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Timothy Burke's avatar

I sometimes get into a similar train of thought when I try to figure out why it makes a difference for a historian to see a place that was massively different in the past moment that the historian writes about. What do you understand better about that place at that moment? In fact, aren't you in danger of thinking you understand something about it given how different it used to look? You might, for example, be a historian studying the first four or five decades of Penn's initial colony in southeastern Pennsylvania and the Swedish trading posts that preceded it and think it's really useful to see Little Tincum Island, where the Swedes built a fort and a house for the governor. But what you see now is so different than what was seen then that you might almost be better off just imagining it from reading historical sources, because you're going to have to use a lot of imagination regardless. But somehow, someway, it does make a difference.

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Jack's avatar

So many interesting things going on in this piece. I always enjoy the way you tease out the limits and possibilities of the academy. The material reality of the job vs. the intellectual pursuits of the research vs. the transformative experiences of visiting these places. Well done!

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