L’historiographie au prisme de la série. When We Rise : histoire intime, histoire politique, histoire en mouvement

Abstract

This article intends to explore the reciprocal influence between History and TV series through a close reading of When We Rise (ABC, 2017), a mini-series which deals with fifty years of LGBTQ activism in the United States. It aims to show that the series goes beyond a mere representation of the unknown – if not untold – history of the struggle for LGBTQ rights, in the way it questions the neutrality of the historian, the credibility of his or her sources, and the validity of interpretations based on archives that are always incomplete. As such, When We Rise presents itself as an alternative, queer history made by and for those who lived through it, displaying an acute awareness of the struggles yet to come.

Keywords

• history
• memory
• When We Rise
• historiography
• archive
• activism