This is the second course of Specialisation 3:The Power of Culture (English track History).
Early Exit option (5 ECTS)
The past is a source of inspiration and contemplation for many people. Video games, movies, novels, heritage tours, museums, policy papers on history education, and commemorative rituals illustrate how dealing with the past entails much more than professional historians’ textbooks. But who decides which past has to be preserved, commemorated and communicated in the public sphere? Today, the notion of shared authority typifies the heritage and memory arena. The historian or archaeologist is no longer the privileged steward of the past. Rather, a variety of people with different agendas and specific sets of cultural dispositions interpret, consume, and reproduce the past. This democratisation and diversification of history consumers and producers requires an interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological toolkit, enabling the historian to appropriately study, address, and engage these different audiences. By exploring key theoretical literature on public history and heritage, and exploring topical international case studies, you will familiarise yourself with the central debates that have structured contemporary discussions about heritage, memory and museums. You will train your research skills in the analysis of an example of the use of the past.
During the first part of the course (week 1-4) students will read and discuss a selection of key texts on heritage, memory, historical museums, and public history. We will also discuss a topical case study in which these different conceptual issues are operationalised. In the second part of this course, students will independently study a specific instance where the past is selectively used in the present for a variety of socioeconomic and cultural reasons.
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