Public history, sensitive pasts, and historical injustices

Abstract

This article is an exercise in personal historiographical narrative. Based on my trajectory as a scholar on slavery and as a public historian, this study seeks to explore the connec-tions between the contemporary historiography of slavery, the memories of enslaved Africans’ descendants, and the Jewish immigrants’ memories about the European 20th century antiSemitism. Established on the concept of cultural trauma, the question ad-dressed in this article is: how to deal, personally and professionally, with the Brazilian sensitive (and traumatic) pasts? I argue that, based on my professional experience, I have developed an awareness, not only of the historical injustices of our time, but also of those relating to their personal history. And the conclusion is that, if this issue is faced even moderately by the Brazilian society, it cannot be ignored by professional historians, precisely by those who, because of their professional duties, dedicate them-selves to reflect on the connections between past and present.