One of my first conversations when I meet our new first year students in September is about why they have chosen to study history, and which past events or phenomena they think have had the biggest role in shaping the world around us. Frequently, students point to the events of the early and mid-twentieth century: the Third Reich, the Second World War, the Russian Revolution, and the Cold War. But in 2020, something shifted. Students talked about the British Empire, slavery, and imperialism. As we discussed the reasons behind their choices, they described the ways that the Black Lives Matter movement had made them think about the legacies of imperialism and race in shaping contemporary society. I was struck by the way that they distinguished between the past as what happened and history as our study of that, and by how they saw history as alive: living and breathing, open to interpretation and of vital importance in understanding where we are now.
These conversations were the inspiration behind a series of events at the Brunel University Research Festival this month on the theme of ‘Confronting the Past in the Present.’ Our idea is to bring together colleagues from across the University into conversation about how the past shapes the present, and how the past is represented in the present (whether in text and images, or in the case of our exhibition, in material objects). These discussions will cover topics from history on video games to representations of maternity, from queer authors to working class voices, from slavery to statues and present-day multiculturalism. Our aim is to rethink the complex and multifaceted ways in which the past helps us to understand contemporary society, and also to consider the ways in which the past is mobilised or mischaracterised to suit particular political purposes.
As my conversations with our first-year students suggested, these conversations are particularly vital at the moment. The past and how we understand it is a major battlefield of our current culture wars. The perception that a ‘woke’ agenda has hijacked history has led to countess newspaper articles defending the British Empire, attacks on the National Trust's efforts to highlight the role of slavery in the history of its properties, and the argument that statues of slavers and imperialists must be retained as tearing them down would be to ‘lie about our history’. In criticising British histories that pay attention to patterns of privilege, and particularly White racial privilege, these politicians, historians and media commentators offer instead a particular vision of the past. Theirs is a vision which minimises past inequalities and does so with the purpose of defending the status quo.
Presenting a particular and one-sided view of the past is not unique to current debates about the British Empire, of course. French Presidential candidate Eric Zemour minimised the role of the France's wartime Vichy regime in the deportation of French Jews and homosexuals during the Holocaust. Vladimir Putin has justified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by diminishing Ukranian nationhood and presenting Ukraine as a product of the Bolshevik Revolution. And, the leaked draft opinion from the US Supreme court on Roe vs Wade justified removing people’s right to safe and legal abortion on the basis of ‘an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion … from the earliest days of common law.’ Of course, just as the Vichy regime fully embraced its role as collaborator with the Third Reich in the wartime deportations and just as Ukraine has a long and vital history of nationhood, in the USA termination of a pregnancy was not considered criminal in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and abortion was legal in the USA when the constitution was written in 1787. In each case, the stress upon history, serves to legitimise a contemporary decision and to justify contemporary inequalities.
Such mischaracterisations of history do not reflect the complex realities of the past, however. The reason that history has been such a potent source for the culture wars is precisely because it helps us to understand ourselves and to understand others. There is power in who we include in our histories, and who we exclude. And, learning about others helps us to understand them, and understanding helps to bring communities together. Those who hold power have always recognised this. From Ukraine to the USA, challenging the wilful mischaracterisation and misuse of history by seeking to understand the past in all its complexity is as vital as ever. That is what we plan to do on 17 May, and we hope that you are able to join us.
FULL PROGRAMME
Exhibition: Brunel in 20 items – Meet the Curators [11am to 11.30am]
It is twenty years since Brunel appointed its first qualified archivist. During which time, the archives have developed substantially, and even more now that Special Collections have merged with us to form Archives and Special Collections. In celebration of the twenty years, we have curated this exhibition with colleagues, users and/or supporters of our work over the last twenty years. Each person has chosen their favourite object from one of the collections – which one is your favourite?
Featuring Phaedra Casey & Mandy Mordue (Brunel Archives) with Alison Carrol (History Festival Director)
Picturing the Past [11.30 am to 1 pm ]
Our understandings of the past are shaped by representations across cultural realms: literature, film, visual culture, museums. Through these diverse media, our understanding of the past develops in conversation with present-day concerns. Equally, we have much to learn from the way in which past societies represented their members- and those who found themselves at their margins. This panel considers the issue of representation and questions who makes decisions about who is depicted, what form these representations take, how the relationship between cultural representations shapes understandings and behaviour across society more broadly, and the connection between representation and existing structural inequalities.
Featuring: Jess Cox, Martin Folly, Andrew Green & Paul Moody
Complimentary Lunch [1pm to 2pm ]
History and Video Games [2pm to 3pm]
From the First World War to the Haitian Revolution, historical events are increasingly being transformed into digital games. Many of these games sell millions of copies across the globe, and represent the first encounter that some gamers have with the past. This lively field poses questions for scholars: how is the past represented through games? What do these representations tell us about contemporary society? What role is there for scholars in shaping these representations?
This session involves a hosted conversation between a scholar of games design and digital media and a historian interested in the representation of the past through video games. Together, they cover how the past is represented on screen and the role that scholars from different disciplines have to play in unearthing the intersecting themes of nostalgia, politics and popular culture in shaping the way that the past is represented on screen- and what these representations tell us about our society today.
Featuring: Iain Farquharson & Andra Ivanescu
Silenced and Marginalised Voices [3.15 pm to 4.30 pm]
Recent years have seen a wide range of efforts to integrate silenced and marginalised voices into our study of the past. For many scholars, these efforts are highly political and at stake is community coherence which relies upon the need to better understand one another. If unearthing those histories which have been hidden is part of that process, doing so raises a series of questions: whose voices have been silenced and by whom? In giving ‘voice’ to marginalised voices, whose voice is being heard and who has participated in that reconstruction? And who is listening to these narratives, and why are they listening now? Through a series of talks, this panel seeks to engage with some of these questions and addresses how our understanding of the past can be transformed by showing sensitivity to voices that have previously been silenced.
Featuring: Inge Dornan, Nick Hubble, William Spurlin
Hidden Histories: Memory and Multiculturalism [4.45pm to 6pm]
During times of social upheaval the past becomes a point of contest and contention, as Britain’s recent ‘culture wars’ have demonstrated. This panel considers some of the hidden histories of Empire and its legacies, ranging from statues of slavers to stories of migration and multiculturalism. It questions the relationship between the stories that we tell and the ways in which we think about society and community in contemporary Britain, and addresses the place of diversity, multi-perspectivity and contention in our study of the past.
Featuring: Hannah Lowe, Varun Uberoi & Hannah Whittaker