Robbert-Jan Adriaansen | Erasmus University Rotterdam (original) (raw)

Uploads

Papers by Robbert-Jan Adriaansen

International Public History

Dark academia is an ‘internet aesthetic,’ an aesthetic style used in posts on platforms such as T... more Dark academia is an ‘internet aesthetic,’ an aesthetic style used in posts on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Tumblr that resonates the atmosphere of life in boarding schools, prep schools, and (Ivy League) colleges from the last decades of the nineteenth century up until the 1940s. It expresses a fascination with (neo-)gothic architecture; with tweed, lace, wool, and leather; with literature and art, and Romantic longing. Having been a main trend on social media platforms throughout the coronavirus pandemic, dark academia captures and facilitates cultural engagement in times of social isolation and closed college campuses. This article studies the dark academia aesthetic as a mnemonic curatorial practice with tendencies to counter hegemonic norms and narratives. Focusing on the affective dimensions of dark academia, this article argues that the aim of this internet aesthetic is to annul historical distance by capturing a mood and atmosphere associated with early twentieth-...

Berghahn Books, Oct 24, 2022

Analysing Historical Narratives

Bloomsbury History: Theory and Method

Journal of Curriculum Studies, 2019

Bloomsbury History: Theory and Methods (digital resource), 2021

The concept historical culture generally refers to people's relationships with the past. It encom... more The concept historical culture generally refers to people's relationships with the past. It encompasses the various ways in which people and larger communities perceive and perform the past, involving both academic and popular culture, material and immaterial articulations. While there are differences in interpretation and appraisal - both theoretical and empirical - the concept broadly aims to understand the dynamic interaction between human agency, traditions, institutions, performances of memory and other historical representations, conceptions of history, and the circulation of knowledge (Füssmann, Grütter & Rüsen, 1994; Schönemann, 2000; Ribbens, 2002, 2007; Woolf, 2003; Demantowsky, 2005; Grever, 2009; Grever & Adriaansen, 2017).

Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis

Challenges for contemporary historical culture. An introduction The concept of historical culture... more Challenges for contemporary historical culture. An introduction The concept of historical culture refers to the ways in which society deals with the past in the broadest sense. The concept enables an integrated study of the different, and sometimes conflicting practices that give meaning to the past. The aim of this thematic section is twofold: it aims to reflect on the value of the concept historical culture for analyzing contemporary society, and it discusses contemporary challenges in historical culture within three key areas of the historiographical praxis: the theory of history, public history and history didactics. These challenges include digitization and the plurality of (dis)information; multi-perspectivity; constructivism and the perceived relativity of historical truth. Herman Paul notices an increased interest in historical culture in the philosophy of history, and argues for more balance in the conceptual and empirical treatment of concepts such as ‘presentism’. Marijke...

Bloomsbury History: Theory and Method Articles

Journal for the Study of Education and Development

As social media have become a prime means of communication among students, so too are they increa... more As social media have become a prime means of communication among students, so too are they increasingly used to give meaning to the past. But while history education scholars tend to conceptualize historical meaning-making as acts of narrative emplotment, social media are multimodal by nature, and some platforms-like Instagram-prioritize images over written text. This article focuses on the question of how Instagram users attribute historical significance in posts that feature the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, by analysing the various ways in which they combine images and captions to give meaning to the past. Subsequently, the potential of multimodal social media representations for history education is explored. RESUMEN Dado que las redes sociales se han convertido en un medio principal de comunicación entre estudiantes, también se usan cada vez más para dar significado al pasado. Sin embargo, mientras que los expertos en la enseñanza de la historia suelen conceptualizar la construcción de significado histórico como actos de contextualización narrativa, las redes sociales son multimodales por naturaleza, y algunas plataformas-como Instagram-priorizan las imágenes sobre el texto escrito. Este artículo aborda cómo los usuarios de Instagram atribuyen significado histórico en sus publicaciones relacionadas con el campo de concentración y centro de exterminio de Auschwitz-Birkenau a través del análisis de las diversas formas en que combinan imágenes y pies de foto para dar significado al pasado. Después, exploramos el potencial de las representaciones multimodales de las redes sociales para la educación histórica.

BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review

Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education, 2017

Around the globe, public controversies on collective memory and history canons are always a good ... more Around the globe, public controversies on collective memory and history canons are always a good indicator for tensions within or between societies. Usually, the spokespersons of these debates criticize the supposed lack of historical consciousness, referring to the selection of topics in the school history curriculum and other historical representations (Granatstein, 1998; Macintyre & Clark, 2004; Grever & Stuurman, 2007). But sometimes they also challenge the premises of historical thought. In Canada, for example, some educators call for an incorporation of oral traditions and cyclical conceptions of time in the history curriculum, including claims for "indigenous epistemologies" as alternatives to modern historical consciousness (Seixas, 2012). Studying the social and cultural consequences of these debates and the last mentioned developments requires a framework of analysis which also involves conceptions of history, allowing us to better understand the dynamic interaction between human agency, tradition, performance of memory, and historical representations and their dissemination. The concept historical culture, broadly defined as "people’s relationships to the past", offers a good opportunity to construct such a framework. In this chapter we start by outlining the rise of the concept of historical culture. Building on the impressive work of particularly German historians and philosophers, we will also critically assess the various changing meanings of the concept. Next, we will discuss historical culture as a concept of three mutually dependent and interactive levels of analysis: 1. historical narratives and performances of the past; 2. mnemonic infrastructures; 3. conceptions of history. We will conclude with some reflective remarks about our approach, especially in relation to history education practices.