The past is a land to be cultivated. Re-thinking history through (dissonant) heritage education

Abstract

"Re-thinking history: educating for the environment and active citizenship" is the title of the conference promoted and organised in October 2022 by the International Centre for the Didactics of History and Heritage of the University of Bologna as part of the nineteenth edition of the "International History Festival". The essay addresses some current issues concerning the warnings, legacies and instrumentalisations of history and its heritage with an eye to the educational dimension, in the full awareness that even the discordant and controversial aspects of the past can motivate renewed interests in the teaching of history and heritage by activating multiple and sometimes discordant interpretations. The salient phases of the history of Bologna's porticos will also be retraced as an example of a heritage that was born dissonant and that the community then recognised as a distinctive element of territorial identity, becoming a world heritage site in 2021.