Papers Delivered at: 'Uses of the Past in Past Societies – a global perspective', British Academy Conference
On 11 and 12 June, Dr Peter Lambert and Prof Björn Weiler convened a British Academy conference on Uses of the Past in Past Societies – a global perspective. Professor Richard Rathbone, honorary professor in the department, also presented a paper. The meeting brought together leading scholars from Germany, Iceland, Italy, the UK and the US, with backgrounds in anthropology, art history, and literary studies, as well as history. Covering topics as diverse as images of the Roman past in eleventh-century Byzantium, the poetry of history in Mughal India, and the re-enactment of rituals in post-colonial Ghana, speakers explored how different societies constructed a usable past, the media and means they employed in doing so, and what such constructions reveal about the role and concept of history.