History, Story, Narrative – Constructing History

This interdisciplinary history and literature panel will look at how histories are created and propagated and the difficulties involved in the inherently political act of writing of history. How does the “truth” act as heuristic and guide, and how is the concept abused to stifle dissent and impose order? This panel will draw on contemporary controversies and invite participation from delegates from around the world to address questions that include the following: How important is the construction of national history in the creation of personal and national identity? How does history shape our political decisions today? How do we go about building, revising and deconstructing history?

This panel will feature both historians and literary scholars and will explore the relations and tensions between fictional and historical narrative that are in many ways vital to definitions of literature, raising questions as to the “truth” of the history registered in literary texts as opposed to that of historical texts. The panel will also examine literature as alternative history, whether Fredric Jameson’s call to “always historicize!” is still relevant, the aliterary subversions of “official” history, the historicity of fiction, and, of course, the fiction of historicity.

Read presenter biographies.

Posted by IAFOR