This is a conversation with Susan A. Crane, author of the book “Nothing Happened: A History“
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Topics Discussed:
How do people think of the past?
What does Nothing even mean?
Four expressions of historical consciousness:
1- Nothing Happened
2- Nothing is the Way it Was
3- Nothing has Changed
4- Nothing is LeftHow far away does the past have to be before being considered the past?
What the past says about the present
The examples of Germany, Chile, the USA, Spain and Lebanon
When histories become ruin
On biographies and ‘great men’
On ‘objectivity’ and ‘neutrality’ in history
Resources mentioned:
Why Man Creates by Saul Bass
The Death of Luigi Trastulli: Memory and the Event. Form and Meaning in Oral History by Alessandro Portelli
Nostalgia for the light by Patricio Guzmán
The mnemonic imagination by Emily Keightley and Michael Pickering
Why Did Ozu Cut To A Vase? by Nerdwriter
Recommended Books
In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale
The Resonance of Unseen Things: Poetics, Power, Captivity, and UFOs in the American Uncanny by Susan Lepselter
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval by Saidiya Hartman
A History of Silence: From the Renaissance to the Present Day by Alain Corbin
88/ A History of Nothing (With Susan A. Crane)