Uses of History

In the official narratives concerning Southern Africa’s former national liberation movements, the concept of a collective, regional solidarity in the struggle against white minority rule features prominently. Since gaining political power in 1994, the African National Congress (ANC) has consistently repeated the mantra that the unwavering assistance and solidarity from its kindred movements was vital to its success. However, lingering beneath this façade, the reality is entirely different; instead a picture emerges of inter-party disputes, a litany of broken promises and soured relations. Yet, a collective amnesia prevails, which has been replaced by a self-serving portrayal of history designed to suit their current political demands centred on the continued retention of power. Focusing primarily on the ANC, this article seeks to delve into the ‘myths’ by examining the historic origins of liberation solidarity; revealing the problems in the official narrative; and demonstrating the continued importance of the solidarity ‘myth’ today.

This compilation thesis contains an introductory chapter and four original articles. The studies comprising this thesis all concern aspects of how historical culture is constituted in historical media and history teachers’ narratives and teaching. It is argued that the teaching of history is a complex matter due to an internal tension resulting from the fact that history is both a product and a process at the same time. While historical facts, and knowledge thereof, are an important aspect of history, history is also a product of careful interpretation and reconstruction. This study analyses and discusses how history is constituted in history textbooks and popular history magazines, i.e. two common historical media, and in teachers’ narratives and teaching of history.

The study finds that the historical media studied generally tend to present history as void of perspective, interpretation and representation, suggesting this to be the culturally warranted form of historical exposition. Moreover, the teachers studied also tend to approach history as if it were not contingent on interpretation and reconstruction. These results indicate that the history disseminated in historical media and history classrooms presents history in a factual way and disregards the procedural aspects of history.

Applying the history didactical concepts of historical consciousness, historical culture and uses of history, this thesis argues that an essential aspect of historical understanding is an appreciation of the contextual contingency that characterises history. All history is conceived within a particular context that is pertinent to why and how a certain version of history is constructed. Furthermore, all history is also received within a particular context by people with particular preconceptions of history that are contextually contingent, in the sense that they are situated in a certain historical culture. Readers of historical media are members of societies and are thus affected by how history is perceived and discussed in these contexts. This thesis argues that an awareness of these aspects of history is an important factor for furthering a complex understanding of history that encompasses the tension highlighted above.

Tesis donde se abordan las formas en que los videojuegos exhiben diferentes apropiaciones, traducciones  y resignificaciones del imaginario del pasado, a través de un análisis de la presentación del tiempo, espacio y sujetos históricos como parte del entretenimiento. El análisis está basado en el juego Expeditions: Conquistador, y en las sagas Age of Empires y Assassin's Creed.

About International Public History and the use-abuse of history in museums. This essay serves as an introduction to the Memoria e Ricerca 2017 issue on History Museums and Public History. The papers we present were selected from panel presentations delivered during the International Federation for Public History (IFPH) 2ndinternational conference in Jinan, China in August 2015, which was part of the 22nd Conference of the International Committee for the Historical Sciences (ICHS). The introductory essay engages with the use and abuse of history in the context of history museums in a global context, with a specific focus on the difficult interaction between museum curators and political power. It questions the role of public historians in applied contexts such as history museums and with History and Memory issues applied to the inauguration and refurbishment of national and supranational history museums and with the concept of national identity.

In this paper two interrelated topics will be discussed. First, we will explore the
beginning of French Archaeology. Second, we intend to focus on the relationship between
this process and the construction of Napoleon’s public image. Considering Martin Bernal
approach in which the ancient world has an important hole in defining modern politic, the
aim of this paper is to discuss how the ancient world became one of the most important
aspects of Napoleon’s government and helped to create a new French identity.

Religion in Museums: Euthanized Sacredness, in the Beholder’s Eye, or a Multi-Tool for Shifting Needs? Three suggested models to discuss how museums affect sacredness (2018) MUSEOLOGY AND THE SACRED - MATERIALS FOR A DISCUSSION Papers from the ICOFOM 41th symposium held in Tehran (Iran), 15-19 October 2018, 145-148. Ed. François Mairesse

Religion in museums: Euthanized sacredness, in the beholder’s eye, or a
multi-tool for shifting needs? Three suggested models to discuss how
museums affect sacredness.

Abstract for paper for the ICOFOM 41st symposium Museology and the sacred
Tehran, 15-19 October 2018. Aimed for the analysis plan Museality-heritage-sacred.
by Helena Wangefelt Ström, PhD candidate in Museology, Umeå University (Sweden).
[email protected]

What happens when religion in the shape of objects imbued with religious meaning is
transformed into cultural heritage? What values are added, what are lost, and who is the
performing agent? These questions concern what museums do to objects connected to
religion, calling for a meditated use of terms such as holy, sacred, religious, and spiritual (all
employed in recent research and policy documents by, for example, UNESCO, while in many
cases as interchangeable). This paper suggests three models to understand the processes of
heritagisation of religion and the factors and agents involved, starting from a historical
background in European, in particular Italian, Early Modernity.

A frequently used scholarly model depicts the museum as a killing of previous identities, and
the objects as provided with entirely new identities, and lives, as museum objects. This view
brings on dramatic effects for sacred objects, how they are handled and narrated in the
museum, and possibly on how they are viewed by the visitors. The use or not of information
signs before sacred objects in museums is an aspect on this matter.
The second model is the hybrid identity, where a museum object can be said to possess two
authentic identities simultaneously, depending on the views and beliefs of the beholder:
authentic sacredness, or authentic art object and evidence of history. This view may fit well
with the focus on the individual in our time.
The third model presented is based on the two previous ones, and suggests a hybridity not
only in identities or living/dead, but defined by the uses of the objects. Even musealized
objects can, as in the cases of religious treasuries or of certain religious images in museums,
shift identity between museum object, object of devotion (to be carried in processions or
used in rituals), legitimization symbol (bishops’ ordinations etc), and, historically, as a

monetary reserve to be sold if needed. The identity of the object shifts, also in practice of
being looked at behind glass or being used and touched, depending on the use currently
applied to it. A distinction between cultual use and cultural use is relevant for this model.

I argue that these different approaches to sacred objects in museum pose different
museological challenges and possibilities, and also ascribes different agencies to museum
staff as well as to the visitors.

DI-fusion, le Dépôt institutionnel numérique de l'ULB, est l'outil de référencementde la production scientifique de l'ULB.L'interface de recherche DI-fusion permet de consulter les publications des chercheurs de l'ULB et les thèses qui y ont été défendues.

This paper presents a theoretical analysis of the concept of historical consciousness. It argues that a focus on the epistemological problems concerning historical consciousness can be a way of constructing a theory of the concept that both incorporates the diverse perspectives that exist in research about the concept and specifies how a historical consciousness can be developed in an individual.

Gotland, Åland, Saaremaa, Hiiumaa and Bornholm are
five island regions in the Baltic Sea which constitute, or
have until recently constituted, provinces or counties of
their own. Combining perspectives from two disparate
academic fields, uses of history and island studies, this book
investigates how regional history writing has contributed
to the formation of regional identity on these islands
since the year 1800. The special geographic situation of
the islands-somewhat secluded from the mainland but
also connected to important waterways-has provided
their inhabitants with shared historical experiences. Due
to varying geographic and historical circumstances, the
relationship between regional and national identity is
however different on each island. While regional history
writing has in most cases aimed at integrating the island
into the nation state, it has on Åland in the second half
of the 20th century been used to portray its inhabitants
as a separate nation. Dramatic political upheavals as the
World Wars has also caused shifts in how regional history
writing has represented the relationship to the mainland
nation state, and has sometimes also resulted in altered
national loyalties.

Francesco Benigno è professore ordinario di storia moderna a Teramo, dove è stato (2002-10) preside della Facoltà di Scienze della Comunicazione. Si è occupato di storia politica europea della prima età moderna, di storia economica e sociale del Mediterraneo occidentale, di metodologia della ricerca storica e, recentemente, dei processi di costruzione dei gruppi sociali. Ha pubblicato sulle principali riviste italiane ed internazionali. Tra i suoi libri pubblicati in spagnolo, ricordiamo: La sombra del Rey. Validos y lucha política en la España del siglo XVII (Alianza 1994); Espejos de la Revolución. Conflicto e identidad política en la Europa moderna (Crítica 2000); Las palabras del tiempo. Un ideario para pensar historicámente (Cátedra 2013). Recentemente ha pubblicato La mala setta. Alle origini di mafia e camorra (Einaudi 2015).

FreNte Al mUltiliNgüiSmo y lA diVerSidAd CUltUrAl Resumen Este artículo reflexiona sobre como las series históricas, Isabel (2012)(2013)(2014)(2015) y Carlos, Rey Emperador ( -2016, producidas por la Radio Televisión Española, representan la diversidad cultural y lingüística de la Península Ibérica y del Imperio de Carlos V. Se analiza como estas series constituyen un proyecto nacional y pedagógico que refuerza la noción de un pasado medieval y renacentista centrado en Castilla, y el castellano, descartando el resto. 1 Palabras clave: Reyes Católicos, Carlos V, televisión española, multilingüismo, diversidad cultural.

Madrygal. Revista de Estudios Gallegos, Vol. 20 (2017), ISSN: 1138-9664, pp.53-71
Resumo. A revista Galicia Diplomática (1882-1893) é un referente dentro das investigacións históricas galegas. Neste artigo pretendemos amosar unha parte do seu legado e os obxectivos e influencias que a unían tanto aos procesos identitarios
como ao uso historicista do medievalismo a través do patrimonio, do documento, o debate coa industrialización
ou incluso a utilización laica e relixiosa baixo o signo do que W. Benjamin deu en chamar o “corpo como emblema”.
Palabras chave: Historiografía; patrimonio histórico; medievalismo; galeguismo; Galicia Diplomática.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5209/MADR.57629

To overcome the traumas of the 1992-1997 civil war, the Tajik authorities have turned to history to anchor their post-independence nation-building project. This article explores the role of the National Museum of Tajikistan, examining how the museum discursively contributes to 'nationalising' history and cultural heritage for the benefit of the current Tajik nation-building project. Three main discursive strategies for such (re)construction of Tajik national identity are identified: (1) the representation of the Tajiks as a transhistorical community; (2) implicit claims of the site-specificity of the historical events depicted in the museum, by representing these as having taken place within the territory of present-day Tajikistan, thereby linking the nation to this territory; and (3) meaning-creation, endowing museum objects with meanings that fit into and reinforce the grand narrative promulgated by the museum. We conclude that the National Museum of Tajikistan demonstrates a rich and promising, although so far largely unexplored, repertoire of representing Tajik nationness as reflected in historical artefacts and objects of culture: the museum is indeed an active participant in shaping discursive strategies for (re)constructing the nation.

In this article the role of the owl in Harry Potter is examined in relation to the meaning and importance of the owl in classical antiquity. The article addresses J.K. Rowling's motivation for using the owl in a magical context, and the similarities and differences between the ancient starting point and the modern narrative.

Acabada la Guerra de Successió, els agents econòmics locals van saber aprofitar les oportunitats creades pel règim borbònic, i Barcelona, al capdavant de Catalunya, va créixer i es va enriquir al llarg del segle XVIII. Mentrestant, la destrucció de l'edifici constitucional havia deixat la capital catalana en mans d'un Ajuntament limitat, d'entrada, per la rapacitat de la Corona i, després, per una desconfiança persistent envers la societat urbana que es traduïa en una feixuga ocupació militar, convertida en element estable del sistema de governament. El contrast entre la prosperitat privada i la migradesa dels instruments al servei de la col·lectivitat no cessà, ni molt menys, amb la revolució liberal del XIX, que fou molt més eficaç a l'hora d'eixamplar el dret de propietat individual i de garantir-ne l'exercici que no pas a la de promoure valors comunitaris i donar lloc a un Estat modern amb una bona base territorial de serveis públics.

RESUMEN En el presente artículo se persigue estudiar cómo la Grandeza de España buscó en la historia y la argumentación histórica un lugar desde el cual reivindicar su identidad y su forma de comprender el papel constitutivo de la Grandeza en el gobierno de la monarquía en los conflictos ceremoniales. Con este objetivo, se ofrece un análisis del memorial del duque de Arcos a propósito de la equiparación de los duques y pares de Francia con los Grandes de España a inicios del reinado de Felipe V.
ABSTRACT In this article, I attempt to study how the Grandeeship pursued in Hstory and within the historical argumentation a place from where to vindicate its identity and its way to understand the constitutive role of the Grandeeship in the monarchy's government during the ceremonial conflicts. With this objective, I offered an analysis of the Duke of Arco's memoire on behalf the equation of the dukes and pairs of France with de Grandees of Spain a the beginning of Philip V's reign.

This paper argues that popular history magazines may be a welcome complement to
other forms of historical media in history teaching. By outlining a theoretical framework that captures uses of history, the paper analyses popular history magazine articles from five European countries all dealing with the outbreak of World War I. The study finds that while the studied articles provide a rather heterogeneous view of the causes of the Great War, they can be used to discuss and analyse the importance of perspective in history, thus offering an opportunity to further a more disciplinary historical understanding.

This  article  presents  a  study  of  how  contemporary  Swedish  lower  secondary school textbooks present the emergence of the Cold War and how 10 active lower
secondary school history teachers interpreted a quo
tation that was ambiguous in relation  to  the  general  narrative  in  the  studied  Swedish  textbooks,  seeking  to
analyse textbooks both from the perspectives of content and reception. Applying a  theoretical  framework  of  uses  of  history,  the  study  finds  that  the  narratives
presented  in  the  studied  textbooks  are  what  could  be  called  traditional  in  the sense  that  they  do not  acknowledge  perspective  and representation  in  history.
While the interviewed teachers generally acknowledged that textbook narratives are  representations  of  history  and  contingent  on  perspective, few  teachers extended  this  to  include  how  their  own  views  affect their  interpretations, suggesting an intermediary  appreciation  of  the  contextual  contingency of historical narratives.

Antonio de Capmany and the renewal of Catalan political historicism.
Abstract: This conference, enlarged with notes and documentary appendix, situates the start of Capmany's contributions to Catalan and Spanish political thought in the context of the crisis in relations between Catalan society and the monarchy caused by resistance to the implantation of a compulsory military service ordered by Carlos III de Borbón. The clear implication of the workers and entrepreneurs of the emerging Barcelona cotton industry in the riot against the military draw in May 1773 motivated the slogan of de-urbanizing the industry launched by Pedro Rodríguez Campomanes in his Discurso sobre el fomento de la industria popular of 1774. The immediate response of Capmany in defense of the urban economy, of the economic corporations and of the political function of commons in his Discurso político económico concentrates his criticisms on the purely speculative character of the Campomanes theory. By supporting the defense of historical structures in empirical arguments, Capmany managed to give a modern image of the Catalan claims and, even, to propose the Catalan economy as a model for the general development of Spain.


Antonio de Capmany y la renovación del historicismo político catalán.
Resumen: Esta conferencia, ampliada con notas y apéndice documental, sitúa el arranque de las aportaciones de Capmany al pensamiento político catalán y español en el contexto de la crisis de las relaciones entre la sociedad catalana y la monarquía ocasionada por la resistencia a la implantación de un servicio militar obligatorio ordenada por Carlos III de Borbón. La clara implicación de los trabajadores y empresarios de la emergente manufactura algodonera barcelonesa en el motín contra el sorteo militar en mayo de 1773 motivó la consigna de desurbanizar la industria lanzada por Pedro Rodríguez Campomanes en su Discurso sobre el fomento de la industria popular de 1774. La inmediata respuesta de Capmany en defensa de la economía urbana, de las corporaciones económicas y de la función política del estamento popular en su Discurso político económico concentra sus críticas en el carácter puramente especulativo de la teoría de Campomanes. Al apoyar la defensa de las estructuras históricas en argumentos empíricos, Capmany consiguió dar una imagen moderna de las reivindicaciones catalanas e, incluso, proponer la economía catalana como modelo para el desarrollo general de España.

El setembre de 1970, és a dir, fa més de quaranta-cinc anys, Pere Molas ens va obsequiar a la Marina López i a mi amb un exemplar del seu llibre tot just aparegut aleshores, Los gremios barceloneses del siglo XVIII, amb una dedicatòria senzilla que ara ja va assolint la plenitud de la seva significació: «Per a tota la vida». Certament, la tesi doctoral de Pere Molas ha estat un dels llibres que, a casa, han superat una i altra vegada les inevitables campanyes de depuració o d'exili de materials. Sempre l'he tingut a la vista. A través de les seves pàgines vaig entrar en contacte amb les defenses dels gremis degudes a Francesc Romà i Rossell i Antoni de Capmany. Al llarg dels anys, he dedicat uns quants esforços a l'estudi de la segona d'aquestes figures, però no m'ha calgut variar les idees fonamentals expressades per Molas a propòsit de la teoria corporativa de Capmany i de la seva posició capdavantera i dominant dins la historiografia sobre els gremis barcelonins.

... 833-856. (22) L. TRAUBE, MGH, Poetae 3, 1896, p. 409-420. (23) A. DUBREUCQ, Jonas d'Orléans. ... Éditée et traduite par LL, Paris, 1935 (Les classiques de l'histoire de France au Moyen Âge 16). (26) E. DÜMMLER, MGH, Poetae 1/1, 1880, p. 384-391. (27) Ph. ... cit. (n. 29). ...

El segle XVIII és prestigiós per la implantació de la crítica, que, pel que fa al coneixement històric, es produí en dues direccions: la crítica bibliogràfica, que va aconseguir desemmascarar les pràctiques falsàries dels segles precedents i que tingué, per tant, uns efectes principalment destructius sobre l'erudició (la pseudoerudició) heretada del segle XVII; i la crítica documental, que va depurar i sistematitzar els materials d'arxiu i començà a aplegar les pedres per a un nou edifici de coneixement del passat sense hipoteques amb la historiografia anterior. Aquests dos mèrits han estat reconeguts al mateix segle XIX i exalçats amb més decisió des de l'inici del segle XX, en els treballs d'Elias de Molins i Carreras Candi, entre d'altres. 1 Més tard, a partir d'un estudi primerenc de Pierre Vilar sobre la producció històrica de Capmany, s'ha reconegut a la historiografia catalana del segle XVIII un tercer mèrit: el d'haver-se internat en el camí traçat per la Il·lustració europea dels Montesquieu, els Hume i els Voltaire. 2 Aquest ingredient específicament il·lustrat implicava un canvi en el sistema de valors i, per tant, en els paràmetres del judici històric, que ha estat reconegut altre cop com a propi pel corrent principal de la historiografia del segle XX. L'empelt enciclopedista significava posar èmfasi en el desenvolupament positiu de la civilització, com a resultat de l'esforç col·lectiu dels homes, i menysprear les aventures dels poderosos, que fins aleshores havien monopolitzat les pàgines dels llibres i la imaginació dels lectors. 121 Barcelona Quaderns d'Història, 6 (2002) 1. Antonio ELÍAS DE MOLINS, Los estudios históricos y arqueológicos en Cataluña en el siglo XVIII, Barcelona, Casa de Caridad, 1903 (discurs d'ingrés a l'Acadèmia de Bones Lletres, pàg. 5-45; resposta de Francesc Carreras i Candi, pàg. 49-60). 2. Pierre VILAR, «L'obra de Capmany, model de mètode històric. La història catalana al segle XVIII», Butlletí del Centre Excursionista de Catalunya, XLIII (1933), pàg. 146-154; reeditat dins Assaigs sobre la Catalunya del segle XVIII, Barcelona, Curial, 1973, pàg. 83-90. La historiografia del segle XIX no té bona fama en relació amb la de la centúria precedent, i podríem sospitar que si el XVIII té més prestigi que el XIX és perquè d'aleshores ençà ha passat més temps, i el pas del temps té un efecte embellidor sobre els productes de la cultura superior (s'obliden les misèries quotidianes, i queda la glòria d'uns quants instants, elevada a signe de tot un segle i de tota una col·lectivitat). Però és que la historiografia catalana del vuit-cents tampoc no té gaire prestigi en relació amb la del nou-cents, i en aquest cas sembla que l'efecte de la perspectiva hauria d'afavorir les produccions del XIX.

This review essay challenges three main claims about originalism in American legal thought. While it affirms that originalism could be the Law of a legal system, it first challenges the mainstream idea that American originalism is the paradigmatic case in theory and in practice. Second, the essay confronts the normative justification that originalism ensures democracy based on the rule of law. Third, it interrogates the dichotomy between living constitutionalism and originalism regarding the use of history by arguing that originalism is a form of hegemony. The case study analysed in this article is Israeli legal thought and practice after the enactment of the 1992 Basic Laws, with the focus on the right of equality.

The essay appraises a relevant topic developed by the Ancient Greek historians, strictly linked to the structure of the historical knowledge as a whole: the ingenious employ of fakes and simulations, thought otherwise than merely mystifications, mistakes or lapses. The subject is connected to the problem of the sources control and selection, especially when the oral sources and the cultural, collective and individual memories are brought to write the History. The essay will suggest that Hecataeus, Herodotus and Thucydides, everyone looking for what Thomas Kuhn called a “paradigm shift”, built the historical knowledge as a critical science. The result is that the logical, moral and ontological identification and exploitation of fake data is more relevant than the advancement of the truth itself.

La política uruguaya ha sido reconocida incluso en términos
comparativos como una política de partidos. Si esa fue la pauta que permitió la acumulación de aprendizajes ciudadanos y cívicos, nada autoriza a pensar que ella se impuso de un modo incontestable. Este trabajo se propone indagar en la contracara del proceso, a hurgar en la historia de las ideas de quienes fueron contrarios a los partidos y sus tradiciones,
hasta el punto de configurar, también ellos, una tradición política. Un pilar de esta tradición antipartidista es la escuela pública como agencia de formación ciudadana

Human trafficking is a complex phenomenon fueled by the tremendous growth in the global sex market. Exploitation is driven by poverty, uneven development, official corruption, gender discrimination, harmful traditional and cultural practices, civil unrest, natural disasters and lack of political will to end it. The number of child victims trafficked worldwide for sexual exploitation or cheap labour on an annual basis is 1.2 million. 1 Human trafficking, the third largest international crime, following illegal drugs and arms trafficking, is believed to be worth billions of dollars each year. Driving the trade is the demand for commercial sexual exploitation. Seventy-nine percent of all global trafficking is for sexual exploitation. 2 CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING IN SPAIN Every year in Spain, criminal networks dedicated to the sexual exploitation of children, especially for the prostitution of young girls, are discovered by Spanish authorities. In many cases, thousands of pornographic pictures and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children are found once the authorities track down these gangs. 3

The definition of a national collective memory has undoubtedly been one of the most important ways to legitimize authoritarian regimes . The Portuguese dictatorship  was no exception and in this process the Middle Ages were one of the most important historical periods in order to create an image of the national past from which the new regime would be legitimate successor.
Since the first Romanticism, the medieval period had been a major source of inspiration for various Portuguese political tendencies. If the first generation Liberals considered the Middle Ages the source of the national constitution and freedoms, for the authors of the ‘1870s generation’  the medieval period (until roughly the beginning of the 16th century) represented the period of the nation’s greatness, in contrast with the decadence of the following centuries. This dichotomous view (rise/ decline) indelibly influenced Portuguese historiography during the following decades, including authors of distinct intellectual and political fields. The establishment of the Republic (1910), and in particular the effects of the participation in the Great War (1916-18), contributed to the idea among integral monarchists and Catholics that it was necessary to return to whatever in the past had made Portugal’s glory, eliminating the mistakes of past centuries and in particular those committed by the demo-liberal regimes. As stated by the historian David Lowenthal, the recovery of missing and subverted values or institutions from the past usually happens in ‘hard times’ and it is often a remote past that better legitimizes and strengthens the present against a subsequent drift or corruption .
The establishment of the military dictatorship in 1926 echoed the concerns of several of these right-wing political and intellectual sectors with connections to integral monarchism and Catholicism. The Integralismo Lusitano, one of the groups that had been heavily shaken by the death of its chief ideologue António Sardinha in the previous year, had already risen as an ideological movement in early 1926 and shortly after would resume its political activism, suspended since the Pact of Paris . António Sardinha’s ideas, apologist of a corporatist and monarchical medieval Portugal, were central to the process of historical revisionism undertaken by the integralists.
The assumption, shared by many historians, that the historical memory of the Estado Novo in its early stages was deeply influenced by monarchist and legitimist currents linked to Integralismo Lusitano , will serve as the starting point for this presentation. Since 1914 the integralists, through their official periodical Nação Portuguesa, explained their political alternative to a demo-liberal Republic that threatened institutions like the Church and Monarchy, embraced a French-influenced parliamentarism and allegedly turned away from the values of national tradition. These values had, according to the integralists, reached their highest purity and originality at the late Middle Ages, when the municipalist and corporatist monarchy reached its peak and started the overseas expansion. According to the Integralist thought, the parting of these values was the result of a long historical process initiated by humanism, aggravated by the Protestant Reformation and 18th Enlightenment, culminating in liberal, socialist and anarchist disorders of the 19th and early 20th centuries, which caused the political, moral and social decadence of Portugal.
It is my aim in this paper to demonstrate how the Middle Ages were politically exploited during the first years of the Portuguese dictatorship. Writers, historians, scholars, thinkers and politicians of integralist and Catholic background, or influenced by these, took part in this exploitation, divulging a vision of the medieval period with great impact on national memory and on the establishment of ideological values supported by the Estado Novo. The celebrations of the double centenary of the Foundation and the Restoration of Independence in 1940 represent the zenith of this nationalist construction of historical memory, as has been emphasized by several historians who have studied the event. To study this process , I used a range of sources of integralist authors, in particular articles by João Ameal  and Manuel Múrias  in Nação Portuguesa, as well as other historiographic (the works of Alfredo Pimenta  and Manuel Cerejeira ), pedagogic (Antonio Mattoso’s schoolbooks) or openly political works, such as speeches and conferences. I was especially interested to know which main ideas these texts contained about the Middle Ages as a historical period and about their role in Portugal’s history.

This article is about how director Christopher Nolan used the myths surrounding the ancient hero Theseus in his movie Inception. In the article Nolan's possible knowledge of classical antiquity and the period's writers, characters and myths is addressed, and the similarities between the myths and the film are highlighted.

I pretend to analyze the image construction of the conqueror of Mexico Hernán Cortés, as well as its cultural and political importance in the late eighteenth century. My objective is to explore the cultural memory constructed around this heroic character, its meanings, and its sentimental and symbolic value through the Spanish military literature of the conquest of America. During the Spanish Enlightenment, many military writings of different men of letters attributed a national, colonial and gender sense to Hernán Cortés. While the Spanish monarchy produced an apologetic discourse about the great feat of Indies, many different men who occupied important charges in the public sphere and had relationships with the academic, literary, scientific and politic universe of the time, remembered Cortés with both nostalgia and pride. The image of Cortés included the concepts of masculinity, power, patria, religion and militarism.
Cortés served to establish complex networks and connections between this military group, which participated in some of the most important war events of the age of Enlightement, like War of Roussillon or Trafalgar Battle. In this historical moment, the military literature and his presence increased to the rhythm of the intellectual polemic about America. Some of these characters coincided at the same socials gatherings and geographic expeditions. At the same time, this group share lectures, common interests and friendly relationships. This group of men of letters praised the historical figure of Hernán Cortés, the heroism of Spanish militaries, the defense of national honor and actions of conquest. The historic representation of the Spanish conqueror included complicity, similarity and solidarity between soldiers.
The study of the political value of Hernán Cortés permits to elucidate how the conqueror legitimized a professional and social group and, at the same time, produced national, masculine and colonial (collective) identities. Studying its figure will also permit to analyze a heroic and common model of Spanish historic culture.

Historical consciousness is a popular concept in history education that has often been considered as difficult to apply in educational practice. Taking its departure in the Swedish Schools’ Inspectorate’s recent critique of how Swedish history teaching cannot contribute to a development of students’ historical consciousnesses, this article discusses how we can theoretically understand how a development historical consciousness may happen. Using the results of this discussion, it is then suggested how historical consciousness could be developed in history education.

During the Cold War, Norway was a member of NATO, Sweden was neutral but depended on Western support in the event of a crisis, while Finland's foreign policy priority was to win and retain the Soviet Union's confidence. The purpose of the thesis is to study whether the three small states' different foreign policy choices had consequences for the ways in which the Soviet Union and the USA were depicted in school textbooks for history, geography, and social sciences in the period 1930 to 2004. To this end, a theory derived from small states' strategies to maintain their independence was applied to textbook production. The study demonstrates that there was a link between small state foreign policy and textbooks' accounts of the USA and Soviet Union. Swedish and Norwegian textbooks portray international conflicts from a legalistic perspective, taking the part of small states exposed to superpower aggression such as Vietnam and Afghanistan. In Finnish textbooks, however, an interest in defending small state's rights yielded to the need to demonstrate their goodwill towards the Soviet Union, which was described in far less critical terms than in Swedish and Norwegian textbooks. In time, in the name of neutrality, depictions of the USA also became increasingly uncritical. All three Nordic states had government authorities charged with inspecting and approving school textbooks. Foreign policy's chief influence on textbooks was not effected by direct oversight, however; instead, it was established indirectly by means of the social climate, which determined what was considered politically correct in the three countries, and it was to this that the textbooks' authors adapted their work. Textbooks are often said to be conservative and slow to change, but the thesis shows that in parts they were politically sensitive, rapidly adapting to changes in what society held to be politically correct

L'Associazione Culturale "Persistenze o Rimozioni", bandisce un Call for papers per il suo VII convegno annuale dal titolo "Il passato del presente. Usi e abusi della storia nella formazione delle identità collettive". Il convegno si inserisce in un progetto pluriennale di studi sull'età contemporanea ed intende approcciarsi alle nuove ricerche in tema di uso del passato nella formazione delle identità collettive attraverso un approccio interdisciplinare tra storia, letteratura, scienze politiche ed economiche, architettura, urbanistica.

This panel explores the changing place of three Early Modern figures (Pope Innocent XI, Count-Duke of Olivares, and Peter I of Castile) in Southern European imagination over the last centuries. We offer a cultural approach to analyse a set of narratives that have shaped how these key figures are recalled in different Southern European societies. We look at cultural representations of them in history works, theatre plays, novels, and political discourses. In this paper, therefore, we study the transmission process of historical knowledge to the general public through three controversial figures in Early Modern European History. We also reflect on the use and abuse of history with political aims, analysing how – and specially, why – these figures have been recalled in different Southern European societies through various historical periods. In sum, this panel contributes to rethink how we recall our history and why.

This article introduces the reader into contemporary uses of medieval Iberian history by far-right nationalist groupings, focusing mainly on Spain and Portugal, but also exploring other contexts such as pan-European networks of far-right political activists or emergent radical right-wing forces in present-day Ukraine. I looked particularly upon uses of the concepts of Reconquista and al-Andalus as elements for political mobilisation in these discourses. The aim of the article is, in accordance with the objectives and practices underlying the Engaging the Crusades series, to showcase emergent lines of research in this newly-emerging field which is "political medievalism", i.e., the use of medieval tropes to uphold contemporary political programmes.

The past is commonly summoned in political speeches and projects. The medieval past has been used as the cradle of nation-states and ‘the West’. This article will address how the Anglo-Saxon past has been used, from the seventeenth century to contemporary discourse. It will discuss how the view(s) and use(s) of this past have changed significantly over time, to the point that its very name has recently been challenged. The main hypothesis of the article is that despite all the debates about early medieval society in Britain, there is still a great need to highlight the connection between the interpretation of this past and racial discourses. The study of such societies in a new light is crucial for rescuing the Middle Ages from its uses by the far right.