White and Gilroy

It's my last week here in Utrecht/The Netherlands/Europe. Sad. But I am also looking forward to my return. So let's not harp on that; here's what been going on.

Yesterday I went to two master classes/lectures. The first was by Hayden White, the historian/theorist (and current professor of Comp. Lit. at Stanford). I've never read his stuff before but in preparation I read a few chapters from his latest book Figural Realism and also learned a bit about his major work, Metahistory. He said that the humanities' special charge is to deal with meaning, as opposed to "truth" or facts. I agree. And argued that the problem of how to live together in space/time (which is what many of the disciplines are taken up with) is better dealt with in forms such as the novel, as opposed to the reports of the social sciences. Two hours later it was Paul Gilroy's turn, and he was pretty much concerned with the same issue: how do we live together? Gilroy talked about multiculturalism and melancholia in Europe, and particularly the post-empire melancholy of many of the former imperial powers, and how that melancholia is mixing with revisionist national memories that now stop at the World Wars (England is the prime example). Lots of interesting tidbits came out of that talk, from Gilroy as well as the other participants. For instance, did you know that at English football games the crowd chants "Two World Wars, One World Cup"? Or that the Dutch Prime Minister recently lamented the supposedly failing work ethic of the Dutch people and suggested that they return to the standards of the Dutch East Indian Trading Company?