[ecrea] cfp adapting history

> ADAPTING HISTORY
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> â??When we attempt to answer the question 
> â??What is history?,â?? E.H. Carr suggests, in 
> his highly praised assessment of history and 
> historiography, that â??our answer, consciously 
> or unconsciously, reflects our position in time, 
> and forms part of our answer to the broader 
> question what view we take of the society in 
> which we live.â??[1] Carr regards the present 
> age as â??the most historically-minded of all 
> ages,â?? as â??[m]odern man is to an 
> unprecedented degree self-conscious and 
> therefore conscious of history.â??[2] In the 
> perspective of Eric Hobsbawm, this increasing 
> self-consciousness coincides with â??the rapid 
> historicization of the social sciences 
> themselves. For want of any help from academic 
> historiography, these have increasingly begun to 
> improvise their own ? applyying their own 
> characteristic procedures to the study of the 
> past.â??[3] Today, we may easily take it for 
> granted that historians are not as 
> â??innocentâ?? as they used to be thought of, 
> that theirs is not a role of â??objective 
> recording/compiling of factsâ?? for the aim of 
> creating a â??universal history;â?? indeed, that 
> historians are not the sole authority in the 
> writing of history to begin with. Hence we have 
> â??historiesâ?? ? in the plural; we frequuently 
> speak of â??alternative historiesâ?? battling 
> their way against â??Historyâ?? ? with a 
> capital; we have â???novelistsâ?? posing as 
> â??historiansâ?? and â??historiansâ?? as 
> â??novelists;â?? all of which signify but one 
> â??factâ??: that our fascination with the debate 
> over history has not been the least exhausted yet!
>
>
>
> Where, then, does the history debate intersect 
> with the notion of â??adaptationâ??? Having so 
> far produced its most fruitful work in exploring 
> the relation between literature and film, 
> studies in adaptation should by no means be 
> considered limited to the film-novel/drama 
> paradigm. Indeed, from a fresh standpoint, every 
> version of history may be regarded an 
> â??adaptation,â?? for the â??historianâ?? adapts 
> the material s/he has at hand into a pre-planned 
> scheme, to meet a certain end. What should be 
> considered more crucial is the process through 
> which the historical material becomes adapted. 
> One is, then, tempted to ask, â??Do ends justify 
> the means?â?? To what ends does history get 
> adapted? So the focus is rather on the â??whyâ?? 
> than the â??how;â?? in other words, the argument 
> raised in this framework scrutinizes adaptation 
> of history as a process, questioning the 
> procedures involved. Through this approach, we 
> might be able to fulfill Gareth Stedman 
> Jonesâ??s dictum that â??[social historians] 
> should not be content to chip away at the easily 
> sacrificed protuberances of received historical 
> interpretation. [?] They should instead 
> establish the theoretical foundations of any 
> history, they should advance into the structure 
> and history of the ruling class, into the 
> interpretation of the historical morphology of 
> whole cultures. [?] Only vigorous intellectual 
> imperialism and collective assault wiill make a 
> mark. Otherwise the limp ghosts of long departed 
> liberal mandarins will forever â??weigh like a 
> nightmare on the brain of the living.â??â??[4]
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>
>
>
>
> To this end, some questions to be raised and 
> discussed are as follows, though by no means limited to this list:
>
>
>    * What does it mean to adapt/revive/sustain history?
>    * Are there any differences between adapting and rewriting?
>    * Have these processes changed in time?
>    * What, then, is the role of the 
> historian/novelist/dramatist/? in the adaptation process?
>    * How do novelists rewrite history and for what purposes?
>    * How do historians rewrite history and how does that differ from others?
>    * How is history adapted for ideological purposes (gender in particular)?
>    * Are there differences between the 
> processes of adapting history for political purposes and persuasive purposes?
>    * How do major historical events, social, 
> political, cultural, military relating to a 
> specific countryâ??s history, get adapted, 
> either in that country or elsewhere?
>    * How do historiographers impose a structure 
> on history and for which purposes?
>    * What is historiography and how is it (re-)constructed across cultures?
>
>
>
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> With these questions and arguments in mind, we 
> are setting out to compile a book of academic 
> articles, with a transdisciplinary focus, that 
> uses case-studies as a way of investigating the 
> process of adapting history. The aimed 
> end-product of this work is a theory of 
> adaptation that addresses history from a fresh 
> perspective. We encourage contributions that are 
> as fresh as the compilation aims to be. 
> Contributors are highly welcome to address this 
> politically-charged issue within a multi-national framework.
>
>
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>
> Please send e-mails, to both of us, of 300-500 
> word abstracts, along with short bios, by April 
> 1st, 2011. Complete articles will be due October 1st, 2011.
>
>
>
>
>
> Dr. Defne ERSÄ°N TUTAN
>
> Faculty of Science and Letters
>
> BaÅ?kent University
>
> Ankara, TURKEY
>
> (defneersin /at/ yahoo.com)
>
>
>
> Dr. Laurence J.A. RAW
>
> Faculty of Education
>
> BaÅ?kent University
>
> Ankara, TURKEY
>
> (l_rawjalaurence /at/ yahoo.com)
>
>
>
>
> [1] Carr, E.H. What is History? London: Penguin, 1990; 8.
>
> [2] Ibid; 134.
>
> [3] Hobsbawm, E.J. â??Karl Marxâ??s Contribution 
> to Historiography.â?? Ideology in Social 
> Science: Readings in Critical Social Theory. Ed. 
> Robin Blackburn. Suffolk: Fontana/Collins, 1972; 282-3.
>
> [4] Jones, Gareth Stedman. â??History: the 
> Poverty of Empiricism.â?? Ideology in Social 
> Science: Readings in Critical Social Theory. Ed. 
> Robin Blackburn. Suffolk: Fontana/Collins, 1972; 115.

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Nico Carpentier (Phd)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
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E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
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