Between
the 30rd of August and the 1st of September, the IFPH-FIHP (International Federation for Public History) will sponsor a Public History Conference
in Greece.
This Greek Public history symposium could become starting 2014-2015, a regular International
Public History Summer School sponsored by the IFPH-FIHP.
The conference is entitled Use and Abuse of History: the Public
History in Greece and is organized
by the University of Macedonia thanks to the Municipality of Volos. This Greek Public history symposium focuses on
several aspects and issues that are central to Public History discussions in
continental Europe.
I met one of the scientific promoter, Giorgos Antoniou, (School of
Humanities, International Hellenic
University, Thessaloniki, g.antoniou at ihu.edu.gr) at the European University Institute in Florence when he was a Ph.D. student in the History
Department. In 2006, at the end of his stay at the EUI, Antoniou co-edited with Professor Luisa Passerini a special issue of the Italian contemporary history
journal Memoria e Ricerca
on the Memory of Civil Wars in contemporary
Societies. Antoniou took recently part in our IFPH-FIHP
panel Public History:
Cohesive or Disruptive ? Remembering Civil Wars and Violent Sub-National
Conflicts, at the annual
Meeting of the National Council on Public History, (NCPH) in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
April 17-20, 2013, “Knowing your Public(s).
The Significance of Audiences in Public History”.
This panel, as you can see below,
focused on some of the themes that will be discussed during the Public History
conference in Greece this month.
Dirk Moses (European University Institute), will deliver the keynote speech on How and Why
the Use and Abuse of History is Inescapable, Inevitable and Invaluable for
Public Life; Simon Prince (Canterbury University) will deliver a paper on The Failure to Address the Past in
Northern Ireland. I will talk
about the “History of Public History”: From Local to Global and back again: The History
and Internationalization of Public History. Greek participants will analyze several key issues concerning Public
Historians confronted with the use and abuse of history in today's Greek divided
society.
Public History: Cohesive or Disruptive ? Remembering Civil Wars and Violent Sub-National Conflicts
"When Public Historians address,
through different media and languages, the history of Civil Wars with their
opposed and contested memories, do they actually provide a better public understanding
of the past? Telling the history of civil wars and violent turmoil is a
slippery terrain for Public Historians, one that entails a serious risk. The
irreducibly factious memories of civil wars serve to justify and sustain
today’s confrontation of political ideologies. Some national societies were -during
their recent nation building processes- so heavily divided that their different
communities engaged in destructive civil wars and violent confrontations. The
opposed memories that emerge after such wars and confrontations, shape a
reality characterized by a complex historical heritage and a complex mixtures
of ideological deadlocks and political confrontations. The work of Public
Historians becomes in such cases particularly difficult. If a Public Historian
engages in the celebrations of Civil Wars in contemporary cultural
and political debates or through historical museums and exhibitions, websites and digital media, s/he
has to be aware of the influence that opposed memories play in shaping the way
through which past events are presented to the public. This raises a key
question, having to do with the minimum requirements of a “commonly accepted
history”. Is being aware of the difficulties that dealing with opposed memories
entails enough for a historian to write a commonly accepted
history of Civil Wars? Or, on the opposite, is a commonly accepted history
possible only many generations after the war has taken place, when opposed
memories are likely to be forgotten, and the past can no longer be used to as a
divisive tool? Civil Wars
Public History deals with collective identities at different levels: from
local memories to the construction of nations’ common past. This is true also
of the cases in which it is disputed whether a “Civil war” actually occurred
(e.g. the resistance to the Vichy
government in France or the Northern Ireland conflict)."
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This is the English version of the conference program.
USES AND ABUSES OF HISTORY:
PUBLIC HISTORY IN GREECE
Municipality of Volos, Conference Hall
August 30th – September 1st 2013
Friday August 30th
Opening Lecture
12:00 - 12:30
Serge
Noiret (European University Institute, IFPH), From Local to Global and back again: The History and
Internationalisation of Public History
Session Ι: Internet and Public History
Chairman: Andreas Andreou
(University of Western Macedonia)
Maria Bontila (PhD in History), Internet adventures of Public History: A
case study.
Dimitris Bilalis (University of
Thessaly), The nation, the parasite and
the virus. Aspects of historical culture in the Greek web
Xenia Eleftheriou (PhD
candidate, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Public History as a conflictual issue: The Holocaust of Greek Jews in
the Internet
Lunch Break
Lecture
16:30 - 17.00
Simon Prince (Canterbury University), «No Lack of Ghosts»: The Failure to
Address the Past in Northern Ireland
17.00 - 18:30
Session IΙ:
Historiography and Public History
Chairman: Polymeris Voglis
(University of Thessaly)
Stratos
Dordanas (University of Macedonia), Goldhagen, the “New Wave” and the
“Dialogues about History”: Aspects and terms of Public History in Germany and
in Greece
Elli
Lemonidou (University of Patras), Public
History: The international experience and the Greek paradigm
Tasoula
Vervenioti (PhD in History), Groups of oral
history. Between public and academic history
19.00-20.00
Key-note Lecture
Dirk Moses (European University Institute), How and Why the Use and Abuse of History is Inescapable, Inevitable and
Invaluable for Public Life
20.00-21.30
Session ΙΙΙ: Oral Testimonies
and Public History
Chairwoman: Afroditi Athanasopoulou (University of Cyprus)
Ifigeneia Vamvakidou (University of Western Macedonia) –
Andromachi Solaki (historian) – Athanasios Tsiglopoulos (pre-school teacher), Oral history and memories in the Lofoi of Florina
Vassilis Dalkavoukis (Democritus
University of Thrace) – Katerina Tsekou (PhD in History), Building Public
History in the space. The case of the monuments of Komotini
Andreas
Andreou (University of Western Macedonia) – Kostas
Kasvikis (University of Western Macedonia), Thessaloniki - Bitola: Public versions of Macedonian history in two
statues of King Philip II
Saturday
August 31st
9:00 - 11:00
Session IV: Literature and Public History I
Chairman: Nikos Marantzidis (University of Macedonia)
Giorgos Kokkinos (University of the Aegean) –
Panagiotis Kimourtzis (University of the Aegean) – Maria Matousi (PhD
candidate, University
of the Aegean), History and literature:
Caresses, slaps and the Slap-tree by
Aris Maragkopoulos
Nikos Kokkomelis (PhD
candidate, Université
Paris Sorbonne - Paris IV), From
witnesses to “heirs”: A new kind of narrative? The current Holocaust literature between history and fiction
Anastasia
Mitsopoulou (PhD in
History), First World War: The memory in
Greek literature
Lena Divani (National
and Kapodistrian University of Athens), When
literature opens space for the history of the minorities: The Silver-grass
is Blossoming by V. Gkourogiannis and the
Calumny of Blood by V. Boutos
11:30 - 14:00
Session V: Literature and Public History ΙΙ
Chairwoman: Lena Divani (National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens)
Afroditi
Athanasopoulou (University of Cyprus), Cyprus
between “mother Greece” and “stepmother England”: Writers’ attestations
Alexandros Bazoukis (Cyprus
Pedagogical Institute), The contribution
of Greek writers and intellectuals in the dialogue about the history and
“fates” of Hellenism in the post-war period
Iakovos
Anyfantakis (PhD candidate, Panteion University),
From the “politics of violence” to the
“political violence”: Representations of
fratricidal violence in the post-war literary production
Elena Davlamanou (teacher, NGO
Citizens in Knowledge), Approaching the
historical novel for children
Lunch Break
16.30 - 18:30
Session VΙ: Memory and Public History
Chairman: Panagiotis Kimourtzis (University of the Aegean)
Anna-Maria Droumpouki (PhD Candidate, National
and Kapodistrian University of Athens),
Greeks as the “new Jews”: The update
version of Occupation in crisis-struck Greece
Elena Striftompola (historian), Lessons of Public History by the Greek
Parliament: The case of the law 1285/1982, “On the recognition of the National
Resistance of the Greek population against the occupation troops, 1941-1944”
Giorgos Antoniou (International
Hellenic University) – Eleni Paschaloudi (PhD in Balkan, Slavic and Oriental
Studies), Damnatio memoriae: The 1940s during the 1980s
Gavrilis
Lampatos (PhD
Candidate, University of the Aegean), Early
forms of public history in the 1960s
PARALLEL SESSION
16.30 -
18.30
Session VIΙ: Press and Public History
Chairman:
Spyros Kakouriotis (journalist)
Ilias G.
Skoulidas (Technological Institute of Epirus), Continuities and discontinuities of the narratives about a “neighbor”:
The Greek press and the Albanians in the post-Cold War period
Georgia Sarikoudi (PhD
candidate, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), The personal narrations of Greek fugitives in Czechoslovakia in the
pages of Agonistis
Konstantinos
Katsanos (PhD in History), The public negotiation of the
Macedonian issue in the years between the end of the Civil War and the Military
Junta
19:00 -
21:30
Session VIIΙ: Cinema,
Theatre and Public History
Chairman:
Nikos Demertzis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)
Giorgos Andritsos (PhD in History), Persecutions of Greek Jews in the Greek
fiction films from 1945 to 1981
Thanassis Vasileiou (PhD in Studies
on Cinematography), Days of ’36 [1972] by
Theo Angelopoulos: History as a cinematographic form
Stavroula Mavrogeni (University of Western Macedonia), Filmic production about the Greek Civil War
in Yugoslavia/FYROM
Giorgos
Mouratidis (anthropologist), The Right, the Left and Mr. Pantelis: The events of December 1944 on the scene of
popular theatre
Christos
Dermentzopoulos (University of Ioannina), Popular
culture, public dialogue and national identity, on the occasion of the
projection of the film Parthenon by
Costa Gavras in the New Acropolis Museum
PARALLEL
SESSION
19:00 -
21:00
Session IΧ: Education and Public History Ι
Chairman:
Dimitris Bilalis (University of Thessaly)
Despina
Karakatsani (University of Peloponnese), Pavlina Nikolopoulou (PhD Candidate,
University of Peloponnese), Photo
images, memory and history. Depictions and readings in the history of education
Vassiliki Sakka (PhD in Education of
Adults), “Approaching the past
critically”: in search for visual, media and historical literacy. Production of
a historical documentary from students. Public History and school
Kostas Kasvikis (University of Western Macedonia), The “other” past: Public uses of archaeology in
official and unofficial education
Georgia
Kipouropoulou (PhD
Candidate, University of Western Macedonia), A comparative examination of
two history textbooks
Sunday
September 1st
9:30-11:00
Session Χ: Education and Public History ΙΙ
Chairman: Giorgos Antoniou (International
Hellenic University)
Haris Athanasiadis (University of
Ioannina), “National-populists” against
“national-nihilists”: The public debate about the history textbook for the
sixth class of elementary school In modern and recent times (2006-07)
Vaggelis Tsianakas (PhD in
Pedagogics), Turkish Rule and Hellenism
in Greek and Turkish history textbooks: The two sides of the same coin
Zeta Papandreou (PhD in History Didactics), The massacre of Distomo: Η σφαγή του Διστόμου: Research approach of a traumatic and disputed historical event
11:30- 13:00
Roundtable Discussion
Giorgos Kokkinos, Nikos Marantzidis, Andreas
Andreou, Nikos Demertzis, Lena Divani, Dimitris Bilalis, Elli Lemonidou.
Scientific and organizing committee
Andreas Andreou (University of Western Macedonia), Giorgos Antoniou (International Hellenic University), Nikos Demertzis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Spyros Kakouriotis (journalist), Giorgos Kokkinos (University of the Aegean), Elli Lemonidou (University of Patras), Nikos Marantzidis (University of Macedonia), Zeta Papandreou (PhD in History Didactics), Eleni Paschaloudi (PhD in Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies)
Organization:
Printing is sponsored by Epikentro Publishers.
As permanent internal commission of the CISH-ICHS, the IFPH-FIHP is fostering the broadest possible international participation to the Call for Paper launched by the Comité International des Sciences Historiques – International Committee of Historical Sciences and especially for the round table on “Why Public History?”, organized by Arnita Jones (American Historical Association, USA, Secretary of the IFPH Steering Committee) together with Alix Green (University of Hertfordshire, UK, Member of the IFPH-FIHP) during the next 22nd world history congress that will take place in Jinan, China in August 2015.
Yet it is easy to become overly pre-occupied with definition. The inevitable difficulties involved – and the reality that any outcome will be contested – can prevent further enquiry. We can ask what public historians do, and present the diversity of activities as a proxy for definition, but there is a need to be more intellectually ambitious. The paper that this roundtable will discuss will propose a different way to proceed. One powerful way to explore what public history is is to ask ‘why is public history as it is?’. This approach allows us to consider those important questions of context, to draw out the influences that have shaped public history fields in different contexts and to make comparisons that point to further development and dialogue.
Proposals should be a maximum of 2.500 characters – 350 words and should be sent with a short biographical note to the organizers (Alix Green and Arnita Jones) and to the Secretary General Robert Frank : sgcish1@gmail.com. by the 30th November 2013.
