SOCSCI 2O03 Lecture 11: WEEK 11- History and Television
13 Nov 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
WEEK 11- History and Television
March 28th 2018
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Two Types
•Fictional characters in Historical Context
•Actual historical figures
•Often utilize real historical events and figures, but the shows tend to be about people who
didn’t exist
•Also shows that purport to actually tell the stories of historical human figures, often dead.
These shows are supposedly about actual history.
•Encourage the viewer to believe and see the going of events they have heard of (e.g. the
crown)
Why are We Interested in the Past?
•Anxiety about the future? -
•Comfort of simpler times?
•Are we charmed by manners?
•Class?
Muddy Violence?
•The way it was?
Appeal?
•Lots of plot
•Depth of character
•Do we love history?
Truth and Temporal Tourism
•“The Past is Another Country”
•Do we want to identify with the past?
•Can we go back?
•Television as a time machine
Nostalgia for what we had
•We can easily do the research
•Would it be real scholarship?
•An act of the imagination
History Requires Imagination
•Whose perspective?
•Whose experience?
•We are in 2018
