I was thinking this morning about how historians are portrayed in spec fic, especially stuff set in the human future, and about what depictions of the practice of history "perfected" tell us about what people think the practice of history is about. 1/

I'll be honest, I was thinking about Star Trek a little bit, but also about other things where historians of the past are talked about as flawed because they were "biased," something 24th century or whatever humans have moved past. 2/

Then I went to work and mostly stopped thinking about it, and have no conclusions to share, but I'm wondering if people know of other depictions of future historians in fiction that might illuminate this issue, and if other disciplines get "perfected" as well. 3/

I feel like there are a lot of other disciplines at play in Star Trek that the characters don't speak of as contested or evolving, but I may not notice those things because I'm not an anthropologist, for example. 4/

Okay FINE I'll go back and finish *To Say Nothing of the Dog*. 5/5

(I'd be particularly interested in spec fic depictions that don't involve time travel, but if they usually do, I think that also tells us something about what people think historians do.)