A signed statement on the failure of language

I've stayed away from commenting publicly on the new US administration. There's so much fodder, so much grist, that it could easily overwhelm. It does overwhelm. Daily news feeds are prefaced and filled with coverage of Trump, his family, his appointments, his interests. My instinct is to stay completely away from it, for at least … Continue reading A signed statement on the failure of language

Missiles of Outrage and Anger

In the early pages of his memoir Known and Unknown, Donald Rumsfeld described boyhood memories of an America struggling to come to grips with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. One of those recollections was of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's reassuring voice, its "formal, almost aristocratic tone" cutting across the airwaves. "Outlining the indictment against the … Continue reading Missiles of Outrage and Anger

Framing Forensics

For the last few months, I've been thinking about how  "forensics", "forensic research" or "forensic practice" are commonly understood. The interest is driven in part by long familiarity with the uses of historical methods and research to support very contemporary preoccupations, and the somewhat unusual conjoining of "forensic" and "history" as a single discipline. I … Continue reading Framing Forensics