HIST 3809A: Historical Representations
Fall 2023
Instructor: Professor John Walsh
Introduction: This course explores how, since the mid nineteenth century and up to the present, the public sphere became immersed in historical representations. Topics include monuments and memorials, museums, exhibitions and amusement parks, tourism and historic sites, re-enactments, television, and Truth and Reconciliation initiatives around the world including here in Canada. Each week students will be challenged to think about how the desires, needs, and appetites of the present-day (whenever that may be) have historically made claims upon the past through representation.
And so, this course asks questions like this: Why do so many schoolchildren visit a museum or a historical site for one of their class trips? Why can visitors to Disneyworld in Orlando escape to an air-conditioned dark theatre and watch the Carousel of Progress? Why and how have monuments been flashpoints for the exercise of political protest, resistance, and rebellion? Why does the United Nations invest so much time, energy, and resources into deciding which places in the world are “historically significant”? Why is there a genre of historical reality tv, and why do some scholars think this might be a valuable path ahead for the teaching and learning of history?
While the subject matter of HIST 3809 is global, students will also learn about and reflect upon some of the ways that historical representations have contributed to the (re)making of Canada as a colonized settler nation-state. At different points in the course, we will listen to the voices of Indigenous teachers, knowledge-keepers, scholars, artists, curators, and community leaders.
Aims and Goals: This course is intended to provide a deeper understanding of how, why, and in what forms our contemporary culture has become saturated in historical representations whether we are at home or travelling, and why both democratic and undemocratic states make “remembering” a duty of citizenship. As such, this course will inspire us to consider how history is not only a body of knowledge, but also a practice of knowing and thus an often embodied and affecting experience. Finally, the course will also challenge students to consider why certain forms of historical knowledge are codified in public cultures as valuable, trustworthy, and even authentic, while others are not.
Class Format: In-person for one weekly three-hour class that will combine lecture, film, sound, and discussions. The course website will also be used to extend class discussions and share resources.
Assessment (Tentative):
Weekly Course Engagement – 15%
Course Responses – 30% (2 x 15% each)
Take-Home Midterm Exam – 20%
Take-Home Final Exam – 35%
Text: Clint Smith, How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America (Little, Brown, and Co., 2021). All other course readings, viewings, and assigned materials will be provided electronically through the course website and the library catalogue.
Questions? Please email me at: john(dot)walsh(at)carleton(dot).ca