Shami Ghosh: Difference between revisions

The research of Ghosh centers on [[Marxist history]] and the history of [[Germanic-speaking Europe]]. He has published the monographs ''Kings' Sagas and Norwegian History'' (2011) and ''Writing The Barbarian Past'' (2015). In the latter monograph, Ghosh argues that the only thing early [[Germanic peoples]] had in common was speaking [[Germanic languages]], but that these linguistic similarities are insignificant. He denies that early Germanic peoples shared a common [[Early Germanic culture|culture]] or identity, and believes that they only shared cultural similarities because [[mutual intelligibility]] facilitated cultural exchanges between them.<ref name="Cronan">{{harvnb|Cronan|2017|pp=825–826}}. "A central component of his argument throughout the book is the denial of anything that approaches a common Germanic culture or identity... Ghosh repeatedly downplays the significance of the Germanic languages... He views language as merely the means through which oral narratives circulated from one people to another... To this reader, at least, it seems that he concedes much of what constituted what some of us would call a common Germanic culture."</ref><ref name="Neidorf">{{harvnb|Neidorf|2018|pp=275–276}}. "The works studied in his monograph relate historical matter pertaining to peoples who spoke Germanic languages, and these works have traditionally been valued for their preservation of Germanic lore and legend, but Ghosh prefers to characterize the past represented in them as "barbarian" rather than "Germanic."... Since these works are preserved in Germanic vernaculars, Ghosh entertains no doubts about their content deriving from Germanic oral traditions. Yet the anti-Germanic thread of his book is continued... [T]he fact that medieval Germanic peoples told stories about other, distant Germanic peoples does not, according to Ghosh, reflect identification with those peoples or any perception of ethnic similarity. It is solely a matter of linguistic convenience... Ghosh’s anti-Germanic arguments are often plausible... It is doubtful, however, whether his arguments will have much of an impact... One must wonder whether any adjectives used to describe cultural phenomena in medieval studies (e.g., Celtic, Romance, Byzantine, Carolingian) could withstand the kind of scrutiny that Ghosh has applied to the term "Germanic." The term will doubtless continue to be used because it is useful...  If "Germanic" is to be abandoned because Germanic tradition contains non-Germanic elements, then all of the other ethno-linguistic adjectives employed in medieval studies must surely be scrapped as well.... Despite Ghosh’s claims to the contrary, the negative fixation on the term "Germanic" among medieval historians such as himself still appears to be "a matter of the ideological baggage it carries"... Although Ghosh’s predilection for anti-Germanic readings occasionally entangles him in improbabilities, ''Writing the Barbarian Past'' remains an excellent introduction to the principal early medieval sources for Germanic legend..."</ref> Ghosh advocates replacing the term "Germanic" with the term "[[barbarian]]". [[Leonard Neidorf]] has described the theories of Ghosh on Germanic peoples as anti-Germanic.<ref name="Neidorf"/>

* ''Writing The Barbarian Past'', 2015

[[Category:Indian historians]]

[[Category:Indian non-fiction writers]]