Published in 2016
180 pages
Dr Mia E. M. Treacey is a freelance researcher, academic and screened historian. She currently teaches in the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies at Monash University in Melbourne Australia. Additionally, she work with diverse groups of researchers interested in screened history (and related fields); writing and publishing in forms that are accessible and interesting to the broadest possible audiences.
What is this book about?
Reframing the Past traces what historians have written about film and television from 1898 until the early 2000s. Mia Treacey argues that historical engagement with film and television should be reconceptualised as Screened History: an interdisciplinary, international field of research to incorporate and replace what has been known as ‘History and Film’. It draws from the fields of Film, Television and Cultural Studies to critically analyse key works and connect past scholarship with contemporary research.
Reconsidered as Screened History, the works of Pierre Sorlin, Marc Ferro, John O’Connor, Robert Rosenstone and Robert Toplin are explored alongside lesser known but equally important contributions. This book identifies a number of common themes and ideas that have been explored by historians for decades: the use of history on film and television as a way to teach the past; the challenge of filmic and televisual history to more traditional historiography; and an ongoing battle to find an ‘appropriate’ historical way to engage with Film Studies and Theory. Screened History offers an approach to exploring History, Film and Television that allows room for future developments, while connecting them to a rich and diverse body of past scholarship.
Combining a narrative of historical research on film and television over the past century with a reconceptualisation of the field as Screened History, Reframing the Past is essential reading both for established scholars of History and Film, Film History and other related disciplines, and to students new to the field.
