ABSTRACT
This introduction provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in th subsequent chapters of this book. The book builds from scholarship in history, film, and education with the goal of exploring the relationship between difficult history, film, and pedagogy and considering how best to teach difficult history. It expands the theoretical and pedagogical approaches for examining how film may and may not be useful for addressing difficult history through its role as a medium of instruction, as a historical source, or as an art form to communicate and interrogate history, collective memory, and student identity. The book explores what makes history difficult, including traumatic aspects of the past as well as contextual and curricular difficulties in teaching about marginalized or challenging histories. It examines the affordances and limits of history as portrayed on film and the pedagogical potential and constraints of using film to explore difficult histories.
