living history

Book Review: Reconstruction, Replication, and Re-enactment in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Peter Inker (US)
EXARC Journal Issue 2021/2
Mixed Matters
This edited volume by Dupré et al. explores the rising prominence of performative methodologies known as Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Replication, and Reworking (RRR). Resulting from a meeting of the NIAS-Lorentz Program in Leiden, Netherlands in 2015, this collection of papers by academics and practitioners ranges across chronological time (Bronze Age to 19th century) and disciplines...

Book Review: Proceedings from the ReConference 2018

Florian Messner (AT)
EXARC Journal Issue 2021/2
Mixed Matters
The ReConference 2018 took place from 2nd to 4th of November at the National Museum in Copenhagen and attracted interested people from all over the world. It was the successor to the first ReConference in 2017 in Moscow, organised by the group Ratobor, which was again involved in the organisation of the new event together with "Hands on History"...

Book Review: Spaces that tell stories: Recreating Historical Environments by Donna R. Braden

Thit Birk Petersen (DK)
EXARC Journal Issue 2021/1
Mixed Matters

Spaces that tell stories: Recreating historical Environments is a textbook and a how-to manual for those setting up a new exhibition or living history site, or for those evaluating existing interpretation on a site. Everybody who works in museum education, exhibition and living history knows how fantastic it is when an historical environment engages a visitor in the topic. We also know how difficult it can be...

Book Review: The Routledge Handbook of Reenactment Studies by Agnew, Lamb & Tomann (eds)

Roeland Paardekooper (NL)
EXARC Journal Issue 2020/3
Mixed Matters
Re-enactment studies are booming, just like re-enactment, living history and role play are. This handbook, therefore, is a good introduction for those interested in the more academic aspects of re-enactment. However, as is often the case with an academic-only approach, this book is not meant for those interested in the backgrounds of re-enactment per se. The authors are academics, writing for their peers...

Book Review: Mittelsteinzeit, ein Leben im Paradies? by Werner Pfeifer

Michael Müller (DE)
EXARC Journal Issue 2020/1
Mixed Matters
Considering actual studies about the analysis of ancient DNA is an important question, if only the lifestyle or the population, too, changed when hunter-gatherers became farmers and stockbreeders. The results point so far towards the latter possibility. However, the foragers of the Northern European Ertebølle culture preserved their lifestyle for one millennium, even though they lived in neighboring areas...

Engaging Diverse Audiences at the Archaeological Open-Air Museum Düppel in Berlin – Practical Examples and New Strategies

Julia Heeb (DE)
EXARC Journal Issue 2019/3
Archaeological Open-Air Museum
2018 EXARC in Kernave
***In 1939, a boy called Horst Trzeciak was playing on a piece of land on the outskirts of Berlin. While playing, he found a number of pottery sherds. In an exemplary fashion he brought the sherds to the “Märkisches Provinzialmuseum”, which was, at that time, the city museum of Berlin...

Book Review: The Living History Anthology, Perspectives from ALHFAM by Martha B. Katz-Hymann et al. (eds)

Roeland Paardekooper (NL)
EXARC Journal Issue 2019/3
Mixed Matters
Many open-air museums in the United States are members of the Association of Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM). Only a small portion of the ALHFAM members are agricultural museums, however living history in a museum context is what unites the members...

Colonial Williamsburg: Archaeology, Interpretation & Phenomenology

Peter Inker (US)
EXARC Journal Issue 2019/3
Archaeological Open-Air Museum
2018 EXARC in Kernave
***When I began investigating this conference I was unclear as to how well EXARC’s focus on experimental archaeology would blend with International Museum Theatre Alliance (Imtal)’s approach of museum theatre and interpretation. They seem after all, two very different disciplines...