Making Cultural History

Making Cultural History Synopsis

This volume contains 17 essays with fresh new approaches to cultural history from 17 authors that belong to different academic disciplines, including archaeology, art history, classical languages, ethnology, fashion studies, history, history of ideas, history of religion, literature studies, and media studies. Making Cultural History has sprung out of the Research School for Studies in Cultural History at Stockholm University, Sweden—an interdisciplinary research program focusing on interplays between past and present. The authors of this volume display a kaleidoscope of innovative approaches to traditional academic subjects such as celebrity, literary genre, prehistoric remains, television, and historic monuments. The perspectives focus on obscure corners and gaps between the illuminated centers of traditional academic knowledge and create an understanding that all narratives, representations, and claims of culture and history are in some sense political. Challenging, disturbing, inspirational, these essays all make cultural history.