Peter Aronsson

Biography

B. 1959. Professor in Cultural Heritage and the Uses of History since 2001 at Culture Studies department, Linköping University. PhD in history from Lunds University 1992. His recent work is on the role of historical narrative and consciousness in directing action, in regard both to historiography and the uses of the past in historical culture at large. Currently he is co-ordinator of two international projects exploring the uses of the past (www.eunamus.eu and www.nordicspaces.eu). His most important recent publication is Historiebruk - att använda det förflutna.

Ongoing research

Aronsson’s project on museums and use of history, which is separately funded, establishes a connection to contemporary European networks in this area. With the funding from the Program he will contribute a book length study on the Concept of History. The study problematizes the established understanding of “history”. First, it will use the resources from conceptual history (Koselleck 2002), in order to explore how different societies, genres and professions at different times have used and referred to “history”. Thus it becomes a study of different ways in which societies have understood themselves through this concept in its complexity and manifold meanings. Secondly it will question the standard conception of “the past” as simply an existing reality open to historical investigation. History obtains its meaning from the point of view of the contemporary situation, its fears and expectations, in ways articulated already by Augustine. The ancient concept of history remains an arena of productive epistemological dilemmas whose tensions will here be explored over time. This will be done by demonstrating the prevalence of conflicting views, de-historicizing and culturalizing the historiography of historical discourse, bringing the profession of academic history within a larger context of cultural heritage, memory and myth.

Selected bibliography

Bönder gör politik: det lokala självstyret som social arena i tre smålandssocknar, 1680-1850. (Lund: Lund University Press, 1992 Diss.),

– "The possibilities of conceptual history 'from above' and 'from below': Reflections on the concept of samhälle 'society' in Sweden, 1700 to 1990." Historia a Debate, tomo II, Retorno del Sujeto, Actas del Congreso Internacional "A historia a debate" celebrade el 7-11 de julio de 1993 en Santigao de Compostela, 1995).

– Aronsson, Peter & Lennart Johansson, (red.). Ett landskap minns sitt förflutna. Monument och minnesmärken i Värend och Sunnerbo. (Växjö: Kronobergs läns hembygdförbund, 2003).

– Aronsson, Peter & Andreas Nyblom, (eds.). Comparing: national museums, territories, nation-building and change. (Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press, 2008).