Tra memoria e utopia. Riflessioni sul valore formativo del sapere storico

This paper, moving from the suggestions offered by the recent pamphlet "History Manifesto" (2015) analyses history as an educational phenomenon. Dealing with nowadays "presentism" and with the new directions of historiography, memory is interpreted with an historical approach which focuses critically on school programs from one side, and on new paradigms developed by the historical-educational research during the twentieth century in Italy. Through the analysis of the relationship between pedagogy and histories of pedagoy, education and teaching, this paper proposes the rediscovery of an utopian vocation of historical knowledge. The utopian dimension of historical memory becomes the key to open the present to the future in the name of a militant hope: historical knowledge rediscovers its educational function for an active and democratic citizenship towards the common good.