Opening Lecture EuroClio Chair of Historical Culture in Transition

Digitalisering en historische cultuur: Internet memes als multimodale historische analogieën

Prof. dr. Robbert-Jan AdriaansenRobbert-Jan Adriaansen — Erasmus University Rotterdam

 

The Department of History at UGent and the research forum TAPAS/Thinking About the PASt cordially invite you to the inaugural lecture of the Chair of Historical Culture in Transition, a visiting professorship established by EuroClio, the European Association of History Educators. In the inaugural lecture, Chair Prof. Robbert-Jan Adriaansen will address the impact of digitization on our dealings with the past. The central question will be how digital forms of communication affect the way we represent and understand history.

 

Date: 11 december 2024
Time: 19u30
Location: Paviljoen Vandenhove, Rozier 1, Gent

Language: Dutch

Register here.

Program

  • Welcome by professors Gita Deneckere (dean Faculty of Arts and Philosophy), Jeroen Deploige, (Department Chair of History), Berber Bevernage and Koen Aerts (chair leaders)
  • Lecture Prof. Adriaansen, ‘Digitization and historical culture: Internet Memes as a new form of historical representation’.
  • Commentary prof. Christophe Verbruggen + Discussion.
  • Reception (Atrium faculty library, Rozier 44)

 

About the lecture

The digitization of our communications has a profound impact on contemporary historical culture, society’s dealings with the past. New media and communication platforms are changing not only how we share and consume information about the past, but also how we interpret and give meaning to the past. Social media make new forms of historical representation possible, for example through the combined use of image, text and audio, but also impose constraints and thereby direct forms of historical thinking.
In this inaugural lecture of the EuroClio Chair of Historical Culture in Transition, Prof. Dr. Robbert-Jan Adriaansen specifically discusses the role of Internet memes as a new form of historical representation. Using innovative digital methods for image-text analysis, he shows how memes on the popular platform Reddit, facilitate analogical reasoning and what the role of meme templates is in this. In addition, he discusses the educational possibilities and limitations of using “multimodal historical analogies” that combine text and image.

About the Chair

The Chair in Historical Culture in Transition at Ghent University is a visiting professorship established by EuroClio, the European association for history educators. The chair focuses on the study of the changing dealings with the past in contemporary society and examines how globalization, politicization and digitization affect historical interpretative frameworks, identities and conceptions of history. The goal is to understand the complexity of modern historical culture and the role of history in education and society.
The chair will be filled for one day a week by Prof. Robbert-Jan Adriaansen. Adriaansen is also affiliated with the Department of History at Erasmus University Rotterdam where he is executive director of the Center for Historical Culture and co-leads the Heritage & Identity research cluster within the Erasmus Research Institute for Media, Culture, History & Society.