It is now being increasingly recognised that the spread of anti-colonial
and democratic sentiments in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries has often challenged the basic tenets of the social-science
and humanities disciplines that themselves took shape and moulded
our perceptions of modernity in the nineteenth century. Demands
for cultural pluralism and for inclusion of formerly marginal
groups in the representations of the nation have contributed
to this process. Thus, anthropologists have had to re-examine
their disciplinary understanding of ‘culture’ —
or geographers their understanding of ‘space’ —
in the wake of debates on knowledge-systems and their relationship
to domination of one group by another.
The discipline of history has
been no exception to this general process. It is no longer enough
for historical research to be ‘true to the past’
(as Ranke and others conceived the ideals of the discipline).
It is now increasingly demanded that it be useful to the present
as well and serve some definite social ends. In many parts of
the world in the last three decades, historians and archaeologists
have been drawn into acute public disputes to do with questions
of the past. Their involvement has given rise to various kinds
of debates — national to methodological in scope —
with serious impact on and implications for the practice of
their disciplines. Countries such as Germany, Australia, India,
Israel, South Africa, New Zealand and the United States have
provided some of the prominent sites of these debates.
The aim of this conference is
to examine in depth several sites of public debates on the past
that have seen the active involvement of professional historians.
International and local speakers will share with us their experience
of particular debates with a view to discerning emergent general
patterns that may be suggestive of the future of the discipline.
Among the themes and problems the conference will address will
be those evident in Aboriginal history in Australia, legal cases
involving gay history in the United States, debates on history
text-books, the work of truth commissions such as the South
African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the conflict over
‘Hindu’ history in India in the last two decades,
the controversy over the Enola Gay exhibition in the United
States, the work of the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal in New Zealand,
and Israeli archaeology. This conference hopes to contribute
to contemporary discussions of disciplines and their futures
in a world marked by growing demands for recognition of groups
hitherto marginalised by mainstream national and institutional
practices. By focusing on the discipline of history in particular,
this conference will provide a forum for discussion by historians
as to whether or not their involvement in public disputation
has led them to rethink the protocols of the discipline, or
its many possible futures, in any fundamental way.
The speakers will include Bain Attwood (Monash
University and The Australian National University), Neeladri
Bhattacharya (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Laurence Brown (The
Australian National University), Dipesh Chakrabarty and George
Chauncey (University of Chicago), Paula Hamilton (University
of Technology, Sydney), Claudio Lomnitz (New School, New York),
Klaus Neumann (Swinburne), Deborah Posel (University of Witwaterstrand),
Bill Schwarz (Queen Mary's College, University of London), Keith
Sorrenson (University of Auckland) and David Thelen (Indiana
University, Bloomington).
The Centre for Cross-Cultural Research acknowledges
the support provided for this conference by the Humanities Research
Centre, Australian National University; Department of History,
University of Melbourne; School of Historical Studies, Monash
University; School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry,
University of Sydney.
Extra Information
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Dr. Maria Suzette Fernandes-Dias
Centre for Cross Cultural Research
Australian National University
Liversidge Street, Acton
T: (02) 6125 9879
F: (02) 6248 0054
E: maria-suzette.fernandesdias@anu.edu.au
