Denis Peschanski

Arles 2018

What does “the truth” mean in history? Can we only access it from witness testimonials, be they oral or written — necessarily subjected to the effects of re-writing and selective memory?

The work of Denis Peschansky, historian and director of research at the CNRS, specializing in individual and collective memory, focuses on these exact issues. For Peschansky, the question of the truth in history in fact is generally poorly examined: There is not only ONE truth, or even several, but rather multiple true interpretations of the traces left by past events.

He will explain how we can reconstruct history from varied readings and testimonies.