The “Problematics of Culture and Theory” Seminar, held by the School of English at Aristotle University, will be hosting an online talk by Dr John O’Hara (Associate Professor of Critical Thinking, Stockton University, US) on Thursday, 5th December, 2024, 15:30.
The title of the online talk is:
“As Good as History”: Fiction, Narrative, and the Actual Past
The talk will take place via the Zoom platform. All those interested in attending via zoom, please submit the relevant registration form. The zoom link details for the event will be sent by email on the eve of the talk to all those who have registered for online participation.
The particular event is organized as part of the AUTh-Stockton University bilateral agreement and the Erasmus+ International Mobility Programme.
Problematics Seminar Coordinators:
Dr L.E. Roupakia (roupakia@enl.auth.gr) and Dr Ε. Botonaki (botonaki@enl.auth.gr)
EVENT ABSTRACT
Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported on changes occurring at the National Archives Museum in Washington, D.C. that appear to be reshaping visitors’ encounters with national history. Changes include removing “woke” narratives of the past – including prominent references to controversial topics such as Japanese internment, Native American history, and labor unions, and more. “Visitors should not feel confronted, they should feel welcomed,” a senior archivist told the Journal.
At least since 1918, when literary critic and historian Van Wyck Brooks called for a “useable past” to inspire and strengthen American identity, scholars in American Studies have debated the relationships of myth to history, and the implications of storytelling in each form of discourse. Is the past a fixed set of immoveable and permanent “facts”, or, when it comes to history, or telling stories about the past, is it all as simple as the Burger King slogan, “Have It Your Way?”
Join Dr. John O’Hara for a lecture and conversation about the history in fiction, and the fiction in history, and the ways storytelling impacts our personal and collective sense of the past.
GUEST SPEAKER BIO
John F. O’Hara is Chair of the graduate program in American Studies at Stockton University. He joined the faculty at Stockton in 2013 after teaching for ten years at the University of Miami, FL, and Temple University. He earned his Ph.D. in English in 2003 from the University of Miami with a focus on twentieth-century American literature, war literature and arts, and critical and interpretive theory. His primary academic interests include the Vietnam War, American countercultures, postmodernism, gender studies, and writing/teaching pedagogies. Some of his favorite things besides thinking, reading and writing are baseball, antique American music, films old and new, and – of course – students!
