Alan Lefever and Naomi Taplin from the Texas Baptist Historical Collection were on campus this week to examine the deeper mysteries of . . . our archives in the Jarrett Library! The diagnosis was actually pretty good, and the prognosis matched: ETBU has a good start on an archive, and its reorganization under the library staff led by Cynthia Peterson will make it much more useful. With the ETBU centennial coming in 2012, getting the old records in order is important. Also important: they helped us, reminded us, that faculty, students, librarians, staff, and administrators all have a part in preserving the archival remnants of past and present, and that in itself will enhance the effectiveness of our educational programs.
I am an historian. So I belong to a “faith” of sorts whose adherents do not dwell in the past, as outsiders sometimes think, but who do, certainly, dwell on the facts of the past. We also dwell on the teeming interpretations of the human past, including those interpretations forced on us, and all, by the momentum of recent and contemporary events. For example, how many of us have taken a stronger interest in the history of Islam lately?
I teach courses in the history of world societies. Among the achievements most desired of any given semester is to wrest from the minds of typical American students certain errors of conception or adequacy: history repeats itself / we study history so that we can better understand the present, and so forth. My students will recognize my assertion (I hope they were listening) that history absolutely does not “repeat itself.” (more…)