IAFE   05512
INSTITUTO DE ASTRONOMIA Y FISICA DEL ESPACIO
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Learning to Build the Object of History Study and Its Relationship with the Historian’s Social Role
Autor/es:
LEVINAS MARCELO LEONARDO
Lugar:
Madrid
Reunión:
Seminario; International Seminar: Understanding History and the Construction of Identities in a Global World: De-Nationalizing History Teaching?; 2010
Institución organizadora:
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Resumen:
In order to learn how to think in historical terms, it is necessary to define the meaning of historical knowledge and to study the dynamics that the discipline has acquired in the course of time. We should consider how, during this process, both its principles and the fundamentals that have given birth to the different concepts and theories about what history represents, have been under permanent discussion and revision. It is essential to understand, under the light of current debates, the complex relationship existing between History understood as a series of facts belonging to the past and History considered as a study of the past, in order to ascertain the complex characteristics of this bond and to study its continuous feedback process.  We propose some elements that should be taken into account when teaching history. We start from the fact that the student is not acting as an historian since, strictly speaking, he cannot perform researches. But he is able to access to relevant information and to actively articulate it; in this case, his job is similar to that of an historian. Therefore, we propose the incorporation of differing sources or opposing opinions about the "same” fact or historical phenomenon. Particularly, the use of small passages representing the thinking of relevant and influential authors that have been presented as thesis, speculations or conclusions, in order to introduce different and possible theoretical frameworks.  It is very important to discuss the problem of truth in History, duly acknowledging how the problem itself has been introduced in different ways by different thinkers, and to characterize how truth has operated in different historiographies.  Our idea is to provide relevant historical examples to determine the boundaries of the historical discipline in terms of objective knowledge. At the same time, we would like to make a contribution for establishing the scope of the historical activity, and to determine the possibilities, and the need, of historians participating in the social transformation. We will provide examples about all these concepts with a selection of core issues and the corresponding analysis of some passages of relevant texts. Taking all these ideas into account, we will discuss the characteristics of the object of History study. The purpose of this critical analysis is to determine the characteristics of the versatile relationship between what is true and what is verisimilar or plausible, in order to explain the changing compromises of the historian with the corresponding historical time; it also implies an attempt to establish the influence of his activity upon the society that accommodates such activity.