BRUSHING MEDIEVAL HISTORY AGAINST THE GRAIN AND TRANSCENDING UNIVERSITY WALLS

Abstract

It seems the time has come for professional historians – especially those dedicated to remote societies – to mobilize in favor of promoting a kind of History that regains some meaning as an effective instrument for understanding social reality and for political intervention in the ongoing present, aiming for the future. This is the primary focus of this article, which proposes a Medieval History that, engaged in present-day struggles, preserves our discipline against trends that impose a loss of its substance, meaning, and reason for being. It is proposed that the future of our universities depends on a policy of rapprochement with organized social movements, with Medieval History being responsible for promoting a peasant history capable of instrumentalizing peasant struggles in the present.