History and Historiography Collection

This collection of books that we present to you is yet another product of a partnership that began in 2006, between graduate programs in History in the North, Northeast and Midwest regions. In 2020, with an expanded collaboration and exchange network, formed by UFC, UFPE, UFPA, UFMT, UFPI, UFRN, UFBA, UFRPE, UFAM and Unifap, we held, between November 4th and 6th, the VI International Seminar on History and Historiography . The event, which should have taken place in person, in Fortaleza, on the Benfica Campus, at the Federal University of Ceará, ended up happening remotely, due to the Covid 19 pandemic. carrying out joint work, discovering and deepening themes, debating and crossing plural approaches, but it endorses our resistance capacity.
The last few years have brought profound difficulties for the survival and carrying out of the activities of Brazilian public universities, with abrupt cuts in resources, reduction of university autonomy and denial of science. But, especially for those who produce knowledge in the Humanities area, the challenges are even greater. They go through campaigns that involve discredit, accusations and persecution. For Brazilian historians, there is an explicit attempt to discredit the knowledge produced and accumulated in different areas of their production, especially in themes of the present time, indifference to research methods and construction of narratives, in addition to the trivialization of historical truth, reduced to interested versions about the past.
Attacks on historians are directly linked to a scenario of intense political dispute in which pasts that have not passed are appropriated as instruments of political mobilization and conquest of believers. Historical production is relativized by narratives that mix false news and manipulation of data and facts, capable of fueling affections and resentments, in the setback of rights and threats to the democratic environment.
Faced with this scenario, our research network felt the imperative need to reflect on the social and political conjuncture, and also on the possibilities of History in its critical and ethical dimensions. Researchers from several universities in Brazil and around the world gathered to discuss, under the theme The Political Uses of the Past in conferences, roundtables and thematic symposiums, the challenges and possibilities of our craft in a world in turmoil.
The History and Historiography Collection provides an up-to-date overview of some of the main themes and areas of concern for Brazilian historians today. The texts were organized into 10 thematic books – 1) Dictatorship, historical sources and uses of the past; 2) History, Literature and Historiography; 3) History, memory and Historiography; 4) Agrarian History, migrations and slavery; 5) History, spaces and sensibilities; 6) Atlantic Experiences and Environmental History; 7) Intellectuals, uses of the past and history teaching; 8) Heritage, memory and historiography; 9) Political cultures and uses of the past and 10) History of health and religions.
We hope that the collection can give visibility to works produced in dialogues, exchanges between researchers from the most different places and from the most distinct historiographical approaches, strengthening the joint work between research groups from the institutions involved. We also hope that the texts gathered here can help renew historical knowledge, stimulating historians in their tasks of building new research objects or in their teaching activities at universities or basic education networks, in addition to enabling, based on reflection critique, new possible futures.