Name
Dr. Carolina Armenteros
College
Wolfson College
What is your field of history
The intellectual history of European Francophone communities from the Enlightenment to World War I. I am especially interested in the history of historical thinking, the rise of sociology and conservatism, the history of educational philosophy and the history of women. So far, I have devoted particular attention to two thinkers: Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78).
How did you come to specialise in this area?
I discovered that I wanted to be a historian when I read the Greek myths at the age of eight and wondered throughout my adolescence and young adulthood about the meaning and purposes of historical knowledge. In college, I tested my vocation by earning a double Bachelor’s degree in History and Biological Sciences, but history, my first love, eventually won the day. In graduate school, my same old preoccupations with historical thinking continued to dog me, and I became increasingly aware that the Enlightenment and the Romantic age in Europe had been periods of exceptionally fruitful and exciting historical speculation. As a Francophone, I was naturally drawn to French historical thinking and found that it was under-studied, even in the case of its most influential exponent, Joseph de Maistre.
Years later, I realized that my attraction to Maistre’s thought was connected to my childhood experience as an enthusiastic reader of the tales of Sophie Rostopchine, the Comtesse de Ségur (1799-1874), which had been handed down to me from my French great-grandmother. Maistre was the friend and mentor of the Comtesse’s mother in St Petersburg.
What sort of source materials do you use, and what are its strengths and weaknesses?
Most of my primary sources are philosophical, social, political, moral and religious works by eighteenth and nineteenth-century thinkers. I also use supporting materials like correspondence, personal notebooks and unpublished minora. But I believe too much in the historian’s interpretive and narrative powers to think that materials have inherent strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, it is the historian who makes sources useful or leaves them untapped. Sources may be said to be ‘objectively’ weak mostly in being biased or fragmentary. But for the historian even silences and prejudices can speak volumes, becoming historically informative and ethically revealing.
How has your field developed over the course of your career?
My field has recently witnessed an increased interest in religion as a historical force. It has also been enriched by a growing awareness of the impact that colonial and imperial experiences had on the development of European thought.
Which areas of your field most urgently need further exploration?
The single most urgent need is probably to deepen our knowledge of minor thinkers’ work: the major texts and correspondence of many crucial but ill-known writers of the last three centuries are often dispersed or only partially edited. We need definitive and complete scholarly editions.
What characterises good history?
Good history is carefully researched, imaginative and well written. But it is above all history that inspires us to think about the human experience in unprecedented and constructive ways.
How did your understanding of history change during your time as a university student?
The Stanford History Department, where I did my Bachelor’s Degree, had a strong theoretical focus in the 1990s. To ask good historical questions and seek answers to them, we were encouraged to read widely in philosophy, critical theory, social theory and theoretical anthropology. This training transformed me intellectually in two profound ways. It led me, firstly, to think of history - sometimes excessively - as a potential form of total explanation. Since then, to learn what things are, my impulse has always been to ask what things have been or tended to be. My undergraduate courses likewise drew me toward theory. Having used it as a method, I gradually began to conceive of it as a subject. Hence my final attachment to intellectual history.
Where should someone interested in your area of history go for further information?
To get a feel for intellectual history generally, one can browse through the Journal of the History of Ideas, History of Political Thought, Modern Intellectual History and History of European Ideas. Good editions of primary texts are also available in Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought and Past Masters.
On my period, the Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought and The Nineteenth Century volume of The Routledge History of Philosophy offer excellent essays reflecting current debates in the field.
The Short Oxford History of France is a useful reference work with which to begin exploring French history, while standard journals in the field include French History, French Studies and French Historical Studies. The Centre for French History and Culture at the University of St Andrews has also recently launched a free printed and electronic journal, St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture, whose issues can be instantly downloaded.
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