Clio's circle: Historians who dare to embrace the unconscious

The purpose of this dissertation is to delve into the roots of the historian's imagination. There is abundant evidence that many students hate history, considering it an irrelevant and boring subject with no connection to life. Working as a high-school history teacher for 20 years, I have been perplexed by the disconnect between the exciting creative process of writing history and the tedium of the experience of learning history for most high-school students. When educational theorists translate the process of creating history into the classroom they neglect the unconscious sources of inspiration which drive the call to write history. Fear causes many historians and educators alike to stay away from dreams, trance states, and visions.;The problem is examined through a thematic, hermeneutic analysis of scholarly and literary texts during the creative phase of historical research. First the archetypal figures behind the creation of history are examined. These include Clio, muse of history in ancient Greece, and the griots or oral historians of ancient Africa. Next the experiences with historical imagination of depth psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and C.G. Jung are used as a starting place for examining the memoirs of historians such as Arnold Toynbee, Richard Cobb, Simon Schama, Susan Griffin, and Aurora Morales. These are historians who dare to embrace the unconscious in their writing. The major idea developed is that dreams, trance states, and visions are an important but often unacknowledged part of the creative process for an historian. They often contain the seed which will germinate into a lifetime of historical research and writing.;The final part of this dissertation carries the research forward into the history classroom. Building on my experiences with the nonprofit organization, Facing History and Ourselves, practical examples of history lessons are given. Their aim is to cultivate historical imagination, bringing history alive for students and creating an antidote to the boredom of textbook history.