What am I to do with that Alan Munslow

[MJMcCready]

There I was plseantly reading along, then a spanner gets thrown into the works, and I quote:

No matter how such historians endeavor to avoid the fact and its consequences, what
they write has the epistemic and ontological status of a narrative expression. I think the
logic of this situation requires that history can only ever be regarded as a figuratively
inspired narrative at every deictic level.

He is referring to academic history, which is shaped by discourse and narrative. I think we can safely say historians don't usually write about chess and chess history per se has progressed unfettered without them. We normally get tournament books and raw data of results, there are also autobiographies (which are impervious to discourse). But more importantly, who said the dominant form of history in chess is literary? I most certainly didn't. It could be argued that it is in fact oral, since club and county chess has largely been neglected for the last few hundred years. Chess players do tend to have long memories and ofenttimes discussions over who won what and when fill the air of the respective club.

Certainly at club and county level in England, oral history is much more dominant than literary history yet you can't go telling academics things like that, you'd give them a heat attack. May I also suggest you refrain from telling historians that those who shaped history the most over the years weren't actually historians.

How did you learn about the club you played for and the league you played in? You were told but other club members when you were younger yes? Who hasn't retold what happened last season?

As admirable as academics are, they would be better off by broadening their interpretation of history to one which is multifarious and factors elements extaneous to the literary circles they move in. Haven't you noticed that none of the major changes history underwent in the 20th century can be found in chess history? I maintain this is largely due to chess history being predominantly oral in character and not literary. Conversational and not critical if you like, well for the most part.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. Not saying I am right, just saying that's how I see it as I type this.

[Kevin Thurlow]

It's too late to educate AM, but I urge all historians to communicate in English (or their translators to use correct English...)

I suspect he means that history depends on the author.

There are not enough club (etc.) histories, and a lot of those depend on memories, that may be inaccurate either by accident or design.

[MJMcCready]

Feminism emerged some time back and consitutes modules in most history degrees, in my opinion yet women are yet to be written into chess history. What does that tell you?

[Paul Cooksey]

I lack Mark's expertise. So I'd need to construct a theory of chess historiography before I could try to deconstruct it. Has anyone written on the subject?

I cannot recall, for example, Edward Winter writing about his approach.

[MJMcCready]

No they haven't and I can tell from how WInter writes he did his Ph.D before the 60s. It will never be written about. There's no market for it, and no one is really interested.

[Roger de Coverly]

No they haven't and I can tell from how WInter writes he did his Ph.D before the 60s.

What little is known about Winter's personal history suggests he was at school in the 1970s. I didn't think he had a PhD either.

[MJMcCready]

No they haven't and I can tell from how WInter writes he did his Ph.D before the 60s.

What little is known about Winter's personal history suggests he was at school in the 1970s. I didn't think he had a PhD either.

Oh really, what makes you say that? Tim Harding always calls him prof., so I assumed he lectured somewhere, so he would need one if so.
It is possible he studied in the 70s. Depends on location and his predilictions. History does have its own history btw.

[John Saunders]

Having never heard of Alan Munslow, I looked him up to find that Mark had misspelt his name...

Alun Munslow (1947–2019) was a British historian known for his deconstructionist and postmodernist approach to historiography.

I then had to look up three more long words to check my understanding of their meanings. Which I shall instantly forget, having consigned them to a mental pigeon hole marked "guff I don't need to know".

God preserve us and chess from such academics. To borrow and adapt Conan Doyle's reference to the tale of of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, "(hi)story for which the (chess) world is not yet prepared."

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I foolishly buried it in the "Media Comments on chess" thread, but I did point out back in March 2024 the work of historian Krisztina Ilko.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5043&hilit=chess+ac ... 55#p305360

I will requote here, but it will doubtless remain equally buried here. Maybe a proper thread with a proper title could draw together some of these thoughts and previous ones (there was a thread on academic theses on chess, and the history of women in chess).

Non-paywalled version from different newspaper:

https://nypost.com/2024/03/03/world-new ... val-tower/

Doing a search for Krisztina Ilko and chess brings up lots of interesting material.

https://www.hoart.cam.ac.uk/news/dr-kri ... iddle-ages

"Chess and Skin Colour in the Global Middle Ages

Speaker: Dr Krisztina Ilko
Queens’ College, University of Cambridge

Wednesday 8 November 2023, 9am-10.30am GMT

World History Seminar, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Online via Zoom."

"How could the game of chess facilitate cross-cultural interaction? To perambulate this question, this talk explores medieval images of chess games between players of contrasting skin colour. Key pieces of medieval art, like the lavishly illuminated gaming manual commissioned by King Alfonso X of Castile, are brought into conversation here with little-known pieces, such as a fourteenth-century Mallorcan altarpiece. Despite chess often being perceived through the lens of western European chivalric culture, these examples highlight a much more diverse social and cultural spectrum for this ‘game of kings’. This talk investigates the crucial role of colour in the chequered world of chess, and highlights new avenues to refine our understanding of the representation of skin colour and diversity in the Global Middle Ages."

https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-krisztina-ilko

"My project, ‘The Pawns of History: A New Approach Towards the Global Middle Ages,’ uses the game of chess and surviving chess pieces to find a tangible approach towards the global medieval past. In contrast to previous histories which have focused on the development of gameplay, my project employs chess to study cross-cultural communication in the Afro-Eurasian world between 800 and 1400. Scholars have often approached the multicultural Middle Ages either through its connectivity or as a period of barrier making and cultural difference. Chess, however, opens up the possibility to trace interconnectivity between different geographies, cultures, and social strata, but also show how the same connections could be used to create separation and distinctiveness. The primary goal is therefore a critical rethinking of wider processes, practices, and products of cross-cultural interaction. Ultimately, my project addresses how the ‘global’ was experienced in the medieval era, and contributes to broader discussions about how the Middle Ages overlaps but also differs from the modern global world."

It is quite exciting to see chess get this sort of attention from academic historians (this sort of history tends to go beyond a simple narrative exposition, delving deeply into archives, verging into the philosophical and theoretical, pushing the boundaries on new and cross-disciplinary concepts - it can be a difficult read [not everyone's cup of tea] and is not generally aimed at the public reading market, but is invariably extremely rigorous with huge amounts of research and lots of peer review).

It will take years, but will be very interesting to see the end results of her work. Deserves its own thread in the 'Chess History' section at some point.

Of course, that research by Krisztina Ilko is really medieval studies. It has very little to do with the study (historical or otherwise) of 19th-century and 20th century chess.

[Roger de Coverly]

Oh really, what makes you say that?

Take a look at the comment by Richard James to this ejh blog post.

http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.c ... n-out.html

Richard James said...

Leopold seems genuine: born 9 July 1899 died in Brighton May 1985 looks a likely candidate. I'll research further later. I've long wondered if there was any connection between Leopold Winter and Edward Winter, who, we know, was brought up in Brighton (where he was taught by and played chess with RDK's friend Julian Simpole). When I tried to find out more about the secretive Edward, though, the only birth I could find in about the right year was, I think, in Newcastle. EGW himself is of course well known for writing spoof letters under a pseudonym.
Sat Jan 12, 10:07:00 am 2013

Julian Simpole born 1941 according to
https://crombet-beolens.co.uk/julian/

[MJMcCready]

It seems to me that not an awful lot is known about Edward Winter. If he wrote a thesis I would be curious to know what it was. He studied history around the end of modernism, of that I am fairly sure.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Wikipedia says Winter was born in 1955, and that does seem to be the consensus. One of his first books he was involved in - the co-authored World Chess Champions published circa 1980 - says that he then "worked for the BBC", but he appears to have been domiciled at Geneva in Switzerland (where he still lives) just a few years later.

[MJMcCready]

Does anyone know him personally that we know of?