"Historiography and Historiophoty" is the name of an essay by historian and literary critic

Hayden White Hayden V. White (July 12, 1928 – March 5, 2018) was an American historian in the tradition of literary criticism, perhaps most famous for his work '' Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe'' (1973/2014). Career W ...

first published in 1988 in ''

The American Historical Review ''The American Historical Review'' is a quarterly academic history journal and the official publication of the American Historical Association. It targets readers interested in all periods and facets of history and has often been described as the ...

''. In the essay, White coins the term "historiophoty" to describe the "representation of history and our thought about it in visual images and filmic discourse". White says historiophoty "...is in contrast to

Historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...

which is the representation of history in verbal images and written discourse,". White originally coined the term as a rhetorical device in response to an essay by Robert A. Rosenstone in the same issue of ''AHR'' entitled "History in images/History in words: Reflections on the possibility of really putting history onto film". For the sake of exploring Rosenstone's premise (that history can be portrayed on film), he created the term historiophoty as a description of the study of history through film. White was not necessarily claiming that historiophoty exists, or that it ought to; his essay was a

thought experiment A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. History The ancient Greek ''deiknymi'' (), or thought experiment, "was the most anci ...

on what historiophoty would be like if in fact such a thing did exist. Whatever White's intention, since the publication of his 1988 essay the word historiophoty has entered into public and professional discourse. For example Brian Le Beau wrote "Historiography Meets Historiophoty: The Perils and Promise of Rendering the Past on Film" in ''American Studies'' Volume 38, no. 1 (Spring 1997). A book has been published titled ''History of Western Historiography, History of England, Historiophoty'' by Chou, Liang-kai.

References

{{Reflist

Sources

*Rosenstone, Robert.
History in images/History in words: Reflections on the possibility of really putting history onto film
. ''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 93, No. 5. (Dec., 1988), pp. 1173-1185. Available online through

JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...

. *White, Hayden.
Historiography and Historiophoty
. ''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 93, No. 5. (Dec., 1988), pp. 1193-1199. Available online through

External links

Historiography and Historiophoty
by

. Historiography Thought experiments 1988 essays