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Remaking History: The Past in Contemporary Historical Fictions
Remaking History considers the ways that historical fictions of all kinds enable a complex engagement with the past. Popular historical texts including films, television and novels, along with cultural phenomena such as superheroes and vampires, broker relationships to ‘history’, while also enabling audiences to understand the ways in which the past is written, structured and ordered.
Jerome de Groot uses examples from contemporary popular culture to show the relationship between fiction and history in two key ways. Firstly, the texts pedagogically contribute to the historical imaginary and secondly they allow reflection upon how the past is constructed as ‘history’. In doing so, they provide an accessible and engaging means to critique, conceptualize and reject the processes of historical representation. The book looks at the use of the past in fiction from sources including Mad Men, Downton Abbey and Howard Brenton’s Anne Boleyn, along with the work of directors such as Terence Malick, Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese, to show that fictional representations enable a comprehension of the fundamental strangeness of the past and the ways in which this foreign, exotic other is constructed.
Drawing from popular films, novels and TV series of recent years, and engaging with key thinkers from Marx to Derrida, Remaking History is a must for all students interested in the meaning that history has for fiction, and vice versa.
Jerome de Groot uses examples from contemporary popular culture to show the relationship between fiction and history in two key ways. Firstly, the texts pedagogically contribute to the historical imaginary and secondly they allow reflection upon how the past is constructed as ‘history’. In doing so, they provide an accessible and engaging means to critique, conceptualize and reject the processes of historical representation. The book looks at the use of the past in fiction from sources including Mad Men, Downton Abbey and Howard Brenton’s Anne Boleyn, along with the work of directors such as Terence Malick, Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese, to show that fictional representations enable a comprehension of the fundamental strangeness of the past and the ways in which this foreign, exotic other is constructed.
Drawing from popular films, novels and TV series of recent years, and engaging with key thinkers from Marx to Derrida, Remaking History is a must for all students interested in the meaning that history has for fiction, and vice versa.
- GenresNonfiction
247 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 20, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 11, 2022
Very interesting, though also rather uneven, at least for me. De Groot's argument is that historical fiction is a cultural product that hinges upon popular imaginings about the past, and different types of historical fiction provide ways to relating to the past. For instance, something like Wolf Hall can challenge popular notions about historical actors by flipping the popular script (i.e. making Cromwell the hero and More the villain), while Mad Men deploys nostalgia for the 1950s in order to critique the nationalism that so often gets woven into historical narratives. All around, really interesting stuff.
De Groot comes prepared with a wide array of texts to discuss, though most of them are television. This isn't inherently bad, but it does mean he mainly uses one set of critical tools rather than what I'm more used to. It does give the book a very up-to-date feel, and that's a good thing.
My biggest complaint is that there are some branches of the analysis where de Groot does not establish the foundations for the attendant arguments. I'm thinking most specifically of the times when he focuses on the body in relation to historical fiction. I'll admit that I'm not too learned in certain material studies of fiction, and that's probably somewhat on me, but it would be nice if de Groot would throw me a lifeline to help me out. Instead he assumes I'm not only inducted into a particularly niche part of scholarship, but that I'm on his side in the debate. Instead I'm just confused.
Still, a useful book, one that gave me a lot of material for my dissertation, so that's a win. If you're interested in historical fiction and how it relates to us in the twenty-first century, or if you're interested in a broad analysis that encompasses Wolf Hall, Mad Man, Downton Abby, Inglorious Basterds, and more, this just might be for you.
De Groot comes prepared with a wide array of texts to discuss, though most of them are television. This isn't inherently bad, but it does mean he mainly uses one set of critical tools rather than what I'm more used to. It does give the book a very up-to-date feel, and that's a good thing.
My biggest complaint is that there are some branches of the analysis where de Groot does not establish the foundations for the attendant arguments. I'm thinking most specifically of the times when he focuses on the body in relation to historical fiction. I'll admit that I'm not too learned in certain material studies of fiction, and that's probably somewhat on me, but it would be nice if de Groot would throw me a lifeline to help me out. Instead he assumes I'm not only inducted into a particularly niche part of scholarship, but that I'm on his side in the debate. Instead I'm just confused.
Still, a useful book, one that gave me a lot of material for my dissertation, so that's a win. If you're interested in historical fiction and how it relates to us in the twenty-first century, or if you're interested in a broad analysis that encompasses Wolf Hall, Mad Man, Downton Abby, Inglorious Basterds, and more, this just might be for you.
January 26, 2020
Jerome de Groot es un historiador habilidoso. Sabe extraer de muchas teorías sus puntos más interesantes para tejer su propia visión. Una visión que se traduce en este libro en como la "ficción histórica" modifica nuestra percepción del pasado y ayuda a mejorar, profundizar y extender el debate historiográfico sobre los momentos seleccionados al abrir nuevos interrogantes sobre el periodo. Muy bueno.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews