Forgoing the expected stylization—be it the imperative: Correct history! a call to revise and rewrite it, or the interrogative, Correct history?, questioning whether there might be an accurate or singular narrative—the asterisk in the title Correct History* suggests a more conditional and hypothetical impulse and approach. 

This publication accompanies the Vera List Center Forum 2024: Correct History*, which explores the ways in which history and historiography invariably function as acts of correction and revision while examining some of the ideological mechanisms that drive them. An international, annual convening of key participants in the field of art and politics, the VLC Forum 2024 is organized within the framework of our two-year investigation of Correction*. Discursive strands come together to consider how historical narratives and ideological formations are created, edited, altered, and contested, including historical revisionism, whitewashing, and rehabilitation by state and other hegemonic political actors.

The publication features a welcome address, an essay by Correct History* curator Eriola Pira, and a detailed schedule of the program and participant biographies.

A newly commissioned photo essay by artist Hande Sever, In Search of “My Beloved Pauline” examines German imperialism in West Asia before and during World War I through the lens of a vernacular photo album entitled Meine Liebe Pauline, zur Erinnerung an Türkei-Kleinasien 1917/18 (My Beloved Pauline, in Memory of Turkey-Asia Minor, 1917/18). The album was compiled by a German military officer and documents the expansion of colonial operations in West Asia, mediated through the romantic dedication to the titular “beloved Pauline.” Weaving through these images, Sever examines the ways in which the medium of photography simultaneously documents and obscures collective histories, aiming to uncover and disentangle personal narratives from colonial histories.