Engaging the past : mass culture and the production of historical knowledge

228 Pages·2015·4.68 MB·English

by  Landsberg

E ngag i ng
Past
the
Mass Culture and the Production
of Historical Knowledge
Alison landsberg
E N G AG I N G T H E PA ST

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E N G AG I N G
T H E PA ST
Mass Culture and the Production
of Historical Knowledge
A l i s o n L a n d s b e r g
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK
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Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2015 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Landsberg, Alison.
Engaging the past : mass culture and the production of historical knowledge /
Alison Landsberg.
Pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-16574-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-231-16575-4 (pbk. :
alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-231-53946-3 (e-book)
1. Motion pictures and history. 2. Historical fi lms—History and criticism.
3. Television and history. 4. Historical television programs—History and
criticism. 5. Documentary-style television programs—History and
criticism. I. Title.
PN1995.2.L35 2015
791.43'6582—dc23
2014040180

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid-free paper.
Th is book is printed on paper with recycled content.
Printed in the United States of America

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Jacket Design: Jordan Wannemacher
Jacket Image: © Corbis

References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs
that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
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For my parents, Jill and Lewis Landsberg, with love
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
INTRODUCTION 1
1. THEORIZING AFFECTIVE ENGAGEMENT
IN THE HISTORICAL FILM 25
2. WAKING THE PAST: THE HISTORICALLY
CONSCIOUS TELEVISION DRAMA 61
3. ENCOUNTERING CONTRADICTION:
REALITY HISTORY TV 111
4. DIGITAL TRANSLATIONS OF THE PAST:
VIRTUAL HISTORY EXHIBITS 147
CONCLUSION 177
Notes 181
Bibliography 197
Index 205
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to the various institutions and
individuals whose intellectual, moral, and fi nancial support enabled me to
complete this book.
Th e ideas for this book originated from a series of papers I wrote for several
groundbreaking international conferences and symposia on memory, media,
and history. I thank the following colleagues for providing me the opportunity
to present my work and for the insightful feedback I received: Ann Gray and
Erin Bell, organizers of the “Televising History” conference at the University
of Lincoln in 2009; Leonardo Gandini, organizer of the “Memory and Media”
conference in Trento, Italy, in 2009; Michael Rothberg and Stef Craps, who
put together the seminar “Creolizing Memory” for the American Compara-
tive Literature Association’s annual meeting in 2010; Anne Rigney, organizer
of “Memory on the Move” at the University of Utrecht in 2010; Eleanor Ty
and Russ Kilbourn, organizers of “Memory, Mediation, Remediation: An In-
ternational Conference on Memory in Literature and Film” at Wilfrid Laurier
University in 2011; and Stephan Jaeger, organizer of “Languages and Cultures
of Confl icts and Atrocities” in Winnipeg, Canada, in 2012. I am grateful also
to Malgorzata Rymsza-Pawlowska, who as a graduate student at Brown Uni-
versity invited me to a give a talk there in 2011 and to participate in an exciting
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