Historical Research Creative Writing and the Past

<p>Although historical research undertaken in different disciplines often requires speculation and imagination it remains relatively rare for scholars to foreground these processes explicitly as a knowing method. <i>Historical Research Creative Writing and the Past</i> brings together researchers in a wide array of disciplines including literary studies and history ethnography design film and sound studies who employ imagination creativity or fiction in their own historical scholarship or who analyze the use of imagination creativity or fiction to make historical claims by others. This volume is organized into four topical sections related to representations of the past—textual and conceptual approaches; material and emotional approaches; speculative and experiential approaches; and embodied methodologies—and covers a variety of temporal periods and geographical contexts. Reflecting on the methodological theoretical and ethical underpinnings of writing history creatively or speculatively the essays situate themselves within current debates over epistemology and interdisciplinarity. They yield new insights into historical research methods including archival investigations and source criticisms while offering readers tangible examples of how to do history differently.</p>