Round Tables
Tables Rondes

1. The media revolution (multimedia and Internet) and historical research
1. La révolution des techniques de communication (multimédias et Internet) et le travail de l'historien

Monday, 7 August, 9:00-12:00
Lundi 7 Août de 9h à 12h

Building A, Auditorium 1

Organiser:
Karsten Fledelius, Denmark

Introduction:
From Herodotus to the present, historians have faced the challenge of understanding the past and giving form to that understanding. The western construction of these efforts, as evidenced in terms such as 'storia', 'geschiedenis' and 'history', has long privileged causal logic as the basis for understanding and narrative as the dominant form for articulating that understanding, with the result that the conception of history has enjoyed long-term stability. Historiographic paradigm shifts notwithstanding, the recent past has witnessed a far-reaching set of interrogations into the construction of history and its narratives thanks in part through the new digital technologies. These media and the practices they have stimulated offer new research possibilities (from the development and easy manipulation of huge data bases, to internet-based access to remote printed sources and colleagues) and new representational strategies (from hypertextual modes of organizing information to the ludic, as-if histories in historical computer games). While not implying a critical practice, the availability of new digital technologies has certainly offered implicit support to those historiographers concerned with a reappraisal of historical tradition.

The panel will consider a wide range of new media applications. The goal is to work from existing expressions of history as inscribed by or deployed in digital media, and to move towards a critical appraisal of the implications for the construction of history, in the process laying out the terms of the debate over media technology and historical practice.

Participants:

• Jan Oldervoll, Norway
• Franco Pitocco, Italy
• Antonio Rodriguez de Las Heras, Spain
• Hiroaki Ozawa, Japan
• Mark Kornbluh, USA
  

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