When writing introductions and annotations for the historical readings that appear on this website, I follow these guidelines:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I favor lowercase in part because I\u2019ve observed that when identity labels such as evangelical<\/em>, indigenous<\/em>, or black <\/em>shift from lowercase to capitalized, those shifts are often accompanied by essentializing tendencies. Witness, for example, the Associated Press\u2019s announcement<\/a> that it would henceforth capitalize Black <\/em>to convey \u201can essential and shared sense of history, identity and community,\u201d or the New York Times<\/em>\u2018s explanation<\/a> that it would capitalize Black <\/em>but not white <\/em>because \u201cwhite doesn\u2019t represent a shared culture and history in the way Black does.\u201d I\u2019m aware of the argument that capitalizing identity labels can denaturalize those invented identities. But capitalization can do the opposite as well\u2014as it does, in fact, in the two examples just quoted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Language around identity is prone to contention, frequently framed in absolutist terms. As a teacher, I try to cultivate among my students a sense that these disputes are complex and that people of goodwill can adopt different usages for defensible reasons. I tell my students that they should feel free to employ their own thoughtful, good-faith preferences when it comes to identity language, most especially when it comes to their own identities. By the same token, I hope they will be open-minded and tolerant when I employ different usages in the service of the intellectual work that I’m trying to accomplish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When preparing the historical documents that appear on this website, I aim to maximize their readability for students. The older a document is, the more it will diverge from modern conventions of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and typography\u2014and thus the more difficult it will be to read. I therefore edit the documents to bring them more in line with modern conventions. I also regularize inconsistent usage within documents, correct grammatical or spelling errors in the sources, and even emend particularly difficult syntax. I provide a summary at the end of each document of the editorial changes I’ve made. However, I usually do not signal these kinds of changes in the text itself\u2014I don’t enclose them in square brackets\u2014in order to avoid textual clutter, which would make these documents difficult to read in a different way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To wit: These are edited <\/em><\/strong>versions of historical documents, created for particular teaching <\/em>purposes, not transcriptions suitable for research purposes. For those who wish to see the original documents, I provide bibliographic citations and, where possible, links to digital scans of the sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the historical readings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n