Five Scholarly Conversations Related to History, History Education, and the Arts

Abstract

The first conversation is about the nature of history and historical truths and explores the “objectivity question.” It also discusses the idea of historians as artists and artists as historians. The second conversation explores points of connection and differences between history and the arts. Cultural historians acknowledge that artistic representations warrant recognition as sources for engagement with the past. The third conversation is about collective memory and historical consciousness. It contrasts two recent matrices that articulate the relationship between disciplinary history, school history, memory, and life practices. The fourth conversation looks at debates centred around the question: How might Indigenous worldviews and Western disciplinary perspectives co-exist in scholarly discourse and in school curriculum in a spirit of reconciliation. The focus of the final conversation about history education is on constructivism. Fictional accounts contribute to the shaping of students’ cognitive frames and failure to engage this knowledge renders teaching largely ineffectual.