Living History: Reenacted Prehistory between Research and Popular Performance

Completed Research project

This interdisciplinary project, financed by the Volkswagen Foundation, examines by means of ‘living history’ forms of physical appropriation of history. From the perspective of contemporary history, re-enactments in open-air museums, television documentaries and themed walks, which are supposed to visualise the beginnings of human history, will be considered. The main focus here will be on the analysis of concrete re-enactments, their relationship to scholarship and the concepts, motives and prior knowledge of the re-enactors.

Website on the project: http://www.livinghistory.uni-tuebingen.de

Projektskizze (PDF)

Forschung

Projekte

Public Pre-History
Staged Prehistory in German and British Television

Completed PhD project

The project analyses the representation of prehistory in German and British television documentaries in the last five decades. In contrast to the well-reviewed contemporary history on TV, there are some difficulties in staging prehistory: for example, there are no audio- or video-sources preserved from the Stone Age and we have not found any contemporary witnesses – yet. Just showing fossils does not fit recent viewing habits. That is why prehistory on television is transformed into different modes of visualisation, where fact and fiction have a mutual relation.

Living History: Reenacted Prehistory between Research and Popular Performance

Completed Research project

This interdisciplinary project, financed by the Volkswagen Foundation, examines by means of ‘living history’ forms of physical appropriation of history. From the perspective of contemporary history, re-enactments in open-air museums, television documentaries and themed walks, which are supposed to visualise the beginnings of human history, will be considered. The main focus here will be on the analysis of concrete re-enactments, their relationship to scholarship and the concepts, motives and prior knowledge of the re-enactors.

Website on the project: http://www.livinghistory.uni-tuebingen.de

Projektskizze (PDF)

Forschung

Projekte

Public Pre-History
Staged Prehistory in German and British Television

Completed PhD project

The project analyses the representation of prehistory in German and British television documentaries in the last five decades. In contrast to the well-reviewed contemporary history on TV, there are some difficulties in staging prehistory: for example, there are no audio- or video-sources preserved from the Stone Age and we have not found any contemporary witnesses – yet. Just showing fossils does not fit recent viewing habits. That is why prehistory on television is transformed into different modes of visualisation, where fact and fiction have a mutual relation.