History and Teaching: an essay against the grain

Abstract

This essay aims to point out some possible paths to be traced in the teaching of history from the theoretical-philosophical conceptions expressed by Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) in his last text: On the Concept of History. In this sense, it focuses on the historiographic conceptions of the 19th century, preliminarily questioning how these conceptions established a teaching of history based on the ideals of progress, causality, chronology and final truth. This is a preliminary result of the debates initiated during the year 2020 in the research group Theory of History and History Teaching.