scholarly journals Historians as Activists: History Writing in Times of War. The Case of Ukraine in 2014–2018

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Yuliya Yurchuk
Keyword(s):  
Memory Studies ◽  
Market Environment ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
History Writing ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Narratives ◽  
Ukrainian Society ◽  
Main Strategy

Abstract This article elucidates the role of historians in times of war and the peculiarities of popular history narratives written by historians who became activists. The article focuses on historians who call themselves “Likbez. Historical Front.” This cohort gave rise to a new professional species—activist historians—who are different from so called memorians or propagandists, who work in service of authorities. Likbez historians tried to use their power to influence and promote their activist agenda not only in the realm of memory and history but also in reformation of state institutions. I argue that for Likbez historians, securitization of the past is the main strategy employed for producing historical knowledge. Historians’ work is a part of postcolonizing process observed in Ukrainian society since the Maidan protests. As the analysis shows, popular history narratives written with an open activist agenda are a result of many compromises made by scholars in the intersection of several factors: professional ambitions, political and civic aims, social and political context, popular expectations, and market environment. In line with the increased attention to agency in memory studies, this article demonstrates that historians have a much more nuanced relation to power than straightforward opposition or co-option.

scholarly journals FORUM: CLOSENESS AND DISTANCE IN THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT INTRODUCTION

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 603-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN BREWER ◽  
SILVIA SEBASTIANI
Keyword(s):  
Historical Writing ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
History Writing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Michel De Certeau ◽  
Age Of Enlightenment ◽  
Historical Writings ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Way

According to Michel de Certeau, distance is the indispensable prerequisite for historical knowledge and the very characteristic of modern historiography. The historian speaks, in the present, about the absent, the dead, as Certeau labels the past, thus emphasizing the performative dimension of historical writing: “the function of language is to introduce through saying what can no longer be done.” As a consequence, the heterogeneity of two non-communicating temporalities becomes the challenge to be faced: the present of the historian, as a moment du savoir, is radically separated from the past, which exists only as an objet de savoir, the meaning of which can be restored by an operation of distantiation and contextualization. In Evidence de l’histoire: Ce que voient les historiens, François Hartog takes up the question of history writing and what is visible, or more precisely the modalities historians have employed to narrate the past, opening up the way to a reflection on the boundaries between the visible and the invisible: the mechanisms that have contributed to establish these boundaries over time, and the questions that have legitimized the survey of what has been seen or not seen. But, as Mark Phillips points out, it is the very ubiquity of the trope of distance in historical writings that has paradoxically rendered it almost invisible to historians, so that “it has become difficult to distinguish between the concept of historical distance and the idea of history itself.”

scholarly journals Narrative, history, and fiction: history games as boundary works

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 319-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helyom Viana Telles ◽  
Lynn Alves
Keyword(s):  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Doctoral Study ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
The Past ◽  
Electronic Games ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Literary Narrative

This work arises from the reflections generated by a post-doctoral study that investigates how history games can contribute to the production and dissemination of representations, pictures, and imaginaries of the past. We understand history games to be digital electronic games whose structure contains narratives or simulations of historical elements (Neves, 2010). The term notion of “border works” is used by Glezer and Albieri (2009) to discuss the role of literary and artistic works that, standing outside the historiographical field and having a fictional character, are forms of the dissemination of historical knowledge and approximation with the past. We want to show how, under the impact of the linguistic turn, the boundaries between history and fiction have been blurred. Authors such as White (1995) and Veyne (2008) found both a convergence with and identification between historical narrative and literary narrative that interrogates the epistemological status of history as a science. These critiques result in an appreciation of fictional works as both knowledge and the dissemination of historical knowledge of the past. We then examine the elements of the audiovisual narratives of electronic games (Calleja, 2013; Frasca, 1999; Jull, 2001; Murray, 2003; Zagalo, 2009) in an attempt to understand their specificity. Next, we investigate the place of the narrative and historical simulations of electronic games in contemporary culture (Fogu, 2009). Finally, we discuss how historical knowledge is appropriated and represented by history games (Arruda, 2009; Kusiak, 2002) and analyze their impact on the production of a historical consciousness or an imaginary about the past.

scholarly journals When “Mixing Memory and Desire”: Imaginative Revisions and the Productive Power of Nostalgia in Rebecca Brown’s Oughtabiographies

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 23-43
Author(s):  
Lies Xhonneux
Keyword(s):  
Personal History ◽  
History Writing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Narrative Truth ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Way

English:This essay focuses on the “oughtabiographies” of the contemporary lesbian writer Rebecca Brown, which function as imaginative vehicles with which the author (re)writes her own past the way it should have been. Thus her work will be seen to extend the realm of longing – usually reserved for the future – into the past, thereby highlighting the role of desire and the value of “narrative truth” in personal history writing. Moreover, Brown’s active reworkings of her personal past allow for a critical reappraisal of the concept of nostalgia, which is usually dismissed as conservative or passive.Dutch:Dit essay bespreekt de “oughtabiographies” van de hedendaagse lesbische schrijfster Rebecca Brown, waarin deze auteur haar eigen verleden herschrijft tot wat het had moeten zijn. Zo toont Browns werk de invloed van verlangens – die normaal gezien tot het domein van de toekomst behoren – op (het denken over) het verleden, en benadrukt het het belang van “narrative truth” in de context van persoonlijke geschiedschrijving. Bovendien laat Browns actieve herwerking van haar verleden een kritische herwaardering toe van het concept nostalgie, dat vaak als conservatief of passief wordt afgeschilderd.

History and Its Objects

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter N. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
History Writing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Academic History ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
Human Need ◽  
History Of

Cultural history is increasingly informed by the history of material culture—the ways in which individuals or entire societies create and relate to objects both mundane and extraordinary—rather than on textual evidence alone. Books such as The Hare with Amber Eyes and A History of the World in 100 Objects indicate the growing popularity of this way of understanding the past. This book uncovers the forgotten origins of our fascination with exploring the past through its artifacts by highlighting the role of antiquarianism—a pursuit ignored and derided by modem academic history—in grasping the significance of material culture. From the efforts of Renaissance antiquarians, who reconstructed life in the ancient world from coins, inscriptions, seals, and other detritus, to amateur historians in the nineteenth century working within burgeoning national traditions, the book connects collecting—whether by individuals or institutions—to the professionalization of the historical profession, one which came to regard its progenitors with skepticism and disdain. The struggle to articulate the value of objects as historical evidence, then, lies at the heart both of academic history writing and of the popular engagement with things. Ultimately, this book demonstrates that our current preoccupation with objects is far from novel and reflects a human need to re-experience the past as a physical presence.

History Writing and Agency in the Scottish Highlands: Postcolonial Thought, the Work of James Macpherson (1736–1796) and Researching the Region's Past with Local Communities

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-138
Author(s):  
Jim MacPherson
Keyword(s):  
Local Communities ◽  
The Body ◽  
Frantz Fanon ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Alternative Futures ◽  
Scottish Highlands ◽  
The Past ◽  
James Macpherson ◽  
The University

This article argues that postcolonial thought can be used as a tool for thinking about the present in the Scottish Highlands. Taking a case study of collaborative inquiry between local communities, High Life Highland (the body responsible for cultural services in the region) and the University of the Highlands and Islands into the work and legacies of the poet and historian James Macpherson (1736–1796), it examines the way in which the approach and ideas of postcolonialism can be used to better understand the past and critically engage communities in exploring their history. Building upon the work of James Hunter and his pioneering interpretation of Highland history through the work of Frantz Fanon and Edward Said, this article considers how postcolonialism can have intellectual solidarity with histories of the region, especially when we consider the role of the Highlands in processes of colonisation and imperialism. Through this comparative analysis, it demonstrates that using the past as a resource in the present enables communities to change the ways in which their history is presented and to imagine alternative futures.

La responsabilità morale dello storico

2009 ◽  
pp. 116-126
Author(s):  
Bronislaw Baczko
Keyword(s):  
Historical Research ◽  
Social Awareness ◽  
Moral Code ◽  
Individual Action ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
Principle Of Relativity ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
Over Time

- Historical knowledge is tied in a thousand ways to the anxieties, conflicts, to antinomies and to the demands of our era. It is in the name of our present that interrogates the past. It possesses a degree of expressive character: voicing the present where one is born and lives. So, therefore the historian is not an impartial and static observer of the past and the ever-dominate present. He must remain in the perspective of the present-day and the historical moment in which he lives. But no «present» is ever really finished. One might think that no moral code is consistent with the principle of relativity of knowledge, that the researcher is inevitably partial and runs the risk of deformation and ideological sublimation. It may also be that history has taken a far too long function of magistra vitae in social awareness. It does not seem to arouse any distrust towards our time. In fact, the disproportion between the anonymous «fate» on one side - the decisions bearing on the existence of humanity and its future destiny - and, on the other hand, the possibility of individual action is today such that history seems pointless for the rationalization of the present. The attitude towards historical knowledge is also influenced by the fact that it is a subject far too easy to exploit and manipulate by power and propaganda, penalizing values often variable and contradictory. The historical-humanist has often been reduced to the role of technical - propagandist. In his research, he cannot make «partial» choices between true and false. The awareness of the relativity of values and of their variability over time, does not change anything in the absolute moral character of historical research. The total moral responsibility of the historian cannot be relieved by anyone. An historian, precisely, must explore the past to get to the truth; he is morally obligated and has no right to falsify.Key words: present, pass, historical knowledge, "to be a historian", responsibility, relativism, moral code.Parole chiave: presente, passato, conoscenza storica, "essere uno storico", responsabilità, relativismo, codice morale.

Revolution and the art of history in France: Daniel Auber’s Gustave III (1833)

2011 ◽  
Vol 52 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 393-418
Author(s):  
Mark Pottinger
Keyword(s):  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Personal Perspective ◽  
French History ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Cultural Importance ◽  
The Past ◽  
Jules Michelet ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Grand Opera

Following the July Revolution of 1830, French history writing began to reflect a new personal perspective that allowed many to identify with the earlier revolution of 1789. This immediate association with the past allowed individuals to connect with history in ways that reflected themselves as well as the new political and cultural horizon. French grand opéra represented this desire for historical knowledge by displaying a dramatic narrative akin to the writings of French academic historian Jules Michelet (1798–1874). Through the analysis of the music and libretto of Daniel Auber’s Gustave III (1833) it is shown that the historical narrative found within this so-called’ opéra historique’ embraces the same historiographic narrative of revolution as found in the writings of Michelet. Such an investigation highlights the aesthetic and cultural importance of grand opéra in France as well as the genre’s relationship to national identity in the first half of the nineteenth century.

scholarly journals Lived Historiography: National History as a Script to the Past

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-57
Author(s):  
Pertti Haapala
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Identities ◽  
History Writing ◽  
National History ◽  
Political Role ◽  
The Past

AbstractThe chapter studies the role of historiography in experiencing the past. Haapala analyzes how written history and its conceptualizations offered people a framework for understanding, defining, and living the past emotionally, and understanding how their present experiences became connected to history. It is claimed here that academic historiography often played a major role in creating historical and national identities by providing a script, as well as intellectual and emotional tools, to live the past. National history was invented by nineteenth-century intellectuals and it became a powerful, imagined narrative for the nation for two centuries. That success can be explained only by realizing the societal and political role of history writing as an autobiography of a society.

scholarly journals Prosthetic memory and post-memory: cultural encounters with the past in designing a museum

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mălina Ciocea ◽  
Alexandru Cârlan
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Memory Device ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
National Network ◽  
The Past ◽  
Bidirectional Relationship ◽  
Museum Experience ◽  
Conducting Research

<p>This paper1 investigates the sources of representations on the communist period and the type of engagement with the past in an experiential museum, in the context of the National Network of Romanian Museums’ project for a laboratory-museum of Romanian Communism. Our analysis of focus-groups in October-November 2012 explores the public’s expectations in terms of museum experience and engagement with objects and the potential of an experiential museum to facilitate deliberation about the past. We use the conceptual framework of recent studies on postmemory (Hirsch, 2008) and prosthetic memory (Landsberg, 2004, 2009) to focus on ways of building the experiential archive needed to produce prosthetic memory. We consider that such an analysis is relevant for two interconnected problems: the bidirectional relationship between a projected museum of communism and a prospective public, and the methodological insights available for investigating this relation. With regard to the first problem, this paper makes a case for treating museums as a memory device rather than a lieu de memoire and analyses the role of the museum in relation to cultural memory. With regard to the second problem, it offers an example of conducting research on prospective publics which departs from traditional marketing approaches, adopting theoretical insights and analytical categories from specific conceptualizations in the field of memory studies.</p>

scholarly journals Carnival Anthropocene: Myth and Cultural Memory in Monique Roffey's Archipelago // Antropoceno Carnaval: El mito y memoria cultural en Archipelago de Monique Roffey

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-55
Author(s):  
C. Parker Krieg
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

      This essay examines the role of myth in and as cultural memory through a reading of the novel, Archipelago (2013), by the Trinidadian-British author Monique Roffey. Against conceptions of the Anthropocene as a break from the past—a break that repeats the myth of modernity—I argue that Roffey’s use of cultural memory offers a carnivalesque relation to the world in response to the narrative’s account of climate change trauma. Drawing on Bakhtin’s classic study of the carnival as an occasion for contestation and renewal, as well as Cheryl Lousely’s call for a “carnivalesque ecocriticism,” this essay expands on the recent ecocritical turn to the field of Memory Studies (Buell; Goodbody; Kennedy) to illustrate the way literature mediates between mythic and historical relations to the natural world. As literary expressions, the carnivalesque and the grotesque evoke myth and play in order to expose and transform the social myths which govern relations and administrate difference. Since literature acts as both a producer and reflector of cultural memory, this essay seeks to highlight the literary potential of myth for connecting past traumas to affirmational modes of political engagement. Resumen     Este ensayo examina el papel del mito en y como memoria cultural analizando la novela Archipelago (2013), escrita por la autora trinitense-británica Monique Roffey. Frente a la idea del Antropoceno como una ruptura con el pasado—una ruptura que repite el mito de la modernidad—este trabajo argumenta que el uso de la memoria cultural de Roffey ofrece una relación carnavalesca con el mundo en respuesta al trauma del cambio climático detallado en la novela. Basando mi argumento en la teoría clásica de Bakhtin sobre el carnaval como una ocasión para la contestación y la renovación, así como la llamada de Cheryl Lousely por una “ecocrítica carnavalesca,” este ensayo amplía el reciente giro de la ecocrítica hacia el campo de los estudios de memoria (Buell; Goodbody; Kennedy) para ilustrar cómo la literatura media entre las relaciones míticas e históricas con el mundo natural. Como expresiones literarias, lo carnavalesco y lo grotesco evocan el mito y el juego para revelar y transformar los mitos sociales que gobiernan las relaciones y gestionan la diferencia. Ya que la literatura actúa tanto como productora y como espejo de la memoria cultural, este ensayo busca destacar el potencial literario del mito para conectar traumas del pasado con modos de compromiso político más afirmativos.

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