2019, "Historical Conssciousness: What is it and How do we learn about it?", a review on Anna Clark and Carla L. Peck (eds) Contemplating Historical Consciousness: Notes from the Field, Berghahn Books, 2018 (original) (raw)

“Contemplating historical consciousness”, edited by Anna Clark and Carla Peck revises the 2004 effort of Peter Seixas of analyzing this very interesting concept which “implicates historiography, collective memory and history education” (Seixas, 2004: 4). Before proceeding to the structure and the contents of the volume it would be useful to suggest a definition of the concept; Seixas suggests that of McDonald and Fausser: “the area in which collective memory, the writing of history, and other modes of shaping images of the past in the public merge”, (Seixas, 2004: 10). It is exactly this merit of historical consciousness that makes it that attractive: it is inclusive of equally disciplinary and ‘lay’ modes of thinking. The latter was appreciated also by the contributors of the 2018 volume, Chapman, Green, and Seixas. Rüsen himself in his 1987 article about history didactics in West Germany while he sees historical consciousness broader then history didactics, he therefore explains that: “the didactics of history now analyzes all the forms and the functions of historical knowledge and reasoning in daily, practical life” (Rüsen, 1987: 281).