Theatres of Memory, Volume 1

Front Cover
Verso, 1994 - History - 496 pages
The idea that the past is a plaything of the present, or a metafiction, is only now beginning to disturb the tranquility of professional historians, but for some 20 years it has been a commonplace of epistemological criticism, and a mainspring of experimental work in literature and the arts. Thus, in magical realism or modern Gothic the fairy tale can appear as the latest thing; while in the visual arts, futurist installations offer themselves as parodies of Old Masters.
 

Contents

Retrofitting
51
Retrochic
83
The Return to Brick
119
Resurrectionism
139
Living History
169
Semantics
205
Genealogies
227
Sociology
242
Politics
288
The Eye of History
315
The Discovery of Old Photographs
337
Dreamscapes
350
Scopophilia
364
The Elephant Man
381
Docklands Dickens
401
Hybrids
429

Heritagebaiting
259
Pedagogies
274

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About the author (1994)

Raphael Samuel (1934-1996) was a tutor in History at Ruskin College, Oxford, and a founding editor of "History Workshop Journal." His works include "Theatres of Memory" and "Island Stories," also from Verso. For more information about his work, see The Raphael Samuel History Centre and Archive online.

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