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This article discusses the conceptualisation, organisation and philosophical orientation of academic history culture in UK higher education. It problematises the extent to which a dominant history culture in UK universities implies and uncritically reproduces normative understandings about the subject; about its epistemological standing, sociopolitical functions, and the presumed cultural value of the discipline practices that students learn to perform. We suggest that current conceptions of history degree curricula are overly thin and organised around a dominant managerialist discourse of skills, personal development and learning outcomes. In a historicised world, in which history-focused behaviour has a crucial, ideological, affirmatory role, and in which historical narratives have a privileged cognitive function, we argue that it is critical for university history students to be able to deconstruct the processes by which history legitimises itself, and reinforces matrices of power in our societies. The positioning of history in higher education as a form of technocratic managerialism closes down spaces in which students can explore the potential of historical practices as a means of engaging with issues of current sociopolitical and ethical concern. We ask in this article, is this what we want an academic history culture to do?

The article explores how a number of artists have employed the counter/actual as a form of past-talk in a conscious intervention into socio-political and ethical issues arising from the Israeli occupation of Palestine. I argue that such uses of the counter/actual more effectively foreground the injustices arising from the occupation while not only problematising the process of representation but also deconstructing the ways in which histories are intimately intertwined with relations of power and practises of legitimisation; they do not simply reproduce “the (f)actual” but work to repossess the past from the dominance of hegemonic interests.

Historians of Christian European diplomacy have tended to approach Ottoman diplomatic practice from a rather Eurocentric perspective in that they presuppose initial Ottoman non-involvement in the development of the modern diplomatic system followed by a reluctant adoption of it when faced with a period of economic, military and political decline. In this article I read two fethnames [victory missives] sent to the Queen of England, Elizabeth I to celebrate the Ottoman capture of Nagykanizsa (Kanije) castle in 1600 as a means by which the Ottoman state both performed and legitimized Ottoman sovereignty yet also provided an opportunity for political or diplomatic negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the socio-political, economic and legal implications of what counts as historical knowledge. Academic history has long been practicedas ifits value and authority reside in its ability to produce truth, but pretending that that history occupies an epistemologically foundational position is an illusion that needs to be abandoned. History is a discourse whose sources of cultural power are ultimately social and institutional. By examining narrations of theNakba, the article focuses attention back on to the political dimensions of historical practices and how hegemonic historical interpretations of Israel’s establishment in 1948 are closely intertwined with questions of identity and legitimisation. The second half of the article considers a number of reflexive, vernacular narratives on the subject of Palestinian and Israeli pasts that seek to make a direct ethical or political intervention and challenge the dominant discourse. In many ways, these works foreground how traditional academic histories tend to function as a representative of hegemonic discourses. They are more effective in making clear the issues, framing the arguments, engaging with broader, non-academic audiences and stimulating ethical discussion and political action. The focus on how broader mnemonic and cultural orientations towards ‘pastness’ have been mobilised effectively as cultural and rhetorical resources in tactical campaigns for socio-political justice culminates with an analysis of the case of the American–Palestinian Rasmea Odeh. This example shows how historicising praxis can be used to both reinforce and challenge state power as manifested by the judiciary. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]