This is a conversation with Susan A. Crane, author of the book “Nothing Happened: A History“. This is episode 88 of The Fire These Times.
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 Left - How 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
- History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige by Rea Tajiri
- 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
If you like what I do, please consider supporting this project with only 1$ a month on Patreon or on BuyMeACoffee.com. You can also do so directly on PayPal if you prefer.
Patreon is for monthly, PayPal is for one-offs and BuyMeACoffee has both options.
You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too.
If you can’t donate anything, you can still support this project by sharing with your friends and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts!
Music by Tarabeat.
Leave a Reply