A problematisation of history, as Catherine Hall observes, is a fundamental aspect of today’s debate, entailing as it does the ‘de-silencing’ of tragedy past as a necessary step in the process of making sense of its legacy in the present. [...] Derek Walcott's words (Another Life, 22.i) call for an all-embracing perception and understanding, reaching beyond the boundaries of established history and into the single individual destinies of diverse peoples, speaking different languages and sharing the experience of oppression and death across numberless transatlantic – but also transoceanic or Mediterranean – routes. Still, it is the work of the historian that can be of help in the process. According to Michel-Rolph Trouillot: «[…] the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past – or, more accurately, pastness – is a position» (p. 15). As scholars and human beings, we are called to respond to our responsibility and commitment, which is to both past, and present.
Restoring Legacies
DELLAROSA, Franca
2012-01-01
Abstract
A problematisation of history, as Catherine Hall observes, is a fundamental aspect of today’s debate, entailing as it does the ‘de-silencing’ of tragedy past as a necessary step in the process of making sense of its legacy in the present. [...] Derek Walcott's words (Another Life, 22.i) call for an all-embracing perception and understanding, reaching beyond the boundaries of established history and into the single individual destinies of diverse peoples, speaking different languages and sharing the experience of oppression and death across numberless transatlantic – but also transoceanic or Mediterranean – routes. Still, it is the work of the historian that can be of help in the process. According to Michel-Rolph Trouillot: «[…] the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past – or, more accurately, pastness – is a position» (p. 15). As scholars and human beings, we are called to respond to our responsibility and commitment, which is to both past, and present.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
