agency. I offer a broad survey of theories of human agency and show how fundamental assumptions regarding human agency have definite implications for how one goes about examining and explaining women's participation in historical action. I show how existing definitions of human agency obscure the masculine frames of reference within which they operate by failing to theorize gender as a structural constraint, not only upon female agency, but also on male agency.

I conclude by discussing how, given what I have said in the previous chapters, one might go about raising questions about and developing explanatory frameworks for American journalism history. I suggest that we take the existing texts of journalism history — as well as the texts upon which they are based — as representations of reality rather than more or less accurate descriptions of reality. By doing so we can begin to understand how cultural meanings assigned to gender as well as the relations of power embedded therein have shaped the narrative forms that journalism history has taken. In the process, we may open that history — in all of the meanings attached to the term — to new narrative possibilities.

Posted: Tue - September 11, 2007 at 10:20 AM          

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