Public History. Toward a Participatory Historical Culture

Course goals

This course aims to provide insight into social uses of the past. 

• Students familiarize themselves with the (relation between the) concepts of public history, memory and heritage, and get an overview of recent debates and developments within these fields;
• Students learn to connect these theoretical debates to cases from the historical culture in the Netherlands, Europe and the world;
• Students discover their own position on the public role of historians in general, and cultural historians in particular.

Content

Historians built their discipline on the assumption that the past is a ‘foreign country’ and that any understanding of this country requires experts with special knowledge and skills, that is: trained historians. Never, however, have academic historians owned the past. Many people engage with the past, through heritage sites, museums and historical theme parks, history education, commemorative rituals, or historical infotainment shaped as novels, movies, reenactments, computer games and the like. In this course we will engage with these public uses of the past in order to assess the role of (cultural) historians in a ‘participatory historical culture’.

Career Orientation:
- Excursions
- Analysis of practices of heritage-institutions

Please note: only students from the MA Cultural History in Modern Europe and the MA Geschiedenis: educatie en communicatie are allowed to register for this course. All other students have to contact the programme coordinator. 
Students from the RMA Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Studies who wish to enroll for this course, please contact the programme coordinator (dr. Pieter Huistra).

The entrance requirements for Exchange Students will be checked by the International Office and the Programme coordinator. Acceptance is not self-evident.