Lecturers > Isabel DiVanna

Name
Dr. Isabel DiVanna

College
Wolfson College 

What is your field of history?
Intellectual History, specifically the history of historiography in nineteenth-century France and the intellectual exchanges between France and Brazil between1850 and 1900. 

How did you come to specialise in this area?
I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on the legend of Tristan and Isolde, and became fascinated by the way in which French scholars in the late 19th century depicted medieval history and literature. 

What sort of source material do you tend to use, and what are its strengths and weaknesses?
Mostly work by historians (meaning books produced to enlighten different audiences about certain aspects of the past). I also use private correspondence. I do not find that source materials have “strengths or weaknesses”, but I find it difficult to incorporate private correspondence alongside “official”, “public” views about history and what role it should play, what it should represent. Perhaps a “weakness” of the type of source I use is that scholars’ views about history are sometimes motivated by external forces that are not contextually or intellectually relevant (for example, publisher’s guidelines, governmental plan, institutional agenda), but even these tell us much about the history of history writing, so I would not consider them a limitation to analysing my sources.

Which individuals, events or forces are especially important in your area of history?
Changing ideas about the past are particularly important to my field, and these can be “motivated” by political events, economic factors, as well as many others of cultural and social nature. At the same time, ideas about history are not determined by events – they often are motors as well. I look mostly at how academics respond to the context in devising (sometimes consciously, sometimes not) their approaches to history.

How has your field developed over the course of your career?
My career is only beginning, but I would say the field of history of historiography is certainly more prominent in North America and France than it is in the United Kingdom. In the UK, political thought still dominates the “intellectual” field of history of ideas.

Which areas of your field most urgently need further exploration?
The entire field is in desperate need for more study, and cross-national approaches are most welcome (the development of institutional history in Britain, Germany, Italy and France happened at a similar time, but very little has been done by means of comparison).

What characterises good history?
A conscientious and responsible use of sources and respect for the work of fellow historians, even if one disagrees with them.

How did your understanding of history change during your time as a university student?
I did my undergraduate degree in Brazil, where theory of history, methodology and history of historiography are 50% of the curriculum. When I started the course, I had no idea why the first text I read to read was Aristotle’s Poetics, or why I should care about Herodotus, Thucydides and the Augustine’s view of history. As an undergraduate, I discovered that understanding how others have depicted history, what they valued about it, who they thought produced it and how, was a fascinating investigation. I fear that I have become too attached to the impression that intellectual history (history of ideas) is the only form of history possible, because even if I look at slavery in Brazil in 1850, I still feel that it is necessary for me to understand every relevant conceptualization before I reach other types of historical understanding. Argument and practice, theory and methodology have become, since I was an undergraduate, my main concerns.

Where should somebody interested in your area of history go for further information?
There are a number of good secondary sources about philosophy of history, theory and argument, many produced by scholars here in Cambridge, many from France and Germany, and the United States. I would say anyone interested in my field should start by reading the primary sources, and understanding how different views about history have emerged from Ancient Greece to last week.