"Self, Subject, and the "Barefoot Historian
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10033856 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Karen Halttunen (University of California, Davis, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 89 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 20 |
| Publication date | 2002-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2700778 |
| OpenAlex | W2317470815 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
In his evocative historical essay Alongshore, the landscape historian John R. Stilgoe explores the stretch of Massachusetts coastline from Gurnet Light to Minot Ledge that is his family's year-round home. “I see flood tide or ebb each morning before I see my university. I am close to my subject, too close for relaxation, for comfort.” To convey that close connection between self and subject, Stilgoe creates the persona of “the barefoot historian,” a scholarly beachcomber who wanders along the shoreline and in and out of the text of Alongshore offering personal observations and insights that supplement the study's more conventional historical research into Pilgrim landings and salt haying, treasure hunting and tourism. The barefoot historian, Stilgoe takes care to inform us, is not one of the “summer people, ” but “a local, a native in faded blue shirt and threadbare khaki pants, ” whose understanding of the tourists must depend in part (ironically) on “winter days in library stacks. ” The device of the barefoot historian artfully establishes that John Stilgoe is native to the Massachusetts coastline that is his subject (and a mere winter visitor to his university and its libraries that house scholarly research). Alongshore is, he affirms, “a personal book, based on local observation, grounded in the ‘local knowledge’ ” required of long-distance mariners before venturing close inshore.1
Archaeology · Art · Art history · Barefoot · Geography · Library science · Media studies · Pilgrim · Sociology · Subject (documents · Visitor pattern · Visual arts · American Literature and Culture · Asian American and Pacific Histories · History · Travel Writing and Literature
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,15 |
| Citation span | 2006 - 2025 (20) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |