2009/01/01 by Annette Vowinckel, Vowinckel, Annette
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Alternative #Anwendung #Auswirkung #Computerspiel #Cultural, Social, and Media Studies #Definition #Denken #Digital Humanities and Scholarship #Diskussion #Einfluss #Geschichtswissenschaft #Medien #Simulation #Social and Cultural Studies #Theorie #Zukunft #alternative #application #computer game #definition #discussion #future #historical analysis #historical social research #historische Analyse #historische Sozialforschung #impact #influence #media #science of history #simulation #theory #thinking
paper · pdf · doi:10.12759/hsr.34.2009.2.322-332
openalex publication_date 2009/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
History is one of very few academic disciplines that do not investigate simulation. This is probably due to the fact that historical reality cannot be changed retrospectively nor extended into the future. In a strict sense, the simulation of history is a contradiction in terms. Nevertheless several fields of application have emerged over the past decades: there are simulations of history in the pre-modern sense of mimesis; there are re-enactments (a performative way of 'simulating' history; there are digital simulations of history, mainly in computer games that allow the player to influence the course of events, and there are didactic applications intending to make history experienceable. In this article, the author will first discuss some examples from the different fields of application before she will analyze the impact of the simulation of history in different media on our notion of history.