Historical re-enactment: narrativity, affect and the sublime

Abstract

The Karelian Evacuation Trail is an annual reenactment event which commemorates the Based on my case study, I argue that inter-subjective co-creation through embodied performance provides a more inclusive alternative to the institution of 'branded authorship' prevalent in modernist historiography. It is particularly well suited for representing 2 postmodern collectivities, traumatised by major displacements and destabilised by social change and the far-reaching 'dispersal' and 'disembodiment' of contemporary media.

Tweeting the Russian revolution: RT’s #1917LIVE and social media re-enactments as public diplomacy

“…Despite one tweet in our sample not understanding this convention (‘how is this breaking if it happened 100 years ago?’) the volume of tweets that express ‘historic reporting’ demonstrate a diffusion of the social media re-enactment to its audience who then adopt the genre and stylistic conventions of reliving the revolution themselves (Agnew, 2007). The participation of the audience in the re-enactment as if it were happening in the present ‘testifies to a taste for immediacy and personal experience’ (Mikula, 2015: 585) and highlights how 1917LIVE, as public diplomacy, engaged audiences in a form of participation facilitated by the immediate interaction that characterises Twitter.…”

“…Re-enactments encourage the participant to relive the past and experience events as if they were living through them, encouraging people ‘to see the world from the perspective of historical actors, to understand their motivations and to face their dilemmas’ (Cook, 2004: 491). Unlike other forms of historiography that attempt to provide objectivity, distance and ‘narrative closure’, re-enactments provide embodied, inter-subjective interactions, with other participants acting as ‘a springboard for collective identity formation’ (Mikula, 2015: 598).…”

“…By portraying the everyday experiences of ordinary people, social media re-enactments serve to make historic events relatable to people in the present and, in doing so, they serve to solicit empathy and understanding for a state’s population. Third, through their focus on experience, historical re-enactments elicit affect and emotion (Agnew, 2007: 301; see also Ahmed, 2014; De Groot, 2011; Doveling et al, 2010), prioritising subjectivity and a personal ‘living of the moment’ rather than a detached, objective and single authored view of history (Mikula, 2015: 598). This creation of emotional attachment is a mechanism by which audiences of public diplomacy initiatives come to be directed and attracted to a state’s history, culture and identity (Roselle et al, 2014: 72; Solomon, 2014).…”

Authenticity and affect in historical reenactments of the Russian Revolution on social media

“…Scholars criticized previous approaches, claiming that post-structuralism, for example, was unable to grasp bodily the materialism of human subjects, the technological mediatization of senses and subjectivities (Clough 2008;Coole and Frost 2010). Studies of affect in historiography (see Reddy 2006;Mikula 2015) and media research (see Papacharissi and de Fatima Oliveira 2012;Papacharissi 2016), and their combinations (Agnew 2007;Landsberg 2015;Koivunen 2016), followed the general developments in communication technologies. As Alison Landsberg argues, 'the main way in which contemporary, mass-mediated historical production differs from academic history is in its emphasis on the mobilization of affect' (2015,178).…”

Adela and transformative learning: A Freirean perspective on a community music education project in Melbourne, Australia

“…Knowledge is passed on orally, the re-enactors believing their research and participation contribute to historical debate in the field of medieval history and heritage. These re-enactments also bring emotional connections to the past and an embodied experience of history (Johnson, 2015; Mikula, 2015). As Agnew argues, re-enactment preparation, rehearsals and performances are strongly connected to ‘personal experience, social connections and everyday life’ (Agnew, 2007, p. 300).…”