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

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.

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 603-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN BREWER ◽  
SILVIA SEBASTIANI

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.”


2015 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 319-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helyom Viana Telles ◽  
Lynn Alves

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.


Impact ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (8) ◽  
pp. 82-84
Author(s):  
Hiroki Kikuchi ◽  
Asei Sato

The preservation of historical artefacts is an important means of understanding more about the past. Japan is home to thousands of stone inscriptions, many of which are not stored in research institutions of museums, but rather, are scattered across the country in places like roadsides or graveyards in rural locations. While these inscriptions might well be of interest to local residents, there is a need to increase awareness of their cultural importance. A team led by Hiroki Kikuchi, who is based at The Historiographical Institute within The University of Tokyo in Japan, is working to create a database which will digitise 2,700 inscription rubbings. The database will be open to the public and will provide a fascinating historical narrative as well as an important research resource.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Yuliya Yurchuk

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.


Author(s):  
Марина Анатольевна Шестакова ◽  
Татьяна Борисовна Батыр

Одним из направлений, расширяющих наше представление о принципах и механизмах работы человеческого мышления, является изучение визуального мышления. В настоящей статье рассмотрены три основных подхода к изучению визуального мышления. Психологический подход выделен на основании анализа работ Р. Арнхейма, который показал возможность понимания визуального восприятия в терминах психологии мышления. Зрительное восприятие Р. Арнхейм представил как способ мышления, в ходе которого осуществляется выделение существенных свойств наблюдаемых предметов, общих для класса предметов. Наличие большого количества визуальных интуиций в философской гносеологии может служить косвенным подтверждением правомерности и актуальности психологического подхода. Нейроэстетический подход выделен в результате анализа работ С. Зеки и В. Рамачандрана. Основатели нейроэстетики пришли к выводу о том, что зрительное восприятие является не отображением предмета глазом, а активной деятельностью мозга по достраиванию или моделированию предмета, осуществляемым по определенным законам, таким как «закон максимального смещения», «закон изоляции», «закон симметрии» и др. Развивая идеи нейроэстетиков, можно заметить, что указанные законы зрительного восприятия подходят для описания процедур абстрагирования и идеализации. Представляются перспективными широкая трактовка законов зрительного восприятия и распространение их на интеллектуальные процедуры. Гносеологический подход рассмотрен на примере понятия «точки зрения», которое отсылает одновременно и к визуальному, и к абстрактному мышлению. Понятие «точки зрения» И. Хладениус использовал в методологии исторического познания, истолковав последнее как видение прошлого под определенным углом. Другим вариантом разработки понятия «точки зрения» является концепция Ф. Анкерсмита. Будучи представителем нарративной философии истории, Ф. Анкерсмит трактует «точку зрения» как нарративную субстанцию, позволяющую связать отдельные высказывания в целостный исторический нарратив. Понятие «точки зрения» свидетельствует о трактовке исторического познания как определенного видения прошлого, об интерпретации исторического исследования в терминах визуального мышления. Все три указанных направления указывают на глубокую взаимосвязь между визуальным и абстрактным и тем самым открывают особый ракурс в исследовании человеческого мышления, который будет интересен, в частности, в исследованиях искусственного интеллекта. Studies of visual thinking represent one of the trends expanding our views on the principles and mechanisms of human thinking. The present paper outlines three main approaches to the study of visual thinking. The psychological approach has been set apart based on the analysis of works by Rudolf Arnheim who demonstrated that visual thinking might be understood in terms of the psychology of thinking. Arnheim presented visual thinking as a mode of thinking that allows singling out the essential – common for the whole class – properties of the observed objects. The legitimacy and relevance of the psychological approach can be circumstantially proved by a large number of visual intuitions in philosophical epistemology. The neuroaesthetic approach has been singled out based on the analysis of works by Semir Zeki and V. S. Ramachandran. The founders of neuroaesthetics came to the conclusion that visual perception is not the reflection of an object by the eye, but an active brain activity aiming at completion or modelling of an object in accordance with certain laws such as the peak shift principle, the law of isolation, the law of symmetry, etc. Developing the ideas of neuroaesthetics, we can note that these laws of visual perception are suitable for describing the procedures of abstraction and idealization. A broader interpretation of the laws of visual perception and their application to intellectual procedures seem to be a promising perspective. The gnoseological approach has been examined on the example of the notion of “point of view”, which refers both to visual and abstract thinking. Johann Martin Chladenius used this notion in the methodology of historical knowledge, treating the latter as a vision of the past under a certain angle. Another way of developing the “point of view” is presented in Frank Ankersmit’s conception. Being a representative of the narrative philosophy of history, Ankersmit interprets the “point of view” as a narrative substance which allows integrating separate utterances into a single historical narrative. The notion of “point of view” demonstrates that historical knowledge is treated as a certain vision of the past and that historical research is interpreted in terms of visual thinking. All the three mentioned approaches point out a strong link between the visual and the abstract and thus open up a particular perspective on the study of human thinking, which may, for instance, be of interest in the study of artificial intelligence.


Impact ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (4) ◽  
pp. 50-52
Author(s):  
Hiroki Kikuchi ◽  
Asei Sato

The preservation of historical artefacts is an important means of understanding more about the past. Japan is home to thousands of stone inscriptions, many of which are not stored in research institutions of museums, but rather, are scattered across the country in places like roadsides or graveyards in rural locations. While these inscriptions might well be of interest to local residents, there is a need to increase awareness of their cultural importance. A team led by Hiroki Kikuchi, who is based at The Historiographical Institute within The University of Tokyo in Japan, is working to create a database which will digitise 2,700 inscription rubbings. The database will be open to the public and will provide a fascinating historical narrative as well as an important research resource.


1997 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee D. Parker

Historical research in accounting and management, hitherto largely neglected as a field of inquiry by many management and accounting researchers, has experienced a resurgence of interest and activity in research conferences and journals over the past decade. The potential lessons of the past for contemporary issues have been rediscovered, but the way forward is littered with antiquarian narratives, methodologically naive analyses, ideologically driven interpretation and ignorance of the traditions, schools and philosophy of the craft by accounting and management researchers as well as traditional and critical historians themselves. This paper offers an introduction to contributions made to the philosophies and methods of history by significant historians in the past, a review of some of the influential schools of historical thought, insights into philosophies of historical knowledge and explanation and a brief introduction to oral and business history. On this basis the case is made for the philosophically and methodologically informed approach to the investigation of our past heritage in accounting and management


Author(s):  
Stefan Bauer

How was the history of post-classical Rome and of the Church written in the Catholic Reformation? Historical texts composed in Rome at this time have been considered secondary to the city’s significance for the history of art. The Invention of Papal History corrects this distorting emphasis and shows how history-writing became part of a comprehensive formation of the image and self-perception of the papacy. By presenting and fully contextualizing the path-breaking works of the Augustinian historian Onofrio Panvinio (1530–68), this book shows what type of historical research was possible in the late Renaissance and the Catholic Reformation. Historiography in this period by no means consisted entirely of commissioned works written for patrons; rather, a creative interplay existed between, on the one hand, the endeavours of authors to explore the past and, on the other hand, the constraints of patronage and ideology placed on them. This book sheds new light on the changing priorities, mentalities, and cultural standards that flourished in the transition from the Renaissance to the Catholic Reformation.


Author(s):  
Patricia Pelley

This chapter demonstrates how the process of decolonization and the ensuing separation of Vietnam into a northern and southern state as part of the Cold War in Asia led to different types of history-writing. In both Vietnamese regimes, the writing of history had to serve the state, and in both countries historians emphasized its political function. Whereas North Vietnam located itself in an East Asian and Marxist context, historians of South Vietnam positioned it within a Southeast Asian setting and took a determinedly anti-communist position. After 1986—over a decade after reunification—with past tensions now relaxed, the past could be revaluated more openly under a reformist Vietnamese government that now also permitted much greater interaction with foreign historians.


Author(s):  
Marie-Sophie de Clippele

AbstractCultural heritage can offer tangible and intangible traces of the past. A past that shapes cultural identity, but also a past from which one sometimes wishes to detach oneself and which nevertheless needs to be remembered, even commemorated. These themes of memory, history and oblivion are examined by the philosopher Paul Ricoeur in his work La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli (2000). Inspired by these ideas, this paper analyses how they are closely linked to cultural heritage. Heritage serves as a support for memory, even if it can be mishandled, which in turn can affect heritage policies. Memory and heritage can be abused as a result of wounds from the past or for reasons of ideological manipulation or because of a political will to force people to remember. Furthermore, heritage, as a vehicule of memory, contributes to historical knowledge, but can remain marked by a certain form of subjectivism during the heritage and conservation operation, for which heritage professionals (representatives of the public authority or other experts) are responsible. Yet, the responsibility for conserving cultural heritage also implies the need to avoid any loss of heritage, and to fight against oblivion. Nonetheless, this struggle cannot become totalitarian, nor can it deprive the community of a sometimes salutary oblivion to its own identity construction. These theoretical and philosophical concepts shall be examined in the light of legal discourse, and in particular in Belgian legislation regarding cultural heritage. It is clear that the shift from monument to heritage broadens the legal scope and consequently raises the question of who gets to decide what is considered heritage according to the law, and whether there is something such as a collective human right to cultural heritage. Nonetheless, this broadening of the legislation extends the State intervention into cultural heritage, which in turn entails certain risks, as will be analysed with Belgium’s colonial heritage.


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