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Historical Re-enactment and Public Memory

In his well-known lectures on history R.G. Collingwood argued that the task of the historian was to ‘re-enact the past’ in their mind. It is now possible to ‘re-enact’ the past in ways that go well beyond anything that Collingwood might have imagined, but are students of history, literature and culture taking full advantage of these opportunities? What can we learn form re-enacting the past in physical and virtual forms? What are the latest developments in the theory and practice of re-enactment? Several HRC workshops have already been held on this subject, in Canberra, Melbourne, and the United States, involving academics, graduate students, and media specialists, and a number of projects are already under way. For the re-enact Website.