This thesis examines how history is represented and utilized in the television series Outlander through the historical lens of Klas-Göran Karlsson’s theory uses of history. By analyzing the visual, narrative and emotional construction of the Jacobite rising and the 18^th-centrury Highland culture, this study explores how the television series actively shapes the past to serve multiple contemporary purposes.

Tracing on Karlsson’s concepts of moral, existential, commercial and politic-pedagogical uses of history, the analysis exposes that Outlander does not purely use history as a decorative backdrop but it actively constructs is as multifaceted resource. The television series creates a clear moral separation between the honorable Scottish Jacobites and the cruel and brutal British empire, while simultaneously offering the audience an existentially profound experience of cultural identity, belonging and loyalty. Commercial and emotional methods, including visual aesthetics, erotic and romantic intimacy and sensualizing of the past, offers the viewers engagement.

The findings of this study show that several forms of uses of history function and operate at the same time in the television series while also reinforcing each other, generating a selective yet passionately compelling historical narrative. This study also highlights the significance of non-use of history, the deliberate exclusion of intricacy, internal conflicts and alternate perspectives, which serves as a fundamental mechanism in constructing a coherent and captivating story. While previous research, such as De Groot’s analysis of Outlanders historiographical complexity and Hågbäck’s discourse analysis of national identity construction in the television series, has shown important aspects of the series historical representation, this study contributes a history didactic perspective of Karlsson’s typology of uses of history. This framework enables a more systematic analysis of the distinct functions and purposes that the historical representations serve, moving beyond a general observation that the television series shapes history toward a precise understanding of how and why it does so.

Conclusively, this thesis argues that the television Outlander serves as an example of how popular culture operates as a powerful arena for historical meaning in the 21^st century. The television series converts the past into a living, emotional and ideologically charged resource that reflects and shapes contemporary understanding of resistance, belonging, power and identity.