Contesting History

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Black
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Public History ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Original Material ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Western Model ◽  
Fundamental Significance ◽  
The Media

Contesting History is an authoritative guide to the positive and negative applications of the past in the public arena and what this signifies for the meaning of history more widely. Using a global, non-Western model, Jeremy Black examines the employment of history by the state, the media, the national collective memory and others and considers its fundamental significance in how we understand the past. Moving from public life pre-1400 to the struggle of ideologies in the 20th century and contemporary efforts to find meaning in historical narratives, Jeremy Black incorporates a great deal of original material on governmental, social and commercial influences on the public use of history. This includes a host of in-depth case studies from different periods of history around the world, and coverage of public history in a wider range of media, including TV and film. Readers are guided through this material by an expansive introduction, section headings, chapter conclusions and a selected further reading list. Written with eminent clarity and breadth of knowledge, Contesting History is a key text for all students of public history and anyone keen to know more about the nature of history as a discipline and concept.

Crashing into Public History with Aimee Semple McPherson

2007 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 35-44
Author(s):  
MATTHEW AVERY SUTTON
Keyword(s):  
Public History ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Aimee Semple Mcpherson ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media

Abstract In this article, Matthew Avery Sutton reflects on his experiences as he unwittingly plunged into the world of public history. His book on controversial evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson was made into a documentary for PBS, and he served as the historical advisor for the project. He argues that despite many historians' skepticism about the genre of historical documentary, writers and filmmakers are essentially engaged in the same process——each tries to simplify complicated stories about the past to speak to their intended audiences. The differences between the two are of scope, not tactic. Turning the camera on himself, Sutton found that working with the public and the media made him a better communicator, a better writer, and a better historian.

scholarly journals Kościół katolicki wobec pamięci zbiorowej Polaków. Ciągłość i zmiana

2018 ◽  
pp. 135-146
Author(s):  
Paweł Stachowiak
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Polish Society ◽  
The Church

The paper attempts to present the leading objectives and motives of the ‘Church’s policy of memory’ before and after 1989. The author states that, like many other institutions of public life, the Catholic Church implements its own policy to shape the collective memory of Poles, both in terms of legitimization and content. At the time of the Polish People’s Republic, the first and foremost objective of the ‘Church’s memory policy’ was to counteract the activities of the communist authorities, which were carrying out a project to restrict the Church’s influence to the narrowly understood field of the priesthood and which ultimately aimed at the atheization of Polish society. The emphasis on the historical symbiosis of Polishness and Catholicism served the purpose of defending the traditional form of Polish religiousness and providing the Church with social support in the struggle to maintain the public dimension of its influence. Despite the change in language, the present objective of the Church’s historical narration appears similar: to oppose these aspects of secularization trends that drive the Church away from public space and so intensifying the phenomenon of the privatization of faith. Whether in the past or present, the Church’s vision of the past is to secure its own stability as an institution and retain the role of a significant factor contributing to the national and state conscience of Poles.

scholarly journals Places of the Heart: Memorials, Public History and the State in Australia Since 1960

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Ashton ◽  
Paula Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Public History ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Public Places ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Over Time

Memorials as a form of public history allow us to chart the complex interactions and negotiations between officially endorsed historical narratives, public memorials, privately sponsored memorials in public spaces and new histories. As Ludmilla Jordanova reminds us, ‘the state… lies at the heart of public history’. And this is evident in the public process of memorialisation. At one level, the state endorses certain narratives within which communities and organisations need to operate if they are to be officially part of the national story and its regional and local variants. Ultimate endorsement for memorials includes listings on heritage registers. Controls over the erection of memorials vary from official policies to process for the issue of permits for their construction in public places or their removal. The state, however, is not monolithic. Permissible pasts evolve over time given shifts in power and social and cultural change. This involves both ‘retrospective commemoration’ and ‘participatory memorialisation’. The presence and power of the past in peoples’ lives, too, means in practice that memorial landscapes will reflect, in truly democratic societies, the values, experiences and dominant concerns of its citizens.

Public History and National Identity

2016 ◽  
pp. 56-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleni Andriakaina
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public History ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
Public Controversy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Media Spectacle ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject

In 2011, while the causes of Greek “crisis” started becoming the subject of public controversy, a documentary series aired on Skai channel vowing to challenge nationalist and populist accounts of the 1821 Revolution. By popularizing the main arguments of modernization theory, the “1821” documentary approached the past through the lens of “Cultural dualism” – the clash between a ‘reformist' and an ‘underdog' culture – and operated as a metaphor for contemporary Greece. Via the study of the media spectacle and the ways the history of 1821 goes public, historical inquiry can reflect on the normative/descriptive complex of rival historical narratives, exercise itself in perspectival seeing and self-reflexivity and move towards a history of the present.

The Suffering of the Perpetrators: The Ethics of Traumatic German Historicity in Karen Bass's Young Adult World War II Novels

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Doris Wolf
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Adult World ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper examines two young adult novels, Run Like Jäger (2008) and Summer of Fire (2009), by Canadian writer Karen Bass, which centre on the experiences of so-called ordinary German teenagers in World War II. Although guilt and perpetration are themes addressed in these books, their focus is primarily on the ways in which Germans suffered at the hands of the Allied forces. These books thus participate in the increasingly widespread but still controversial subject of the suffering of the perpetrators. Bringing work in childhood studies to bear on contemporary representations of German wartime suffering in the public sphere, I explore how Bass's novels, through the liminal figure of the adolescent, participate in a culture of self-victimisation that downplays guilt rather than more ethically contextualises suffering within guilt. These historical narratives are framed by contemporary narratives which centre on troubled teen protagonists who need the stories of the past for their own individualisation in the present. In their evacuation of crucial historical contexts, both Run Like Jäger and Summer of Fire support optimistic and gendered narratives of individualism that ultimately refuse complicated understandings of adolescent agency in the past or present.

Risks to the Public

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-15
Author(s):  
Peter G. Neumann
Keyword(s):  
Computer Systems ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Risk Awareness ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Media ◽  
Potential Risks ◽  
Security And Reliability

Mini-editorial (PGN) 2020 was a crazy year, with all kinds of risks on display. As usual, many of the lessons noted in past issues of SEN and RISKS have been largely ignored, and failures continue to mirror events from the past that have long been discussed here. Issues such as safety, security, and reliability always seem to need more foresight than they receive. Y2K con- tinues to hit somewhere each New Year's Day, when short- term remediations that demanded periodic upgrading have been forgotten. (I suppose old COBOL code will still ex- ist in year 2100, when there may be ambiguities relating to dates that could be 21xx or 20xx (although 19xx is unlikely), and the narrow windowing xes will fail even more dramati- cally.) Election integrity continues to be a real concern, where we are caught in the crosshairs between computer systems and networks that are not meaningfully trustworthy or au- ditable, and the nontechnological risks are still pervasive from unbalanced redistricting, creative dysinformation, poli- tics, Citzens United, and foreign interference. We need non- partisan scrutiny and defense against would-be subverters to overcome potential attacks and inadvertent mistakes. In pres- ence of potential risks in every part of the process, a strong sense of risk-awareness is required by voters, election officials, and the media (both proactively and remedially, as needed).

Reflections on the Public Interpretation of Regional Environmental History In Western Pennsylvania

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-69
Author(s):  
Chris J. Magoc
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Public History ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Interpretation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Natural Resource Extraction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Environmental Histories ◽  
Western Pennsylvania

This essay attempts to counter the scarcity of efforts to address issues of natural resource extraction and environmental exploitation in public history forums. Focused on western Pennsylvania, it argues that the history of industrial development and its deleterious environmental impacts demands a regional vision that not only frames these stories within the ideological and economic context of the past, but also challenges residents and visitors to consider this history in light of the related environmental concerns of our own time. The essay explores some of the difficult issues faced by public historians and practitioners as they seek to produce public environmental histories that do not elude opportunities to link past and present in meaningful ways.

scholarly journals Public History in Movement – Present Pasts: the Memory of Slavery in Brazil

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juniele Rabêlo de Almeida ◽  
Larissa Moreira Viana
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public History ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Research Network ◽  
Historical Representation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
The Public Sphere

AbstractPresent Pasts: The Memory of Slavery in Brazil is a sound testament to the Brazilian public history movemen.This problematization of the “present pasts of slavery” finds fertile ground in Brazilian public history because of the urgent need to record and analyze representations of this traumatic past, going beyond professional and academic contexts to the public sphere. Public history offers reinvigorating possibilities for mediation between, and intervention in, the past and its publics.The Present Pasts Research Network provides a thought-provoking example of public history’s ability to be sensitive to broad public debate and how the needs, interests, and representations of communities can be addressed through historical representation, interpretation, and active history-making.

scholarly journals Hinduism in the News: The Shifting Role of Religion and the Media in Canadian Public Life

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Mann
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Media ◽  
Role Of Religion

This article studies Canadian and international newspaper reports from September, 1995, of the Ganesha milk drinking miracle. It analyzes the chronology of the newspaper reports as the story develops from an account of a miracle in the “exotic” East to an account of a miracle also occurring in Canada. The evidence demonstrates an inability on the part of the Canadian news media to view religion as hard news with broad social and political implications. The comparison with international reports demonstrates that the story had a significant political dimension and was viewed as hard news in other parts of the world. The comparison questions the assumed boundaries between the public and private spheres in relation to religion and demonstrates that such boundaries are constructed through power relationships and the news media itself.Cette etude examine des articles canadiens et internationaux parus en septembre 1995 concernant le miracle de la consommation du lait de Ganesha. Elle analyse la chronologie des articles de journaux tenant compte du développement du miracle de l’Orient ‘exotique’ vers le développement de ce même miracle au Canada. La discussion l’analyse fait valoir l’incapacité de la part des médias canadiens de percevoir la religion comme étant au centre des actualités sérieuses ayant des conséquences sociales graves et des implications politiques. La comparaison des rapports internationaux montre que ce sujet a une dimension politique importante et est considéré d’actualit sérieuse. La comparaison remet en question les frontières définissant les sphères publiques et privées en matière de religion et démontre que de telles limites sont construites par l’entremise des relations de pouvoir et des médias eux - mêmes.

Music Training and Nonmusical Abilities: Introduction

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Glenn Schellenberg ◽  
Ellen Winner
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Music Perception ◽  
Music Training ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Academic Benefits ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Media ◽  
New Research

the objective of this special issue of Music Perception, which includes contributions from researchers based in Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the US, is to present the best new research on associations between music training and nonmusical abilities. Scholarly interest in associations between music training and nonmusical cognitive functioning has sparked much research over the past 15–20 years. The study of how far associations between music training and cognitive abilities extend, and whether such associations are more likely for some domains of cognition than for others, has theoretical relevance for issues of transfer, modularity, and plasticity. Unlike most other areas of scientific inquiry, there is parallel interest on the part of the public, the media, and educators who want to know if nonmusical intellectual and academic benefits are a welcome by-product of sending children to music lessons. Indeed, some educators and arts advocates justify music training in schools precisely because of these presumed and desired nonmusical associations.

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