Public Histories

On this module you will look at some of the ways in which the relationship between public and orthodox academic histories has been characterised. It discusses the different ways that producers of histories and other forms of past-talk have conceptualised the ‘before now’. It assesses arguments for and against using the past as a way of engaging with contemporary social and political issues. It looks at the relationship between history and memory, and questions why people believe they have a responsibility to remember the past – and why cultures collectively remember what they do. In order to maintain coherence in the coverage of content, the module will always be organised around two case studies. Each case study will examine how academic and public histories are implicated in their particular set of concerns.