Seeing History: Public History in China / / LI Na.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2023 English
• VerfasserIn: Na, LI,
• Place / Publishing House: München ;, Wien : : De Gruyter Oldenbourg, , [2023]; ©2024
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Series: Public History in International Perspective : Theory, Method, and Public Practice , 3
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (XI, 289 p.)

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- Author Biography -- Introduction: Complex Public History -- Part I: The Origin of Modern Public History in China -- Part II: Past Making in the Present: Presentations and Patterns -- Chapter 1 Chinese and the Pasts: Exploring Historical Consciousness of Ordinary Chinese -- Chapter 2 Oral History: History, Memory, and Identity -- Chapter 3 Family Narrative, Personal Memory, and Public History -- Chapter 4 Museums and the Public -- Chapter 5 When Environmental History Goes Public -- Chapter 6 Performing History: Cultural Memory in the Present -- Chapter 7 Playing the Past: Historical Video Games as Participatory Public History -- Chapter 8 Public History: The Future of Teaching the Past -- Part III: Prosuming History: A Paradigm Shift -- Epilogue: The Future of China’s Past -- Glossary (Chinese Characters) -- Permissions -- Bibliography -- Index