ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the conditions under which historical representation to partake in the production and reformulation of cultural situatedness and historical understanding beyond its conventionally "historical" boundaries. It explores in relation to inherent physicality or embodiedness, it is easy to understand why many of the more linguistically absorbed approaches to representation can appear insufficient. In contrast, the emphasis on issues of consumption and situatedness that has come increasingly to the fore in debates concerning representational means nowadays is arguably reflected in the forms invented and utilized by more modern artistic and communicative means. The chapter aims to reformulate the issue of the fictionality of historical narratives in terms that seem more promising at the present juncture in the debate. The renewal of the representational form employed by historians has been viewed as primarily a referential or a literary issue. The audiences of contemporary "parahistorical representations" are used to suspending interest in "the distinction between the real and the imaginary".
