Postmodernism | Historiography

Historians now question the grand narratives that reinforced nationalism, and thereby modernism. Postmodernism in the history profession is simply that, showing that abstract categories such as race, class, gender, and nations are social constructs that feed into a grand narrative. We built them and they changed over time, to the point of making them appear natural. So postmodernists deconstruct that grand narrative. While this shows how a given social construct came into being and what is used for, this ultimately undermines its power by showing that these are not fixed and natural abstractions.
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Bibliography
James M. Banner, The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History Is Revisionist History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2021). amzn.to/3y0Y8er
Peter Gunn, History and Cultural Theory (Oxon, UK: Pearson Education Limited, 2006). amzn.to/2uWmK9F
Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza, eds., A Companion to Western Historical Thought (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2002). amzn.to/2LhuzSf
Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988). amzn.to/2D3NM46
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[@phoenixshadow6633]

History, the tombstone of great big unifying narrative ideas

[@john2g1]

I came to the comment section for engagement and to ask how many people would get triggered by this video that's literally defining words...
And I couldn't start typing before someone was triggered and invoked Crypto.

[@ianyork2655]

You are probably the only reason I survived history grad school because it took me a lot longer than I liked to understand historiography

[@CynicalHistorian]

Thanks. Historiography is often taught by having you read the source and then discuss it, seminar style. Problem is, that doesn't guarantee that students will get at the core idea, rendering it impossible to fully grasp until students go outside the core curriculum. I know all too well from being just as confused as you were, but luckily I was assigned the Gunn book in my description, which helped a lot. I'm class, everytime someone referenced it, we said, "I'm pulling my Gunn out." This was at Cal Poly in 2014, and somehow no one found it offensive, LOL

[@ianyork2655]

@@CynicalHistorian yeah the reading of sources and then having people discuss methodology and historiography In an essay isn’t the greatest way of teaching. The book that gave me the ah ha moment was reading constitutional history books and having to compare them and I was like ooooh I was supposed to be doing this last semester

[@joshuasutherland6692]

The first good and concise definition of potmodernism I've heard thanks.

[@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat]

Funny enough, i had a promotion for the white symbol shirt for this channel in the corner. I know its the channel symbol in white but "white symbol" missing the shirt context on a video about nationalism and grand narratives...
Ok it's not that funny...

[@CynicalHistorian]

I placed that promo and never even made the connection there, LOL

[@iamtondro3747]

I'm a meta-modernist

[@pi8869]

I hope this helped with engagement

[@pi8869]

I love you cipher as we are parted on to different sides of aisle waving with friendly grace.

[@zackerymcginnis9063]

If they are not stealing from or killing you or your family friend in a free society. We stay in our own lane. We have very few powerful people with bad intentions who seek to confuse our young minds into forgetting the simplicity of freedom and happiness with fantastic stories of injustice leaving out the beautiful unity and struggles to bring our freedoms into existence. We should respect our elders and the horrors they endured so we could live in such peace that we spend our time thinking of things like this and we are not bleeding on battlefield or burying our loved ones from starvation from poverty to keep the landlord’s power from our own prejudice god bless

[@pi8869]

why does it feel like you're becoming a commie I don't get it bro, what changed you was it the historian degree?

[@TheBeefCentral]

lol it’s just a historiography.
Ironically post modernists (very very generally, it’s an iffy grouping) I’m somewhat sure are relatively suspicious of communism due to its grand narrative, historical, dialectical materialism etc

[@dothesick]

Why would a history degree turn him into a communist?

[@ohauss]

Or maybe you have no idea what a "commie" looks like and are too busy parroting propaganda to actually acquire any actual knowledge of the world around you.

[@mbryson2899]

This is anecdotal, but all four of historians with whom I have socialized had all grown to be communists or socialists as their knowledge progressed. I suspect studying history does that to one.
Capitalism has always been a dead-end game, just like feudalism.

[@john2g1]

First off post-modernism is a thing.... Not Cypher's thing, but a thing that existed before his formal history education.
Post-modernism (in this context) is a construct of the history profession to describe the time after we viewed history through the lens of other social constructs.
The period of viewing things through the lens of social constructs was called modernism. Hence post-modernism (at least according to the video).
Now all that said please point out the thing that was Communist related and that very brief video. The video defined a word, it talked about history in the abstract, and the history profession.
At no point did I hear anything about social economic policy or controlling the means of production.