History, Memory, Heritage:Professional vs. Popular History

History, Memory, Heritage:Professional vs. Popular History

I. The Professional Study of History

History, Memory, Heritage:Professional vs. Popular History

I. The Professional Study of History

-- Beginnings (Leopold von Ranke & Historicism)

Portrait of Leopold von Ranke in 1868

"You have reckoned that history ought to judge the past and to instruct the contemporary world as to the future. The present attempt does not yield to that high office. It will merely tell how it really was." (wie es eigentlich gewesen).

- Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886)

History, Memory, Heritage:Professional vs. Popular History

I. The Professional Study of History

-- Beginnings (Leopold von Ranke & Historicism)

II. Professional vs. Popular History

History, Memory, Tradition:Professional vs. Popular History

I. The Professional Study of History

- Beginnings (Leopold von Ranke & Historicism)

II. Professional vs. Popular History

A. History and Memory – 3 Critical Distinctions

Memory…

- is about nostalgia

Memory…

- is about nostalgia

- is selective

Memory…

- is about nostalgia

- is selective

- is concerned with groups & collective identities

Oath of Israeli soldiers: “Masada shall not fall again!”

“Remember the Alamo!”

“This generation can match their fathers and grandfathers in ability, in courage, and in resolution. We have not changed. When the demands of war & the dangers to our own people call us to arms—then we British are as we have always been—competent, courageous and resolute.”

- Margaret Thatcher on the Falkland Wars of 1982

History, Memory, Tradition:Professional vs. Popular History

I. The Professional Study of History

-- Beginnings (Leopold von Ranke & Historicism)

II. Professional vs. Popular History

A. History and Memory

B. History and Heritage

“Heritage” - Webster’s definition:

“Something handed down from one’s ancestor or the past as a characteristic, a culture, a tradition”

Though kingdoms rise and fall these Kurdish fishermen carry on!

National Geographic--1938

Across the gulf of countless generations, the Minoan love of dance still finds expression.

National Geographic--1978

John Smith and Pocahontas

Disney Version

Discussion Questions (in groups of 3)

1) Why are you a history major? Why does the study of history intrigue you, or even more simply, what would you like to learn in this class?

2) Before you took this course how would you have defined history? In what ways has your understanding of history been challenged so far by both this brief lecture or by the reading you’ve done so far?

3) Come up with one example of heritage from your own experience and explain how it differs from history.