LabEx PP: The Pasts in the Present

The Pasts in the Present: History, Heritage, Memory cluster of excellence is coordinated by the University Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense (UPO), in association with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). It unites on the campus of Nanterre University : The Maison Archéologie et Ethnologie, René-Ginouvès (MAE), USR 3225 The laboratory Archéologies et sciences de l’antiquité (ArScAn), UMR 7041 The laboratory Préhistoire et technologie, UMR 7055 The Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative (LESC), UMR 7186 The laboratory Institut des sciences sociales du politique (ISP), UMR 7220 The laboratory Modèles, dynamiques et corpus (Modyco), UMR 7114 The research team Histoire des arts et représentations (HAR) EA 4414 The Bibliothèque de documentation internationale contemporaine (BDIC) as well as three major national heritage institutions : The French National Library (BnF) The National Museum of Archeology (MAN), at Saint-Germain-en-Laye The Quai Branly Museum (MQB) The Pasts in the Present: History, Heritage, Memory cluster of excellence is concerned with the presence of the past in contemporary society. More specifically, the cluster of excellence seeks to understand mediations of history in the digital age, politics of memory, social appropriations of the past up- and downstream from heritage policies. The reflection is interdisciplinary and organised in two fundamental themes. The first, “Connections to the Past: Representations and Assessments,” seeks a global analysis of representations of the past from every epoch (from prehistory to the present). The second, “Active Knowledge of the Past: Practices and Tools of Transmission,” is based on documentary and archival resources and collections conserved by the cluster’s different partners. It seeks to make available, for different audiences, new digitized collections, which, for some, contribute to the history of disciplines (archeology, ethnology, ethnomusicology). As part of the general reflection on digital humanities, the labex Pasts in the Present seeks to work on the interoperability of theses corpuses not only between partners but also with other databases, in order to inscribe them in the Web of Data (Linked Data). This implies modelling catalogues and inventories, using international standards of data representation and of enrichment of the indexing metadata. The Pasts in the Present cluster has also developed a dynamic network of programs, based on heritage, culture and text, history, sociology of memory, art history.