History in Popular Cultures – serie

Popular representations of history are taking on new forms and reaching wider audiences. The search for usable pasts is branching out into active appropriations of history such as historical theme parks, housing developments, and live-action role play. Drawing on themed environments across the continents, the articles in this volume focus on how these appropriations bypass, are different from, or even contradict traditional as well as scientific modes of disseminating historical knowledge. Bringing together theorists and practitioners, they provide the basis for an interdisciplinary as well as a transcultural theory of how pasts are staged in various social contexts.

Britain's recent historical culture is marked by a shift. As a consequence of new political directives, black history began to be mainstreamed into the realm of national history from the late 1990s onwards. »Black History – White History« assesses a number of manifestations of this new cultural historiography on screen and on stage, in museums and other accessible sites, emerging in the context of two commemorative events: the Windrush anniversary and the 1807 abolition bicentenary. It inquires into the terms on which the new historical programme could take hold, its sustainability and its representational politics.