魔鬼就藏在細節裡：註腳、當代史學與（無關）後現代

Abstract

這是一篇由黃進興近著《後現代主義與史學研究》所引發的一番自由聯想式的讀書筆記，雖然的確是評論文字，但是並不打算在思想立場上直接挑戰，也不想在這個那個概念上指摘黃氏不正確或者根本誤解了後現代主義思潮的精髓，更不打算依書評的標準格式摘要、概述，然後總評黃書。筆者只是不由自主地注意到黃書一個有趣的特徵－這是一本全書沒有一頁下方沒有註腳以致於幾乎每頁都分成上下兩欄的書，註腳加上書目佔據了全書超過三分之一強的篇幅－因而忍不住對於書中這個特殊文本現象加以一番認真考慮。本文考慮的方向主要是三方面的：第一、證成這種頁體下半身肥大的文本經濟學奢華現象事實上是有一套本地知識生產與資源分配機制作為支撐；第二、究竟書中屢屢宣稱、徵引甚至類歸成黨的「傳統」或「正統」史家們是否符合實情，或至少不違背當事人的學術認同意願？第三、就十九世紀老式的註腳與正文的關係構想而言，書中的註腳是否總是支持相關連的正文？最後，筆者提出「認知負責」(cognitively responsible)與「讀書得間」(a crafty reader)兩點來和日夜與文本為伍，讀寫如同呼吸空氣一般頻繁自然的學術界師友們共勉。

This paper is a collection of research notes induced by the recent publication of Huang Chin-shing's Postmodernism and Historiography: A Critical Study. Although it is meant to comment upon Huang's book, the paper does not intend to challenge Huang's anti-postmodern position directly, nor does it devote to the correction of Huang's misunderstanding of this or that concept in the kernel of postmodernism. It goes without saying that this is not a typical book review, either. Based on the fact that more than one third of the book is filled up with footnotes and bibliography and therefore almost every page is divided into upper and lower columns, what I would like to do is to take Huang's practice of footnoting under serious scrutiny. In doing so, the paper is divided into three parts. The first section analyzes the mechanism of knowledge production and resource distribution in the local academic community, which supports as well as informs the consistently dyadic page layout, i.e. what I would tentatively call the page body or paginality, of Huang's book. Secondly, the paper examines, almost case by case, the career and interaction of those scholars that have been labeled and grouped under the vague umbrella of ”traditional” and/or ”orthodox” historians in Huang's book. Thirdly, resorting to the 19th-century old-fashioned notion that the footnote is supposed to prove the text, the paper takes a close look at a few selected examples from Huang's footnotes to see if they are fulfilling their promise or not. Lastly, in place of conclusion, the paper proposes the ideas of being ”cognitively responsible” and ”a crafty reader” to be the common ideal for colleagues and friends in the academia, who have to deal with reading and writing texts on a daily base.