Remembering what it's all about...

I was inspired by a post by Pink Cupcake, where she was reminded why she got into her field in the first place, and by Trillwing, who's been wondering why female historians don't seem to blog about history (and thus controversy ensued). I think I've been needing a reminder of why I love my field so much, as I've been bogged down by all the details of academia (and by trying to get work -- any work -- done).

While I was at a fabulous book store yesterday, I ran across an autobiography by Daniel Libeskind, the architect of Berlin's Jewish Museum and of the WTC memorial. This book excited me, because it reminded me of my fascination with the attempt to create and shape memory through monuments and memorials. When I went with a class to Paris and Berlin, I was supposed to write a paper comparing the monuments of Paris in the 19th century and of Berlin in the 20th. It was the most fascinating experience of my life, to tour Berlin with the expressed purpose of analysing its memory landscape.

I took that trip as a crash course into European History. I thought that I was just going to do German history just for my MA, to give me experience in a different kind of history writing, the sort of writing that hasn't yet been introduced to the Canadian history field. You see, it had been a shock to me the first time I read a German history book, because there was emotion in historian's tone. I didn't know we were allowed to do that. But I liked it, and wanted to learn how to be a historian without being dry.

I assumed I was going to switch back to Canadian history for my PhD. But that trip changed me. These monuments were more than just pieces of stone; they stirred emotions in all of us. We wept as we went through Rosenstrasse, as we toured Wannsee Haus. When I went home, I read over books and books that debated the usage of Berlin's monuments, and the endless theories about how to "create" memory. These were all new ideas for me, and yet the intermingling of "memory" and "history," this intermingling of personal experience with professional history, resonated with me.

That's what brought me over to cultural history, even as I deal with German literature for my current research. That's what made me a Germanist.