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Writing History for Eternity

Lucian's (c120—200) Contributions to Pragmatist Scholarship and Ethnographic Analysis

University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Whereas ethnography is generally envisioned as a nineteenth- and twentieth-century development, a text on How to Write History developed by Lucian (a Greek-speaking Syrian in the classical Roman era) provides an instructive reference point for contemporary scholarship. Envisioning history as an account of some event or developmental feature of community life, Lucian insists that these accounts will be of greatest value when written for posterity rather than "the historical moment." While identifying a number of lesser flaws and more substantial failures in people's attempts to develop histories, Lucian also indicates how these projects might more viably be pursued. Approaching Lucian's text as an instance of transhistorical scholarship as well as a cross-cultural reference point for ethnographic analysis and building on a somewhat parallel commentary developed by Michael Schwalbe (1995), this article considers the lessons of both statements for contemporary considerations of human group life.

Key Words: ethnography • history • writing • pragmatism • quality

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 37, No. 1, 62-78 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0891241607303964


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