The four post-docs of Exeter, Leiden, Göttingen and Bergen teams attended the HERA mid-term conference in Vienna on March 14th and 15th. The event provided a great chance for members of the US-PPIP project to engage in intellectual discussion and to share their experience with members of other “Uses of the Past” projects. On the first day, the US-PIPP team joined the discussion on “Changing uses of (different) pasts”, reasoning around the following questions: how is historical knowledge created, defined and validated? What constitutes “‘misuse” of the past? What are the dynamics and consequences of competing narratives of the past? The team actively contributed to the discussion by presenting a position statement on the topic and commenting on others’ statements.
On March 15th, we had the chance to attend two practical workshops to explore strategies of knowledge exchange with non-academic partners and communication with policy makers. The event was a great opportunity for the US-PPIP post-docs also to expand academic networks and to start a meaningful discussion on “Uses of the Past” with other teams. In particular, we engaged in an interesting intellectual exchange and established contacts with members of the HERILIGION project.