I – ‘Historical Consciousness’ in intercultural perspective

‘Historical Consciousness’ seems to be widely accepted as the key-term of history didactics/historical education. However, when asking for an epistemological base of the core concept of ‘Historical Consciousness’ to be applicable in intercultural perspective, the answers might differ quite substantially between representatives of the various communities.

An approach in this section might be, to ask in a comparative perspective, how e.g. Jörn Rüsen’s understanding of historical consciousness as a fundamental way of thinking about ourselves and ‘making sense of the past’ by ‘interpreting the past for the sake of understanding the present and anticipating the future’ has been adopted in the various communities and discourses.

Complementary, an intercultural comparison might ask, how conceptions of historical consciousness of e.g. Jörn Rüsen, Peter Lee or Peter Seixas relate to the idea, first discussed by Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricœur, that we as human beings are immersed in history a/o encounter the historicity of humanity. 

To come to a more robust terminology of ‘historical consciousness’ reflections on one or the other of the following questions might also be of relevance:

• Who are the actors /agents of historical consciousness? 
• What ontogenetic concepts of ‘historical consciousness’ can be discerned when exploring the theoretical debates of the regional scientific communities?
• What specific aspects/dimensions of historical consciousness emerge in the debates of postcolonial histories?
• What concepts of historical consciousness can be discerned in the various (discourses on) indigenous narratives?
• Is there an epistemological difference between concepts of e.g. ‘historical sense making’, ‘historical consciousness’ and ‘historical thinking’?
• What is the impact of postmodern theories/discourses on the concept of ‘historical consciousness’?
• Is there an impact of (a theory of) immersion on the concept of historical consciousness?