{"title":"“How Do We Play this Thing?”: The State of Historical Research on Videogames","authors":"Dany Guay-Bélanger","doi":"10.1515/iph-2021-2023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/iph-2021-2023","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Though previously overlooked by academia, scholars from a wide array of fields now consider videogames as a serious subject of inquiry. The emergence of game studies as a standalone discipline has led to the publication of high-quality work on the medium, yet the field of videogame history is still immature. Initial attempts to introduce critical historical analysis of videogames in a field dominated by journalistic accounts were themselves plagued by an overemphasis on videogame canons and on the United States and Japan. In effect, early writings by videogame historians resembled “great man” theory, something one could qualify as “great game” theory. Over the last decade, this situation has started to be redressed and there are now growing efforts to produce solid historical scholarship on videogames. Still, game scholars and game historians need to collaborate, engage in conversation, and develop and adapt proper methods to conduct historical research on videogames in order to write relevant histories of this relatively young medium.","PeriodicalId":52352,"journal":{"name":"International Public History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45010254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reprogramming the History of Video Games: A Historian’s Approach to Video Games and Their History","authors":"J. Lawler, S. Smith","doi":"10.1515/iph-2021-2018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/iph-2021-2018","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper explores the need and opportunities for historians to recognize the importance of video games to their research in modern American history. While this paper is rooted in examples specific to United States history, the call for historians to examine video games, engage with the rich field of games studies, and explore video games as sources in historical scholarship is a universal one, applicable to all fields of history. In this paper we argue that digital games are an essential part of media and cultural history and while media scholars and others interested in game studies have taken up the mantel of video games history, historians have been slow to respond to the medium and even slower to engage with video games as historical sources.","PeriodicalId":52352,"journal":{"name":"International Public History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46962537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Toward a Foucauldian Genealogy of Video Game (Pre)history","authors":"Gabrielle Trépanier-Jobin","doi":"10.1515/iph-2021-2022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/iph-2021-2022","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper highlights the distortive nature of narrative models that are often employed in video game historiographies to produce captivating tales. More precisely, it argues against: the search for video games’ origin(s); the “chronological-teleological” model based on linear progressions; the “chronological-organic” narrative revolving around a biological-like evolution; the “epistemic breaks” structure based on radical transformations; the “bi-polar” model involving a dialectic of oppositions; and the “cyclical” narrative revolving around postmodern tropes of return, recycling, and retrofitting. In addition to explaining why the uncritical use of these emplotment techniques is problematic, this paper argues in favor of a Foucault-inspired genealogical approach which avoids the quest for the media’s origin(s) and articulates video game history around coexistence, overlaps, interferences, synergies, networks of influences, and discontinuities. This genealogical method also restores the missing inventors, devices, and games in historical records while highlighting the power relations that led to their omission in the first place.","PeriodicalId":52352,"journal":{"name":"International Public History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44989198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Troubling Pasts: Teaching Public History in Northern Ireland","authors":"Olwen Purdue","doi":"10.1515/iph-2021-2017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/iph-2021-2017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article explores the challenges and opportunities presented for the teaching and practice of public history in a post-conflict society that remains deeply divided over its past. It examines some of the negative ways in which history is used in the public arena, but also the potential of public history initiatives for building a more cohesive and forward-looking society. It examines how students can use the rich cultural landscape of Northern Ireland and engage with a wide range of experienced practitioners to learn more about the ways in which history divides; how we can negotiate these divisions over interpretations; how different communities understand, represent, and engage with their past; and why this matters.","PeriodicalId":52352,"journal":{"name":"International Public History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/iph-2021-2017","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49083881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Recent History in the Courtroom: Notes on an Experience as an Expert Witness in a Trial for Crimes Against Humanity in Argentina","authors":"Santiago Garaño","doi":"10.1515/iph-2020-2008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/iph-2020-2008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this work I reflect on a new figure that has been gaining presence in trials for crimes against humanity since 2005: the “context witness,” a specialist – usually coming from social sciences – who is presented as a witness and whose contribution is taken as testimonial evidence. I rely on my participation in the oral and public trial “Operation Independence,” in which I testified about my doctoral research on the experience of conscripts in southern Tucumán, Argentina between 1975 and 1977. My argument is that social sciences can provide meticulous reconstructions of the logic of repression, helping us to understand how state terror was possible.","PeriodicalId":52352,"journal":{"name":"International Public History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/iph-2020-2008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47755525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Brave New Curriculum: Aotearoa New Zealand History and New Zealand’s Schools","authors":"M. Belgrave","doi":"10.1515/iph-2020-2007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/iph-2020-2007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Public history in New Zealand since the 1990s has been often dominated by the need to acknowledge New Zealand’s colonial past. Included in the British Empire by treaty in 1840 between the British Crown and its indigenous tribes, New Zealand’s European population has often idealized the country’s race relations. In recent decades, Māori assertiveness has led to a greater recognition of the damage done to Māori communities as New Zealand increasingly became a settler society. Inquiries into New Zealand’s colonial history since the 1980s have led to new settlements between Crown and iwi (tribal authorities). Demands that New Zealand’s colonial history be part of the school curriculum have also increased over this time. New Zealand’s decentralized social science and social studies curricula have been largely non-prescriptive, meaning that most children get little grounding in New Zealand’s history. In September 2019, the government announced that New Zealand history would become compulsory by the beginning of the 2022 school year. Defining this curriculum poses significant challenges to the country in a short period of time, challenges compounded by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.","PeriodicalId":52352,"journal":{"name":"International Public History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/iph-2020-2007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44339424","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Re-imaging an Inclusive People’s History","authors":"Ereshnee Naidu-Silverman","doi":"10.1515/iph-2020-2009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/iph-2020-2009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Drawing on the meaning of memorialization with examples from South Africa, this article argues that given the racist history of the USA, the meanings and function of memorials to the past should be subverted to continue the dialogue about freedom, justice, and equality in the country.","PeriodicalId":52352,"journal":{"name":"International Public History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/iph-2020-2009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45987147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Identity, Memory, and the Transitional Landscape: Public History in the Context of Transitional Justice","authors":"R. Hettiarachchi, Ricardo Santhiago","doi":"10.1515/iph-2020-2014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/iph-2020-2014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This special issue explores the intersection between transitional justice and public history. It presents some of the key claims, concerns, and debates within the field. As a key component of the “reparations pillar” within the transitional justice milieu, critiques of the concept of memorialization as public history are reviewed from both academia and field examples. Particular attention is paid to current debates within the field on truth-telling, erasure, revisionism, and manipulation of historical narratives to legitimize emerging political ideologies in transitional settings. While previous edited special sections of the journal may have provided more rigorous theorizations of public history as a discipline, this issue focuses on a critical conceptual examination of where public history collides with reconciliation, reparation, peacebuilding, and justice issues. It includes contributions on the praxis of localized processes of memorialization, historical revisionism, personal and political experiences, and populist ideologies, in order to explore more clearly the use of public history in contexts currently identified with “transitional justice.”","PeriodicalId":52352,"journal":{"name":"International Public History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/iph-2020-2014","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43451200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"En(countering) Silence – Some Thoughts on Historical Justice after Memoricide","authors":"F. du Toit","doi":"10.1515/iph-2020-2005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/iph-2020-2005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay argues that public historians and transitional justice experts need one another’s input in at least two crucial tasks facing nations after episodes of mass violence. In challenging the silence that typically envelopes post-war situations, the faithful recording of lived experiences of victims after violence is both a necessity and exceedingly complex. Here, oral history initiatives can significantly assist forensic investigations to develop a fuller picture of the suffering and crimes committed, but also to turn truth-telling into a healing experience for victims who often find forensic truth-telling on its own re-traumatizing. Conversely in efforts to memorialize wars, periods of oppression and struggles of liberation, public historians will do well to take seriously the testimonies of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and other truth-telling fora in order to ensure that any exclusionary narratives which may arise after the conflict are themselves disrupted, even as a social consensus is fostered on the need to realize all the necessary guarantees of non-recurrence to avoid a return to a bad past.","PeriodicalId":52352,"journal":{"name":"International Public History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/iph-2020-2005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43082173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Historical Consciousness and Transitional Justice in Post-War Sri Lanka","authors":"N. Dewasiri","doi":"10.1515/iph-2020-2013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/iph-2020-2013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Historical consciousness is a decisive factor in Sri Lanka with regards to the relationships between Sinhala and Tamil ethnic communities. It functioned as a great divide between these two communities. It was also used as a “charter of right” in order to impose one community’s claim on the other. This has become increasingly problematic in the post-war context after the violent hostilities between the Sri Lankan state and Tamil insurgents ended in 2009. Sinhala-Buddhists, who were politically dominant and identify themselves as the legitimate possessor of the island, desire to consolidate their dominance in the Tamil North and reckon historical knowledge as an effective tool for that end. The historical narrative that Sinhala Buddhists endorsed beginning in the early 20th century proved to be insufficient in countering the rising power of a Tamil counter narrative. Attempts have been made since the mid-1980s to produce a new historical narrative that is capable of challenging Tamil political claims. Although this effort was not fully successful, partial success was achieved during and after the war between the Sinhala dominated state and Tamil insurgents. The new historical consciousness that emerged out of this process proved to be extremely problematic in the context of the growing need for transitional justice for the war-affected Tamils in the North.","PeriodicalId":52352,"journal":{"name":"International Public History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/iph-2020-2013","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47037249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}