NEWS: Lecture of Dr. Denise Bentrovato (Senior Researcher and Extraordinary Lecturer in History Education, University of Pretoria; Co-director, AHE-Afrika) on March 7, 2024, 6 p. m. (CET)
Inter- and transculturality in history education in Africa? Teaching about culture(s) and intercultural dynamics in deeply divided societies.
How is identity constructed in history education in Africa, a highly diverse continent characterized by historical and incessant migrations and intercultural encounters? What kind of narratives and representations of the national past are presented in history curricula and textbooks to challenge conceptualizations of and approaches to culture(s) and intercultural dynamics, especially in deeply divided societies with a violent past? The lecture will highlight expressions of mono-, multi-, inter- and transcultural perspectives and explore attempts to depart from traditional nationalist models of history teaching and their inherent discourses around cultural homogeneity, diversity and otherness/alienation.
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HTCE lecturers’ series, fall/winter 2023/2024:
History education in transition – transcultural dialogue on historical thinking AND learning
We live in a time of social change and cultural interconnectedness, with the tensions and negotiation necessities that this entails. Globalization, power politics, migration, data networks and digital communication, mobility, and other factors are contributing to a mixing and interpenetration of cultures and a dissolution of traditional cultural boundaries. From a historical and anthropological perspective, transculturality as «cultural mixing» is arguably the rule rather than the exception, as migratory movements, wars and conquests, trade relations, and symbiotic social systems of all kinds have always confronted the «own» with the «foreign». Cultural encounters can produce the most diverse results, such as mutual understanding, appropriation and identification, affirmations, innovations, and hybrid patterns, but also demarcation and exclusion, exploitation or subjugation of individuals and groups, and even annihilation. To analyze the forces inherent in these processes, to understand them in their respective contexts, and to draw conclusions for the present and in the future seems to be an important goal of history education in the 21st century. However, a multitude of questions arise for the initiation of transcultural history teaching ranging from target concepts to the selection of appropriate topics and materials to considerations of how to address and incorporate common as well as personal and biographical experiences.
In our HTCE-lecturers’ series we want to provide space for further work and exchange in the thematic complex of historical thinking and transculturality. Internationally renowned experts present theoretical approaches and current empirical findings on history teaching and learning from a transcultural or transnational perspective. Afterwards, we will enter a dialogue with the audience. The HTCE-lectures are open to the public. They are aimed at experts, scholars, students, teachers, and other responsible persons from all regions of the world with an interest in current issues of history education.
Flyer and Program fall/winter 2023/2024
In case of technical problems contact julia.thyroff@fhnw.ch or martin.nitsche@fhnw.ch