Traveling as a History Student
“Jeanne d’Arc a été brûlée sur le bûcher.”
“Here?”
In the late morning, the old city square in Rouen is quiet, with very few people outside of our conspicuously American group of sleepy college students receiving a history lesson in moderately paced French. The picturesque half-timbered buildings – well-restored and converted into restaurants and cafes which predominantly advertise authentic Norman cuisine – point to the city’s medieval past. Only a cement pillar with a cross arising out of it marks the spot where, nearly six centuries ago, Joan of Arc – martyred Catholic saint, symbol of French national identity, icon of gender non-conformity amongst lapsed Catholic lesbians like myself – was burned at the stake. This spot is a few paces away from where I am standing.
Over the years, countless people have raved about how life-changing their study abroad was and how worldly they have become as a result. I will resist this urge, as the market in these sorts of stories is clearly oversaturated and, personally, I do not feel especially transformed or enlightened. Instead, I will attempt to describe what the experience of visiting Ireland and studying abroad in France as a history student was like for myself – or rather, the difference between standing in the place where a teenage girl from Domrémy went up in flames and reading about the incident in a book.
For historians-to-be and history lovers of all sorts, travel allows one to come face-to-face with histories that, until that point, were relegated to the pages of academic articles, images, and lectures. While, in a way, we can perhaps gain a more nuanced understanding of an issue, event, or figure with this physical distance, I also find this more confrontational approach to be useful on an intellectual and emotional level. Does knowing how it feels to stand at the foot of the Eiffel Tower change how we think about its impact at the 1889 World’s Fair? How is local and national history conceived of by residents? How do institutions work to preserve the past and what stories are told (or not told) in a country’s museums?
Although understanding the scale of a site or seeing the detail of an artifact up close is only a very small – and even unnecessary – part of understanding a historical event, I do think that there is value in these more sensory experiences. The Château de Versailles undoubtedly looked, smelled, and sounded very different in the late seventeenth century. But the scale of the grounds and the sumptuous, domineering Baroque architecture is as overpowering today as it must have felt for the indebted aristocrats of the ancien régime. Louis XIV probably wishes he had had the foresight to put in gift shops.
For history fanatics who are learning another language and seek to improve their listening comprehension and reading skills, travel can be a useful learning experience. Listening to familiar historical narratives recited out loud or reading the information written out on placards at museums provides an experience similar to when one starts out reading well-known children’s stories as their first foray into literature in a foreign language. Hearing the story of Joan of Arc in French or reading about post-impressionists at the Musée d'Orsay allows one to retrace their steps along a worn path, while viewing the scenery through a slightly different lens. Through a different linguistic perspective, these stories can slightly shift in how they are conveyed and we can begin to think about history through a different lens.
An example of thinking about history through a different linguistic perspective occurred for me while visiting the National Museum of Archeology in Dublin with my Irish-speaking cousin. While we were reading about Bronze-age swords and other artifacts found throughout Ireland – the signs displaying the information in both English and Irish – my cousin told me that the site names had been translated from the Irish word to the Anglicized approximation of what the Irish word sounded like. These translations, however, did not convey the more lyrical meaning conveyed by the original Irish-place name, which usually was a description of natural landmarks or scenery at the site.
Museums, or rather, how a culture chooses to display the historical past to an audience full of foreign tourists is another area of the travel experience where any historically-minded person probably has something to say. Especially given Western Europe’s history of colonialism, it is worthwhile to think about how museums there have approached the repatriation of historical artifacts stolen during imperialist conquest.
At the Musée de l'Orangerie, where Claude Monet’s magnificent Water Lilies murals unfold for viewers across rounded walls, there also was a section of art in the French primitivist style on the museum’s lower floor. In this section, small carvings or statues from Benin were displayed to show the “primitive” art that had inspired the white French artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Removed from their cultural context, these West African pieces were rendered into “primitive” objects – cruder matter from a less “civilized” society that simply provided inspiration for the white male artists – like the feminized and objectified muse. There was no thought to the inspiration of the artists or craftsmen who had created these pieces or how the carvings were interpreted and utilized in their original cultural context. The meaning attributed to them at l’Orangerie began with the colonialists whose nation had contributed to their theft and displacement in the first place. I left the room where these were displayed feeling unsettled.
Meanwhile in Ireland, my experience at the National Museum of Archeology was one of cultural reconnection. Entrance to all four of the National Museums is free, as they are considered to collectively belong to the Irish people. Moving from the Neolithic to the Viking Age, each section of the museum showcased artifacts found on the island, with one early medieval chalice apparently having been stumbled upon by a friend of my cousin’s family. At one point on the upper floor, my cousin pointed out a sheela na gig – an architectural grotesque – that had originally been from her hometown of Clonmel. This was a point of pride for her (and for myself as well, although in a more nostalgic sense) that the National Museum showcased an architectural feature from her home to be viewed as an important component of Irish history. In this case, the museum dignified the culture and people it represented. Of course, context is important, as this is the National Museum, but it stands to me as an example of how museums can be places for people to connect meaningfully and productively with the past, rather than imperialist repositories for the showcasing of ill-gotten loot.
The conclusion of this ramble through my wandering summer is that there is value in going and seeing for oneself. Traveling can make far-off history a bit more tangible; one realizes the Sainte-Chapelle is stuffy but the soaring stained-glass windows do indeed make a person think of heaven; some items in the Louvre might have been violently displaced while others showcase the creativity and lived experiences of French artists; that the wooden pyre in the square of Rouen is gone but a real teenage girl was murdered by the Church and beloved as a saint ever-after.
As a history major, travel if and when you can. But don’t let expensive flight tickets stop you from considering the physicality of history. Engage with your own surroundings, visit your local museums and historic sites – even those not recognized as such. Think about what your street looked like 300 years ago before white settlers came and do what you can to support the indigenous people in your area (like paying Real Rent to the Duwamish). Look at your own locality as a traveler would and learn about your home through the eyes of a historian.