Seeing History: Public History in China

LI Na

Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2024

Seeing History: Public History in China

LI Na

Volume 3 in the series Public History in International Perspective

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110983098

Overview
Contents

About this book

When public history was imported from the United States to China around the turn of the twenty-first century, it was introduced as a sub-field within history, and has developed along that path ever since. Professional historians in China, even some forward-looking ones, see public history as merely presenting a change in the patterns of participation in history-making. This book offers a sharply different view.

It contends, essentially, that public history represents more than a research domain within history or within any existing discipline, nor does it fit into any established narratives, but rather, a fundamental change of the entire process of history-making in China. In this process, the public is prosuming history. Public history makes obsolete the old structure for building and acquiring historical knowledge: it challenges the old assumptions, supersedes the rigid academic hierarchy, and stirs the imaginations of the multitudes. With an assemblage of case studies, this work makes a case for a system view of public history making, or public history(ing), and launches a concept, complex public history, i.e. public history(ing) as complex adaptive systems.

Author / Editor information

Na Li is a public historian and urban planning scholar. Her research focuses on public history and urban preservation. During her decade-long work in China, Na Li has pioneered the field of public history in China. She was appointed Research Fellow/Professor at Department of History, Zhejiang University (2017–2022), and the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Chongqing University (2012–2017). She is Founding Editor for Public History: A National Journal of Public History (《公众史学》). She served on the Board of Directors for the National Council on Public History (2017–2020) and has written two books, Kensington Market: Collective Memory, Public History, and Toronto’s Urban Landscape (University of Toronto Press, 2015) and Public History: A Critical Introduction (Peking University Press, 2019), which focus on public history and urban preservation. She is Associated Researcher, Faculty Center for Transdisciplinary Historical and Cultural Studies, University of Vienna.

Reviews

“Na Li offers an indispensable guide to the varieties of personal and public history practiced in contemporary China, from oral and family histories to museum exhibits and video games. While focused on China, her explorations of the psychological and political dimensions of public history, and the disappearing line between history's producers and consumers, hold important insights for historians in other nations.” – David Glassberg, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, author of Sense of History: The Place of the Past in American Life. 　

“Change is afoot in public history – from a top down dissemination of specialized knowledge to a user-generated practice of meaning-making. Na Li’s energetic survey-cum-critique Seeing History: Public History in China well illustrates this shift. Her passion for popular history making is palpable; her notion of public history as a verb, ‘history-ing’ captures well the dynamic at play. Overall Seeing History is a useful addition to a growing body of work detailing public history's international reach.” – Linda Shopes, independent scholar of oral and public history

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	IX
Author Biography Publicly Available Download PDF	XIII
Introduction: Complex Public History Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I: The Origin of Modern Public History in China Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
Part II: Past Making in the Present: Presentations and Patterns
Chapter 1 Chinese and the Pasts: Exploring Historical Consciousness of Ordinary Chinese Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
Chapter 2 Oral History: History, Memory, and Identity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
Chapter 3 Family Narrative, Personal Memory, and Public History Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
Chapter 4 Museums and the Public Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
Chapter 5 When Environmental History Goes Public Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
Chapter 6 Performing History: Cultural Memory in the Present Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
Chapter 7 Playing the Past: Historical Video Games as Participatory Public History Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
Chapter 8 Public History: The Future of Teaching the Past Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
Part III: Prosuming History: A Paradigm Shift Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
Epilogue: The Future of China’s Past Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
Glossary (Chinese Characters) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265
Permissions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	269
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	287

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
Audience: Academics in the field of public history, memory studies and China studies.
Pages
- Front matter: 11
- Main content: 289
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 21
- Line drawings: 10
- Tables: 2
Keywords: Public history; China; memory; complexity

eBook

Published: November 6, 2023
ISBN: 9783110983098

Hardcover

Published: November 6, 2023
ISBN: 9783110996180