Representing the Past in Fictional Media

Course goals

After completion of this course, the student has: 

• practiced with and mastered the application of textual analysis to fictional media representations of historical events, figures, and periods;

• gained knowledge and insight of key debates from Film and Television Studies, Memory Studies, Performance Studies, and Heritage Studies;

• strengthened their ability to apply theory to their empirical analyses and produce a coherent research paper;

• gained the necessary knowledge to critically evaluate the relationship between historical authenticity, creative license, and cultural context in the construction of media narratives about the past;

• strengthened their ability to compare different media portrayals across time, place, and platform to trace shifts in meaning, ideology, and presentation.

 

Content

This course examines how historical events, figures, and eras are represented, reimagined, and reconstructed within fictional audiovisual media such as film, television, theatre, and digital streaming content. Students will consider how these mediated narratives shape collective understandings of history and cultural memory, and how creative interpretations of the past influence present-day identities, ideologies, and political discourses. Through close analysis of selected case studies, the course invites students to question what it means for media to “represent” the past, and how these representations impact our collective imagined present and future. 

Students will explore depictions of both distant and recent pasts, ranging from works that claim historical authenticity to speculative or revisionist retellings that deliberately rework historical narratives. By engaging with key concepts and frameworks from Film and Television Studies, Memory Studies, Performance Studies, and Heritage Studies, they will learn to analyze how audiovisual texts negotiate between fact, fiction, and ideology. The course will also address the role of production contexts and transnational perspectives in shaping representations of history across different genres and media forms. 

Throughout the course, students will develop their analytical and interpretive skills through regular guided discussions and critical analyses of in-class screenings, demonstrating their ability to connect theory and practice in media analysis. Additionally, students will conduct an independent case study tracing how a specific historical event, figure, or period has been represented across different media and moments in time, producing a critical map of how such representations evolve and resonate within broader cultural narratives. 

This course is the first course in the specialisation track Doing Media Heritage: Texts, Institutions, Curation.

Additional information

Priority rules
This course has priority rules and a waiting list. Your enrolment is guaranteed if you
- are a student in the BA Media and Culture and this course is part of your specialisation (verdiepingspakket)
- are a student in the BA Liberal Arts and Sciences or Taal- en Cultuurstudies and this course is part of your specialisation (kernpakket)


In all other situations, you will be placed on a waiting list if you enrol in this course. For any remaining slots in the course, lots are drawn among the students on the waiting list.