Showing papers in "Rethinking History in 2017"
TL;DR: In 2005, William Uricchio published "Simulation, history and computer games" as mentioned in this paper, a chapter in the Handbook of Computer Game Studies (HGS), which was later extended to include a chapter on the history of computer games.
Abstract: In 2005, William Uricchio published ‘Simulation, History and Computer Games’, a chapter in the Handbook of Computer Game Studies (Raessens and Goldstein 2005). A few other articles on the topic of ...
45 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that digital games hold the potential to influence processes of cultural memory related to past and contemporary forms of marginalization, by bringing cultural memory studi...
Abstract: In this article, I argue that digital games hold the potential to influence processes of cultural memory related to past and contemporary forms of marginalization. By bringing cultural memory studi...
38 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that sport history has remained problematically wedded to assumptions and concepts of Western capitalist modernity, and as a result, such sport historical narratives have remained problematic for sport history.
Abstract: This essay argues that the predominant narratives within sport history have remained problematically wedded to assumptions and concepts of Western capitalist modernity. As a result, such sport hist...
34 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse how and why accuracy is conceptualised, implemented and assessed in videogames by the developers, gamers and cultural-heritage professionals who are involved in their creation, consumption and critique.
Abstract: Videogames containing cultural-heritage have been constructed, consumed and critiqued in increasing quantities over the past 20 years. One of the key concerns expressed in both formal and informal literature surrounding these games has been the concept of accuracy in relation to the represented cultural-heritage. However, limited dialogue between videogame developers, gamers and cultural-heritage professionals has meant that there is surprisingly little primary data regarding how these groups are constructing, experiencing or analysing ideas of accuracy. This paper aims to provide a foundation for understanding how and why accuracy is conceptualised, implemented and assessed in videogames by the developers, gamers and cultural-heritage professionals who are involved in their creation, consumption and critique. To achieve this, the article critically analyses 156 interviews conducted with members of the videogame industry, gamers and cultural-heritage professionals. This analysis uses the concepts ...
33 citations
TL;DR: As the participant generation passes away, the current moment of Second World War cultural memory is suffused with a sense of an imminent ending and of our passing into a new phase of engagement beyond living memory, a phase which will be the poorer for lacking the validating presence of first hand witnesses; it may even constitute a kind of closure as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: As the participant generation passes away, the current moment of Second World War cultural memory is suffused with a sense of an imminent ending and of our passing into a new phase of engagement beyond living memory, a phase which – so it is often held – will be the poorer for lacking the validating presence of first hand witnesses; it may even constitute a kind of closure. This essay takes this observation as a point of departure for a wider exploration of this contemporary landscape of remembrance which, it is argued, is peculiarly and multiply fraught with anxieties about authenticity. It begins by discussing how the steady disappearance of the participant generation serves as a foundation for this anxiety, looking at how it has helped to fuel particular sorts of mnemonic activity as part and parcel of a post-Cold War boom in Second World War remembrance. It then explores some wider aspects of that remembrance which are generating new concerns about authenticity and interrogating it in novel te...
21 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the Singularization of History (SOP) principle is challenged and the authors argue that the focus of microhistorians on the connections between micro and macro is not consistent with the global perspective of historical inquiry.
Abstract: In my previous work I have established a theoretical framework called ‘the Singularization of History’ by criticizing the way social, cultural and microhistorians have practiced their scholarship in the last two or three decades. I have paid particular attention to one element common to the theoretical orientations of all microhistorians, viz. the connections between micro and macro. Microhistorians of all persuasions emphasize the importance of placing small units of research within larger contexts. I refute this principle and demonstrate its inherent contradictions. I encourage historians to cut the umbilical cord that ties them to what has been called ‘a great historical question’. The challenge of my paper will be to consider whether this research focus excludes the global perspective from historical inquiry. If that is not the case, what is the best possible approach to gain that vision?
19 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the power of witnessing is intimately linked to concepts of authenticity, and that the eyewitness who, it is believed, can truly give an account of what it was really like.
Abstract: The article argues that the power of witnessing is intimately linked to concepts of authenticity – it is the eyewitness who, it is believed, can truly give an account of ‘what it was really like’. However, in order to ensure an impact on memory cultures, witness testimony must be recorded and fixed in a way that allows wider distribution. Such mediation can result in a perceived reduction in the authenticity of the narrative, as the person-to-person contact is lost. The recipient of the testimony is necessarily at a greater distance from the witness spatially and temporally than he or she would be in ‘live’ conversation. The article explores the methods deployed in audio-visual media (video testimony, memorial museums and documentary film) to lend authority and authenticity to the testimonies they record. In the process, it elaborates two theoretical terms: complementary authenticities and mediated remembering communities, which have broad significance for our understanding of how first-person tes...
16 citations
TL;DR: A redefinition of "authenticity" is occurring in historical fiction, with the emergence of a "neo-historical" aesthetic as discussed by the authors, as evidenced by the renegotiation of the term through #liveauthentic community.
Abstract: A redefinition of ‘authenticity’ is occurring in historical fiction, with the emergence of a ‘neo-historical’ aesthetic. Wider cultural discourses around authenticity are particularly unstable as evidenced by the renegotiation of the term through social media movements such as Instagram’s #liveauthentic community. The neo-historical impulse in fiction participates in these debates. Whereas in much historical fiction criticism the term ‘authentic’ has been synonymous with ‘accurate’ – witness the quotation from Sarah Waters in my title – the neo-historical aesthetic is differently authentic. This is evident in the use of conspicuous anachronisms through which the neo-historical both resists and incorporates postmodern discourses about the unreliability of ‘factual’ historical narratives, proposing instead new kinds of fictional histories, which are authentic in their self-awareness and honest acknowledgement of their inevitable limitations. With reference to #liveauthentic, this paper will explore ...
16 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigates how authenticity is construed and negotiated in four different fields of reenactment practice in Denmark (Iron Age, Middle Age, World War II and Francis of Assisi).
Abstract: This article investigates how authenticity is construed and negotiated in four different fields of reenactment practice in Denmark (Iron Age, Middle Age, World War II and Francis of Assisi). It first outlines some key theoretical positions within recent international academic debate on reenactment and living history. Taking the viewpoint of the reenactors themselves, the article explores and compares how they create, experience and negotiate authenticity in the very process of imitating and embodying pasts. It transpires that authenticity is articulated, construed and evaluated differently, according, inter alia, to whether the primarily purpose is to learn about the past or rather to learn from the past. For some reenactors, the attempt to get as close as possible to the past connects to an ideal of historical accuracy, a standard from which all replicas and performances are measured. Yet a pragmatic recognition that the past can never be recreated completely is constantly present. For other reen...
15 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors usefully conceptualize romantic love in historical work and use it in the context of historical work, where the emotions typically move across and between disciplines in the humanities along with the social, behavioral an...
Abstract: How might we usefully conceptualize romantic love in historical work? Historians of the emotions typically move across and between disciplines in the humanities along with the social, behavioral an...
14 citations
TL;DR: In the past twenty years scholars have engaged with exploring the function and process of historical narrative-making in increasingly popular forms such as film history, public history, material history, etc.
Abstract: In the past twenty years scholars have engaged with exploring the function and process of historical narrative-making in increasingly popular forms such as film history, public history, material cu...
TL;DR: In this article, the notion of authenticity is deployed in uncommon guises; in particular, the authentic is framed as "the culpable" (that is, an agent regarded as identical with the perpetrator of past deeds), which provides the frame for considering various poetic and narrative techniques by which the Middle Ages have been put "on trial" and found to be selfsame.
Abstract: This article reflects playfully on poetic and periodic conceptions of the Middle Ages, with a view to establishing connections (direct as well as analogical) between the inscription of periodic claustrality and the formal structure of verse. As a means of defamiliarising the subjects at hand, the notion of authenticity is deployed in uncommon guises; in particular, the authentic is framed as ‘the culpable’ (that is, an agent regarded as identical with the perpetrator of past deeds). This legal or juridical sense of the word authentic (which is encoded in its etymology) provides the frame for considering various poetic and narrative techniques by which the Middle Ages have been put ‘on trial’ and found to be selfsame – or otherwise.
TL;DR: This article revisited White's claims about historical representation and interpretation as they apply to the historiography of the Holocaust and argued that rational constructivism leaves the problem of adjudicating between competing narratives which meet the criteria to be considered as "rationally constructed" unanswered.
Abstract: This article revisits Hayden White’s claims about historical representation and interpretation as they apply to the historiography of the Holocaust. It engages with the recent work of three theorists of history, all of whom are to a greater or lesser extent indebted to White: Kalle Pihlainen, Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen, and Paul A. Roth. In particular, I examine Kuukkanen’s ‘post-narrativist philosophy of historiography’, which regards history as constructed – there is no truth in terms of correspondence – but at the same time as a rational enterprise, thus disallowing interpretations that do not conform to established and shared disciplinary rules. Kuukkanen looks to the historiography of World War I for his examples, while here I turn to the Holocaust as a powerful test case for theory of history. The article concludes that ‘rational constructivism’ leaves the problem of adjudicating between competing narratives which meet the criteria to be considered as ‘rationally constructed’ unanswered and argue...
TL;DR: In this article, the ontological basis of environmental history and the modes of historical explanations clearly differ from that of traditional historiography and traditional historical explanations respectively, and a philosophical overall assessment of the environmental history is provided.
Abstract: The specificity of environmental history lies in new paradigmatic starting points, which abandon the anthropocentric presuppositions of traditional historiography. In this article, these theoretical and philosophical starting points will be analysed by taking into account the long term evolution of ecologically aware historical writing from the early nineteenth century onwards and the emergence of the academically established field of environmental history in the US and Europe since the 1960s. We describe how the ontological basis of environmental history and the modes of historical explanations clearly differ from that of traditional historiography and traditional historical explanations respectively. In conclusion, we provide a philosophical overall assessment of environmental history.
TL;DR: In this article, a Japanese tactical role-playing game is analyzed through the concept of selective authenticity to see how the historical connections to World War II in the game are built and maintained: which elements of the popular memory of the war are leveraged to create historical authenticity when the game in general strives towards fantasy.
Abstract: Many contemporary video games engage with historical representations. Series like Civilization (1991–present), Assassin’s Creed (2007–present), and Call of Duty (2003–present) have shown that history is a popular playground for games. Taking a step away from the historical and towards the fantastical, Valkyria Chronicles is a Japanese tactical role-playing game structured around a reframing of World War II, presenting it as a fictional conflict on an imagined continent. Though not strictly a historical game, Valkyria Chronicles nevertheless offers a case for examining playful representations of the past. In this article, Valkyria Chronicles is analyzed through the concept of selective authenticity to see how the historical connections to World War II in the game are built and maintained: which elements of the popular memory of the war are leveraged to create historical authenticity when the game in general strives towards fantasy. Reading Valkyria Chronicles as a reflection of history, this articl...
TL;DR: Landwehr as mentioned in this paper is a specialist in early modern and cultural history with an interest in historical theory, with an earlier publication of Historische Diskursanalyse (Frankfurt/Main, 20...
Abstract: Achim Landwehr is a specialist in early modern and cultural history, with an interest in historical theory. He has followed his earlier publication of Historische Diskursanalyse (Frankfurt/Main, 20...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider the negotiations surrounding historical authenticity in a unique Canadian production of Shakespeare's King Lear and argue that choices had to be made between accuracy on the one hand and authenticity on the other.
Abstract: This article considers the negotiations surrounding historical authenticity in a unique Canadian production of Shakespeare’s King Lear. It argues that choices had to be made between accuracy on the one hand and authenticity on the other. Three particular contexts of these negotiations about authenticity are identified: that of Shakespeare’s original play, the production’s chosen setting of early modern ‘Canada’, and contemporary Canadian society and politics. Traced through the National Art Centre English Theatre Company’s script work, set and costume design, and dramaturgy, the article invites a re-consideration of the relationship between a commitment to historical accuracy and a desire to achieve historical authenticity.
TL;DR: One of the main questions that undoubtedly ‘tortures’ historians of science is how their research object can fruitfully be an essential part of a discussion with, and about, history per se as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: One of the main questions that undoubtedly ‘tortures’ historians of science is how their research object can fruitfully be an essential part of a discussion with, and about, history per se. In othe...
TL;DR: After the 1967 Six-Day War, much of the European New Left adopted the Palestinian cause, criticizing Israel as a representative of Western imperialism and racism as discussed by the authors. This view gradually gained accepta...
Abstract: After the 1967 Six-Day War, much of the European New Left adopted the Palestinian cause, criticizing Israel as a representative of Western imperialism and racism. This view gradually gained accepta...
TL;DR: This article present a brief reassessment of T. E. Hulme's essays and notes posthumously published as Speculations (1924), with particular regard to ongoing discussion of the relationship between history and art.
Abstract: I present here a brief reassessment of T. E. Hulme’s essays and notes posthumously published as Speculations (1924), with particular regard to ongoing discussion of the relationship between history and art. I argue that, despite comparative neglect through the twentieth century, Hulme’s treatment of that relationship may be of continuing interest to theorists – especially inasmuch as it is concerned with such matters as history’s role in investigating presuppositions and (in tandem with other forms of art) challenging accepted definitions of ‘reality’.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that history still matters: it is needed in the interest of justice, not only for victims, but also for perpetrators who might otherwise succeed in "getting away with it".
Abstract: I argue here that ‘history’, though vilified by certain theorists, remains a practice of ethical importance. I focus on Anna Bikont’s research of the 1941 massacre of Jews in the Polish village of Jedwabne, but I also look more briefly at other investigations of past injustices, and conclude that there is some (ethical) point in attempting to approach more nearly to a ‘truth’ about those various past events. There may also be an ethical imperative to assess the record of alternative accounts of those events: some versions of the past have been suppressed and effectively forgotten, while others have achieved hegemonic status; and the reasons for that discrepancy require investigation too. ‘History’, then, still matters: it is needed in the interest of justice, not only for victims, but also for perpetrators who might otherwise succeed in ‘getting away with it’.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the historian constitutes rather than discovers the meaning of the past, and that the connection between history and the past is an authorial undertaking, apart from referential statements of justified belief.
Abstract: In this article I argue that the historian constitutes rather than discovers the meaning of ‘the past’. I offer, therefore, a judgment on the connection between history and the past that rejects conventional empirical, analytical and representationalist thinking. My judgment is that, apart from referential statements of justified belief, the connection between history and the past is an entirely authorial undertaking.
TL;DR: The expressionist art of Tracey Emin is often labeled as confessional because of its intimate subject matter, which draws on the artist's personal experiences of sexual abuse, erotic escapades, pregnancies, and abortions.
Abstract: The expressionist art of Tracey Emin is often labeled as confessional because of its intimate subject matter, which draws on the artist’s personal experiences of sexual abuse, erotic escapades, pregnancies, and abortions. Combined with Emin’s unrefined esthetic, such as her hand-written text or her sloppily-styled installations, seemingly autobiographical details emerge with a powerful sense of immediacy and work to establish an ostensibly authentic tone. But for all of its implications of veracity, how far does Emin’s confessional art disclose any truth? By analyzing parts of it through the classical figure of Penelope as well as the theories of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, I argue that the art of Tracey Emin reflects a complex notion of authenticity, one that is entangled with performance and which exposes that confessional truth-telling can be, and often is, a form of storytelling.
TL;DR: De Man's postwar relationship to his wartime past has been fiercely debated since the 1987 discovery of almost 200 pro-German articles that he wrote in his youth during the Nazi occupation of his native Belgium as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Belgian-American critic Paul de Man’s postwar relationship to his wartime past has been fiercely debated since the 1987 discovery of almost 200 pro-German articles that he wrote in his youth during the Nazi occupation of his native Belgium. What were the reasons for his postwar silence over this and how did this relationship shape his deconstructionist writings? Here, it is argued that after his 1948 emigration to America, de Man, with single-minded, almost obsessional, determination pursued an authenticating project, the goal of which was to become an author who never (again) committed the mistakes of his youth. To realize his goal, de Man underwent a decades-long spiritual conversion that can be viewed as embodying the tension between two models of conversion in Western culture: metanoia – the transformation of one’s way of thinking and being – and epistrophē – the return to the source of one’s way of thinking and being. While de Man’s conversion at first entailed the straightforward renunciatio...
TL;DR: In this article, the use of the 10-day week of the French revolutionary calendar as a durational framework for a series of works from the early 1970s to the present is examined.
Abstract: Recently, there has been a remarkable convergence between performance art and history, with the ‘historical turn’ in performance art mirrored by a ‘performative turn’ within history. This raises the question: can performance itself be considered historical knowledge? This article pursues this question through the work of Stuart Brisley, the English multi-media artist well-known for his durational works from the late 1960s, some of which were also feats of physical endurance. Brisley’s oeuvre engages with a number of historical conflicts. It also radically questions the authenticity of the live event and its primacy in our understanding of both performance art and history. Drawing on unpublished testimony, this article considers the uses of history in Brisley’s work, focusing on the French Revolution. In particular, it assesses Brisley’s use of the 10-day week of the French revolutionary calendar as a durational framework for a series of works from the early 1970s to the present.
TL;DR: In this article, a reading that is sensitive to the non-literary aspects of history writing and views them productively, rather than as a problem to be brushed aside in theoretical debate, is presented.
Abstract: My aim in this article is to put an end to the continued either-or debate regarding the literary nature of history, whereby attention so easily returns to the fact–fiction issue. To prevent a relapse into this unfruitful argument, I offer a reading that is sensitive to the non-literary aspects of history writing and views them productively, rather than as a problem to be brushed aside in theoretical debate. In an attempt to ‘accentuate the positive’, I thus foreground strengths that are specific to history, that follow from historians’ core commitments. Beyond this questioning of more extreme, purportedly narrativist claims, I take issue with the realist, ‘negative’ tendencies that similarly stem from a refusal to accept history’s contradictory desires. These are particularly evident in the current, popular embrace of presence and experience in talk about the past. I argue that greater sensitivity is needed in rethinking history practices in this direction too, since an uncritical focus on reality...
TL;DR: One day in the early 2000s, while driving along Rome's Via Ardeatina, a street sign: Largo Martiri delle Fosse ardeatine as mentioned in this paper piqued my curiosity so I parked the car to find out more about these martyrs and these fosse?
Abstract: One day in the early 2000s, while driving along Rome’s Via Ardeatina I saw a street sign: Largo Martiri delle Fosse Ardeatine. It piqued my curiosity so I parked the car to find out more about these martyrs and these fosse? About an hour later I was back in my car weeping. I had gone to an underworld and back again, through an idyllic park, that housed a site of shootings, burials, exhumations and re-burials. At the Monument to the Fosse Ardeatine Massacre (1949) I had retraced the steps of victims, perpetrators and mourning families through an immersive experience of place. As a person I would never be the same again. As a historian, I feel I can now write about it. Like many war memorials, this monument embodies shared narratives and memories about war and identity, resistance and cruelty. While it does not actually tell the big story, it has the power to spark multiple stories, memories, or emotional responses that are both individual and collective. The Fosse re-presents accounts of what happe...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors look at 24h within the story of a tropical cyclone that hit Apia, Sāmoa, on March 16, 1889, to demonstrate just how many stories can be told within the environmental microhistory of a singular event.
Abstract: Environmental historians generally consider longue duree processes, such as geological, biological, and evolutionary changes, as useful bases for undergirding narratives of the human past. Yet singular, momentary events offer just as much insight into history’s big questions of empire, capitalism, globalization, and environmental change. The story of a tropical cyclone – as it blows in from stage left, wreaks havoc at center stage, and then exits stage right – calls for a different kind of storytelling, more fast-paced, yet no less attuned to the interplay among human and non-human forces. In this essay, I look at 24 h within the story of a tropical cyclone that hit Apia, Sāmoa, on March 16, 1889, to demonstrate just how many stories can be told within the environmental microhistory of a singular event. I employ several unorthodox narrative devices – blending real dialog with a fictionalized internal monolog; jumping back and forth through time and space; and, pitting two odd, yet very real, chara...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reinsert Morris into the history of suffrage in Wyoming and analyze how Wyomingites remember and commemorate the story of Morris from the 1890s to the 1970s.
Abstract: As the first territory and state where women voted in the U.S., and in fact the first place in the world where women exercised full enfranchisement, Wyoming’s past should raise pressing questions about the history of women’s suffrage. However, scholars typically explain the unusual event as a political hoax, a joke, or an effort to increase the population of the fledgling territory. At the heart of the scholarly treatment of Wyoming suffrage lies the controversial figure of Esther Hobart Morris. Upheld as the ‘mother of woman suffrage’ in local lore, and viewed as a false heroine by most historians, Morris embodies the contradictions of western suffrage. In this essay, I reinsert Morris into the history of suffrage in Wyoming and analyze how Wyomingites remember and commemorate the story of Morris from the 1890s to the 1970s. By taking the symbolic role of Esther Morris seriously, I argue that suffrage in Wyoming mattered, not only to the women who exercised the vote but also to the collective ide...