Historians Rescue History in the Celluloid Age
York University Conference Looks at Mission of History in 21st Century

TORONTO, April 5, 2000 -- Today's fascination with the past -- with history -- is everywhere: you can see it in advertising spots about beer and banks; hear it in radio debates about how best to pay tribute to our past in national museums and monuments; and feel it in the rush to the box office for tickets to revivals of Shakespeare, Elizabeth I, and the Regency-era novels of Jane Austen.

This prevailing public interest puts the lie to the predictions of post-modern scholars about "the end of history." But what exactly is the mission of history in the 21st century? Whose past do we teach? And how to explain the great irony that as society's interest in popular history increases, high school students' knowledge of history decreases while provincial public policy eschews the liberal arts in favour of ëpractical' education? A powerful line-up of Canadian and international academics, writers and journalists will consider these and other questions from diverse perspectives during a three-day York University conference entitled Historians And Their Audiences: Mobilizing History for the Millennium, starting Thursday, April 13.

Co-organizers and York History professors Nicholas Rogers and Marlene Shore will argue that while some historians dismiss the packaging of the past by Hollywood or ad men and women, academics should seize the public appetite for things historical and encourage people to reach for a fuller, more accurate understanding of our past, mindful that history can be distorted and manipulated.

To whet the public's appetite for the conference, Shore and Rogers will be joined by their colleague History Prof. Stephen Brooke for a panel discussion/debate on Sex, Politics, Vanity, and the Manipulation of History on Wed., April 12, 10:30 a.m., at the historical George Brown House, 186 Beverley Street (at Baldwin). They will also release a list of Top Historical Myths which they have collected from conference participants from Canada, the United States and Britain.

The conference will showcase a wide range of research illustrating the increasing demands placed on historians to interpret the complexities of modern life. Topics vary from discussions of History in comic strips, on movie screens and on the Internet, to the politics of "being Canadian", to history and narratives of slavery. Prominent US historian Ellen Fitzpatrick, a regular on the pages of the New York Times and on PBS programs, will share her views on historians' involvement in contemporary issues and politics. Some of the papers to be presented include:

Monica, Bill, History, and Sex: an analysis by sexual historians of the 1998-99 US presidential impeachment (York History Prof. Marc Stein)

Two Faces of Nostalgia in the Comic Strip Revival of the 1960s: (York graduate student Jeet Heer)

Reel History and Jane Austen Fever (York History Prof. Nicholas Rogers)

The Possibilities and Problems of Popularity: The Case of Adoption History (University of Oregon History Prof. Ellen Herman)

Working Class Audiences: The Experience of the Ontario Workers Arts and Heritage Centre (York History Prof. Craig Heron)

Once Upon a Time in the Past: The Television Documentary as History (Gene Allen, Senior Producer, CBC TV, who has his PhD in History)

Isaac Newton Lived Here: Sites of Memory and Scientific Heritage (Cambridge University Prof. Patricia Fara)

The conference will also feature Guy Vanderhaege, author of The Englishman's Boy which won a Governor General's Award in 1996, who will discuss the problems he has encountered writing historical novels. Vanderhaege, who has a Masters degree in History, will be the keynote speaker Friday, April 14, 7:30 p.m. in the Harry Crowe Room, Atkinson College on York's Keele Campus. York professor and novelist Susan Swan, author of The Wives of Bath, will introduce Vanderhaege, whose presentation concludes Swan's year-long Millennial Wisdom Symposium which she undertook as the Millennial Wisdom Scholar at York's Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.

The conference comes in the midst of an ongoing debate about the health of Canadian history. Some argue that Canadian history is dead, killed off by feminist and multicultural viewpoints; others say a more thoughtful and thorough portrayal of those left out of traditional historical accounts is long overdue. "The decline of so-called "national" history has been depicted as a crisis, both in scholarly journals and the mass media," says Shore, an expert in North American intellectual and cultural history. "This is particularly so in Canada where the fragmentation of history into numerous, specialized fields has been viewed as a symptom of -- even a precipitating factor in -- the social fragmentation in the country. Meanwhile, historians in North America and Europe are debating whether to continue to write history along national lines, when international issues are becoming more urgent in the new global environment."

While historians puzzle over the evolution of their discipline, the public's interest in popular history continues -- spurred in part by the Millennium hype, says Rogers, who was recently appointed Editor of the prestigious Journal of British Studies. "The Millennium has triggered an interest in the retrospective in a way that sees history as nostalgia and invention," says Rogers. He cites the film Elizabeth which was shot -- erroneously -- in a Baroque setting. And because an accurate portrait of William Wallace does not exist, Braveheart's Mel Gibson has become the model for statues of Scotland's native son.

All conference sessions, with the exception of Vanderhaege's talk, will be held at 152 Founders College (Parking in Lot 3B or York Lanes Parking Lot). For a complete agenda, visit the conference website (http://www.yorku.ca/dept/histarts/conferences.htm) or contact the people listed below, who can also help to arrange interviews.

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For more information, please contact:

Sine MacKinnon
Senior Advisor/Director, Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22087

Susan Bigelow
Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22091
YU/044/00