October 13–14, 2022, Umeå, Sweden
Epistemological considerations have been discussed within the realm of historical scholarship for a very long time. The acknowledgement of a disparity between the past itself and the histories about that past has increasingly also been applied to history curricula in many parts of the world and so called multi-perspectivism now has a prominent place in history teaching. As an important means of promoting a society’s democratic vibrancy, multi-perspectivism enables students to take critical distance from their knowledge claims and helps complicate and counter the powerful effects of pre-given cognitive frames that tend to reinforce national myths. However, these same syllabi are still also vehicles for national cohesion and tend to reconstruct a national past that is not up for debate. This ambiguity embedded in the combination of reconstruction and deconstruction is a difficult landscape for teachers to navigate. This symposium will explore these issues and they will be addressed in different ways from a multitude of perspectives. Accommodation in Umeå (2 nights) will be covered for the ~20 participants invited (see call for papers below regarding how to submit a proposal)
See the symposium web page for program and more information
Henrik Åström Elmersjö (Umeå University)
Paul Zanazanian (McGill University)