Onno Boonstra, Hilde Bras & Marjet Derks: Historical Research on Cultural Life Scripts. An Exploration of Opportunities and Future Prospects [Abstract]

People live their lives guided by a cultural life script: a set of images and assumptions based on dominant representations of an idealized life that are shared with others in the community. Cultural life scripts provide a conceptual link between individual and society. They are not fixed but change in the face of new ideas and in response to changing social en economic structures and conditions. For that reason, research based on cultural life scripts is a challenge for cultural historians, social historians and historical demographers.

This HSR Focus contains seven contributions of the Nijmegen based research group Self, Script and Society. They have been selected to show the wide variety of research possibilities of cultural life scripts within the domain of historical research and to place cultural life scripts more firmly on the future agenda of historians.