living history

All Aboard! A re-enactment approach to Victorian Railway Guard’s Clothing

All Aboard! A re-enactment approach to Victorian Railway Guard’s Clothing
Author(s)
Anthony Dawson 1 ✉
EXARC Journal Issue 2024/4
This paper examines the form, function and practicality of the clothing worn by late nineteenth century railway guards in Britain. It does so by taking a re-enactment approach, involving the commissioning, wearing, and reporting of replica garments in an appropriate workplace. It demonstrates that whilst such uniforms were smart and created an impression of authority in the wearer and potential viewer...

Where Two Worlds Meet - Living History and Heritage Locations

Author(s)
Luc Eekhout 1 ✉
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2024/1
The Netherlands have an abundance of heritage locations: museums, monuments, windmills. A favorite pastime of many senior citizens is to take responsibility for this heritage as volunteer guides, amateur historians, and so on. Their traditional contribution to the Dutch heritage sector is tremendous. But at the same time there is a ...

Discussion: Inclusivity in historical interpretation: Who has access and who is erased?

Author(s)
Andrea Mariani 1,2,3 ✉,
Sverre Christoffer Guldberg 4,
Sophie Jorgensen-Rideout 5,
Vera Bos ,
Paul Edward Montgomery Ramírez 7
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2022/2
The discussion of ‘authenticity’ in living history has been one of the main themes since the conception of contemporary historical interpretation. Our quest for authenticity should, in my opinion start with a thoughtful discussion: What goal do we want to reach through living history?...

Book Review: Reconstruction, Replication, and Re-enactment in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Author(s)
Peter Inker 1 ✉
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2021/2
This edited volume by Dupré et al. explores the rising prominence of performative methodologies known as Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Replication, and Reworking (RRR). Resulting from a meeting of the NIAS-Lorentz Program in Leiden, Netherlands in 2015, this collection of papers by academics and practitioners ranges across chronological time (Bronze Age to 19th century) and disciplines...

Book Review: Proceedings from the ReConference 2018

Author(s)
Florian Messner 1 ✉
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2021/2
The ReConference 2018 took place from 2nd to 4th of November at the National Museum in Copenhagen and attracted interested people from all over the world. It was the successor to the first ReConference in 2017 in Moscow, organised by the group Ratobor, which was again involved in the organisation of the new event together with "Hands on History"...

Book Review: Spaces that tell stories: Recreating Historical Environments by Donna R. Braden

Author(s)
Thit Birk Petersen 1 ✉
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2021/1

Spaces that tell stories: Recreating historical Environments is a textbook and a how-to manual for those setting up a new exhibition or living history site, or for those evaluating existing interpretation on a site. Everybody who works in museum education, exhibition and living history knows how fantastic it is when an historical environment engages a visitor in the topic. We also know how difficult it can be...

Book Review: The Routledge Handbook of Reenactment Studies by Agnew, Lamb & Tomann (eds)

Author(s)
Roeland Paardekooper 1 ✉
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2020/3
Re-enactment studies are booming, just like re-enactment, living history and role play are. This handbook, therefore, is a good introduction for those interested in the more academic aspects of re-enactment. However, as is often the case with an academic-only approach, this book is not meant for those interested in the backgrounds of re-enactment per se. The authors are academics, writing for their peers...

Book Review: Mittelsteinzeit, ein Leben im Paradies? by Werner Pfeifer

Author(s)
Michael Müller 1 ✉
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2020/1
Considering actual studies about the analysis of ancient DNA is an important question, if only the lifestyle or the population, too, changed when hunter-gatherers became farmers and stockbreeders. The results point so far towards the latter possibility. However, the foragers of the Northern European Ertebølle culture preserved their lifestyle for one millennium, even though they lived in neighboring areas...