Without History

Important ideas from page 12 of José Rabasa's Without History:

1.  A concern for the way "the ancient, the colonial, and the modern coexist"

2.  How lives can be homogenized into a past, called history, and at the same time remain "untouched by the colonial discourses that seek to confine their pertinence to the colonial archives?"

3.  "How writing of history for the exercise of power produces a 'without history:' spaces and temporalities with a life of their own?"

Without History (13-16)

1.  This week, while watching the film El Norte, and think about the course material how can you "face the question of the ways in which this world [the Given we continue to argue with], in its singularity, might remain blind to the exclusion of forms of conceptualizing the world that differ?" (14)

2.  Describe what is meant by "plural world dwelling" (14).  Where do you see it in the film?  In our readings?  In our discussions?  You will have to think back to week one to best answer this questions.  

3.  What might it mean to "remain outside of meaningful historical discourse?"  (14) What are all the possibilities of that?  Keep this in mind as you think about the film.

4.  When thinking in terms of "the 'lack of history'" and the "desires and techniques" for "incoporating peoples into a common life as defined" what can you say/argue, with direct examples from the texts, the course design, and this film?  What questions can you write that might guide us through the last three weeks of the course?

5.  What might we do (in terms of narrating, and hearing) if we do "not rush to call all forms of remembrance 'history'? (15)  See the final sentences on page 14, beginning with "millions of people still live outside 'history.'" (14)

6.  What is the relationship between evidence and epistemology? (15)

7.  What is the relationship between history and the state? (15)

8.  What would a politics shaped by the "exercise of 'the without'" look like?  In El Norte, in our course? (16)

9.  Can you read these images?