Jay wrote the Institute’s history by cross-checking conflicting oral testimony against documents

Evidence

Despite the aid given me in reconstructing the Institut’s past, however, the results should in no way be construed as a “court history.” In fact, the conflicting reports I frequently received of various incidents and the often differing estimations of each other’s work offered by former Institut colleagues left me at times feeling like the observer at the Japanese play Rashomon, not knowing which version to select as valid. My ultimate choices will not please all my informants, but I hope they will be satisfied with my attempts to cross-check as many controversial points as possible. In addition, my own estimate of the Institut’s accomplishment ought not to be identified with those of its members. That I admire much of their work cannot be denied; that I have not refrained from criticism where I felt it warranted will, I hope, be equally clear. Remaining faithful to the critical spirit of the Frankfurt School seems much more of a tribute than an unquestioning acceptance of all it said or did. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 79

Categorization

• XREF: His method — triangulating members’ conflicting oral accounts against archival documents, and distinguishing his own assessment from his subjects’ — is a model for writing institutional or intellectual history, relevant to my own past work on colonial archives as contested rather than authoritative.