Volume 53
Written By Elizabeth Boyle
ARTICLES
Adrian Wilson, " The Reflexive Test of Hayden White’s Metahistory," History and Theory 53, no. 1 (2014), 1-23.
This paper assesses Hayden White’s Metahistorythrough the test of reflexivity; that is, it asks whether the book’s “general theory of the structure of that mode of thought which is called ‘historical’” applies, as it should, to its own history of nineteenth-century “historical consciousness.” Most components of the theoretical apparatus—the various concepts invoked in the “theory of the historical work” and in the “theory of tropes”—fail the reflexivity test; further, it emerges that those same components are also seriously flawed on other grounds. The sole and partial exception is the concept of emplotment, which passes the reflexivity test, albeit with qualifications, but more particularly has the virtue of illuminating the traditional history of history against which Metahistory’s own story was pitched; and this result provides an ironic and unexpected vindication of Metahistory’s underlying vision. Thus the book’s fundamental insight—that the form of historical writing is epistemologically consequential—can be retained, even though its two theories should now be set aside.
Gregor Feindt, Félix Krawatzek, Daniela Mehler, Friedemann Pestel, and Rieke Trimçev, "Entangled Memory: Toward a Third Wave in Memory Studies," History and Theory 53, no. 1 (2014), 24-44.
This essay takes up the call for a “third phase” in memory studies and makes theoretical and methodological suggestions for its further development. Starting from an understanding of memory that centers on memory’s temporality, its relation to language, and its quality as a social action, the essay puts forward the concept of “entangled memory.” On a theoretical level, it brings to the fore the entangledness of acts of remembering. In a synchronic perspective, memory’s entangledness is presented as twofold. Every act of remembering inscribes an individual in multiple social frames. This polyphony entails the simultaneous existence of concurrent interpretations of the past. In a diachronic perspective, memory is entangled in the dynamic relation between single acts of remembering and changing mnemonic patterns. Memory scholars therefore uncover boundless cross-referential configurations. Wishing to enhance the dialogue between the theoretical and the empirical parts of memory studies, we propose four devices that serve as a heuristic in the study of memory’s entanglement: chronology against time, conflict, generations, and self-reflexivity. Current debates on European memory permit us to explore the possible benefits that the concept of entangled memory carries for memory studies.
Henning Trüper, "Löwith, Löwith’s Heidegger, and the Unity of History," History and Theory 53, no. 1 (2014), 45-68.
This article is about the problem of the unity of history as seen through the writings of Karl Löwith. By “unity of history” I understand the notion that all history constitutes one and only one range of kinds of objects and/or one field of knowledge. The article argues that the problem of the unity of history—though often neglected as a matter of mere argumentative infrastructure—is central to a number of wider problems, most prominently the possibility of a plural understanding of historicity and the possibility of ultimately avoiding a unified historical teleology. The article revisits Löwith’s writings and proposes a variety of novel interpretations with the aim of evincing the centrality, and of exploring diverse aspects, of the problematic of the unity of history. This problematic is shown to have informed Löwith’s work on the secularization thesis as well as his debate with Hans Blumenberg. The foundations of Löwith’s discussion of the problem are pursued across his ambivalent critique and appropriation of Heidegger’s model of an ontology of historicity as marked by inevitable internal conflict and thus disunity. The paper reconstructs the manner in which, after the Second World War, Löwith’s philosophy of history sought to salvage basic traits of the Heideggerian model when it tried to establish the possibility of plural historicity from a notion of the natural cosmos. It is demonstrated that the motives for this salvage operation ultimately extended beyond the problem of Löwith’s reception of Heidegger and concerned the possibility of continuing any debate on the philosophy of history.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Barbara H. Rosenwein on Emotions in History: Lost and Found. The Natalie Zemon Davis Lectures by Ute Frevert, History and Theory 53, no. 1 (2014), 69-78.
Alan Strathern on The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam (1400–1700) by Ahmed Azfar Moin, History and Theory 53, no. 1 (2014), 79-93.
Shamil Jeppie on The Trans-Saharan Book Trade: Manuscript Culture, Arabic Literacy and Intellectual History in Muslim Africa. Series: Library of the Written Word, vol. 8 by Graziano Krätli, Ghislaine Lydon and The Transmission of Learning in Islamic Africa. Series: Islam in Africa, vol. 2 by Scott Reese, History and Theory 53, no. 1 (2014), 94-104.
Georg G. Iggers on L'Historiographie by Charles-Olivier Carbonell, History and Theory 53, no. 1 (2014), 105-118.
Harvey Goldman on Interpretation and Social Knowledge: On the Use of Theory in the Human Sciences by Isaac Ariail Reed, History and Theory 53, no. 1 (2014), 119-129.
Bettina M. Carbonell on Letting Go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World by Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene, and Laura Koloski, History and Theory 53, no. 1 (2014), 130-149.
ARTICLES
Joshua Kates, "Document and Time," History and Theory 53, no. 2 (2014), 155-174.
This article explores what it calls the “documentarist” hypothesis: the belief that the subject matter of history, the past, is structurally absent and thus can be reached only by way of documents, testamentary traces of various sorts (not only written texts, but artifacts, land arrangements, oral witnessing, and so on). The first part of the article works out the documentarist position through interpretations of creative works that embody it and of a variety of reflections on historiography—those of Michel de Certeau and Paul Ricoeur, as well as some “postmodern historiography.” It argues that documentarism ultimately faces an insoluble problem: it presupposes the pastness of the past, yet it cannot give itself the latter by way of the documents to which it believes itself confined. Documentarism assumes as already at hand a historical-temporal horizon of past, present, and future, for which it itself cannot account. In the second part of the article, accordingly, I turn to the historiographical portion of Faulkner’s The Bear to expose the operativity of this always already given temporality. Faulkner’s tale gives us access to a more radical historicity than any upon which documentarists reckon; yet this historicity turns out to sit askew from the usual frameworks of history as we know them, especially those of periods and epochs. The tension in Faulkner’s own work between periodizing and event-laden explanations, I conclude, points to questions that fall beyond history as currently conceived.
Edward Baring, "Ne me raconte plus d’histoires: Derrida and the Problem of the History of Philosophy," History and Theory 53, no. 2 (2014), 175-193.
This essay reads Derrida’s early work within the context of the history of philosophy as an academic field in France. Derrida was charged with instruction in the history of philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure, and much of his own training focused on this aspect of philosophical study. The influence of French history of philosophy can be seen in Derrida’s work before Of Grammatology, especially in his unpublished lectures for a 1964 course entitled “History and Truth,” in which he analyzed the semantic richness of the word “history.” According to Derrida, “history” comprised both the ideas of change and of transmission, which allowed the writing of history at a later time. In the Western tradition, Derrida suggested, philosophers had consistently tried to reduce the idea of history as transmission, casting it simply as empirical development in order to preserve the idea that truth could be timeless. Derrida’s account of the evolving opposition between history and truth within the history of philosophy led him to suggest a “history of truth” that transcended and structured the opposition. I argue that Derrida’s strategies in these early lectures are critical for understanding his later and more famous deconstruction of speech and writing. Moreover, the impact of this early confrontation with the problem of history and truth helps explain the ambivalent response by historians to Derrida’s analyses.
Shonaleeka Kaul, "’Seeing’ the Past: Text and Questions of History in the Rājataraṅgiṇī," History and Theory 53, no. 2 (2014), 194-211.
Traditional scholarly opinion has regarded Kalhaṇa’s Rājataraṅgiṇī , the twelfth-century Sanskrit chronicle of Kashmiri kings, as a work of history. This essay proposes a reinvestigation of the nature of the iconic text from outside the shadow of that label. It first closely critiques the positivist “history hypothesis,” exposing its internal contradictions over questions of chronology, causality, and objectivity as attributed to the text. It then argues that more than an empiricist historical account that modern historians like to believe it is—in the process bracketing out integral rhetorical, mythic, and didactic parts of the text—the Rājataraṅgiṇī should be viewed in totality for the kāvya (epic poem) that it is, which is to say, as representing a specific language practice that sought to produce meaning and articulated the poet’s vision of the land and its lineages. The essay thus urges momentarily reclaiming the text from the hegemonic but troubled understanding of it as history—only to restore it ultimately to a more cohesive notion of historicality that is consistent with its contents. Toward this end, it highlights the concrete claim to epistemic authority that is asserted both by the genre of Sanskrit kāvya generally and by the Rājataraṅgiṇī in particular, and their conception of the poetic “production” of the past that bears a striking resonance with constructivist historiography. It then traces the intensely intertextual and value-laden nature of the epistemology that frames the Rājataraṅgiṇī into a narrative discourse on power and ethical governance. It is in its narrativity and discursivity—its meaningful representation of what constitutes “true” knowledge of time and human action—that the salience of the Rājataraṅgiṇī may lie.
Rebecca Gould, "Antiquarianism as Genealogy: Arnaldo Momigliano’s Method," History and Theory 53, no. 2 (2014), 212-233.
This essay uses Arnaldo Momigliano’s genealogy of antiquarianism and historiography to propose a new method for engaging the past. Momigliano traced antiquarianism from its advent in ancient Greece and later growth in Rome to its early modern efflorescence, its usurpation by history, and its transformation into anthropology and sociology in late modernity. Antiquarianism performed for Momigliano the work of excavating past archives while infusing historiographical inquiry with a much-needed dose of contingency. This essay aims to advance our understanding of the mutual imbrications of antiquarian methods with modern conceptions of history, while also suggesting how antiquarianism can generate alternatives to historical inquiry.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Angelika Epple on The Fantasy of Feminist History by Joan Wallach Scott, History and Theory 53, no. 2 (2014), 234-243.
Anton Froeyman on From History to Theory by Kerwin Lee Klein, History and Theory 53, no. 2 (2014), 244-252.
Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft on Constellation: Friedrich Nietzsche and Walter Benjamin in the Now-Time of History by James McFarland, History and Theory 53, no. 2 (2014), 253-263.
Ran Shauli on Places of Memory in Modern China: History, Politics, and Identity by Marc Andre Matten, History and Theory 53, no. 2 (2014), 264-276.
Branko Mitrović on Meaning, Truth, and Reference in Historical Representation by Frank Ankersmit, History and Theory 53, no. 2 (2014), 277-294.
Ian Hesketh on Darwin Deleted: Imagining a World without Darwin by Peter J. Bowler, History and Theory 53, no. 2 (2014), 295-303.
ARTICLES
Jonas Grethlein, "’Future Past’: Time and Teleology in (Ancient) Historiography,” History and Theory 53, no. 3 (2014), 309-330.
The historian’s account of the past is strongly shaped by the future of the events narrated. The telos, that is, the vantage point from which the past is envisaged, influences the selection of the material as well as its arrangement. Although the telos is past for historians and readers, it is future for historical agents. The term “future past,” coined by Reinhart Koselleck to highlight the fact that the future was seen differently before the Sattelzeit, also lends itself to capturing this asymmetry and elucidating its ramifications for the writing of history. The first part of the essay elaborates on the notion of “future past”: besides considering its significance and pitfalls, I offset it against the perspectivity of historical knowledge and the concept of narrative “closure” (I). Then the works of two ancient historians, Polybius and Sallust, serve as test cases that illustrate the intricacies of “future past.” Neither has received much credit for intellectual sophistication in scholarship, and yet the different narrative strategies Polybius and Sallust deploy reveal profound reflections on the temporal dynamics of writing history (II). Although the issue of “future past” is particularly pertinent to the strongly narrative historiography of antiquity, the controversy about the end of the Roman Republic demonstrates that it also applies to the works of modern historians (III). Finally, I will argue that “future past” alerts us to an aspect of how we relate to the past that is in danger of being obliterated in the current debate on “presence” and history. The past is present in customs, relics, and rituals, but the historiographical construction of the past is predicated on a complex hermeneutical operation that involves the choice of a telos. The concept of “future past” also differs from post-structuralist theories through its emphasis on time. Retrospect calms the flow of time, but is unable to arrest it fully, as the openness of the past survives in the form of “future past” (IV).
Phillipa Levine, “Is Comparative History Possible?” History and Theory 53, no. 3 (2014), 331-347.
In recent years the trend toward comparative histories, frequently read in terms of transnational studies, has produced some remarkably exciting work. The prospect of the comparative is gaining broader appeal, a development we should applaud but at the same time begin to examine in a critical fashion. This essay lays out some of the problems involved in comparative work and suggests ways in which we might profitably utilize these potential snares in productive ways. Comparative history has the potential to operate as a “bridge-builder,” encouraging inventive thinking that moves scholars beyond the familiar terrain of their training. In this respect, it encourages original and innovative ways of approaching historical work. But there are lessons to be learned and problems to be faced in managing a complex scholarly enterprise of this kind. Comparative work runs the risk of reproducing and consolidating older models of universalist history that assume universal standards. It further runs the risk of assuming rather than historicizing the idea of the nation as a fixed point of historical reference rather than seeing the nation itself as a site for historical scrutiny. In this paper, my goal is to lay out these problems alongside the palpable rewards of comparative work, and then to suggest how we might turn such problems to our advantage.
Herman Paul, “What Is a Scholarly Persona? Ten Theses on Virtues, Skills, and Desires,” History and Theory 53, no. 3 (2014), 348-371.
What is the problem that “epistemic virtues” seek to solve? This article argues that virtues, epistemic and otherwise, are the key characteristics of “scholarly personae,” that is, of ideal-typical models of what it takes to be a scholar. Different scholarly personae are characterized by different constellations of virtues and skills or, more precisely, by different constellations of commitments to goods (epistemic, moral, political, and so forth), the pursuit of which requires the exercise of certain virtues and skills. Expanding Hayden White’s notion of “historiographical styles” so as to encompass not only historians’ writings, but also their nontextual “doings,” the article argues that different styles of “being a historian”—a meticulous archival researcher, an inspired feminist scholar, or an outstanding undergraduate teacher—can be analyzed productively in terms of virtues and skills. Finally, the article claims that virtues and skills, in turn, are rooted in desires, which are shaped by the examples of others as well as by promises of reward. This makes the scholarly persona not merely a useful concept for distinguishing among different types of historians, but also a critical tool for analyzing why certain models of “being a historian” gain in popularity, whereas others become “old-fashioned.”
Serge Grigoriev, “Philosophy in Transition: John Dewey’s ‘Lost’ Manuscript,” History and Theory 53, no. 3 (2014), 372-386.
The intention of this essay is to offer a reading of John Dewey’s recently found manuscript (considered lost for decades), Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy, as a kind of philosophical history leading up to the formulation of the key problems to be addressed by the general framework of Dewey’s cultural naturalism. I argue, first, that cultural naturalism has direct implications for the way that we think about history, and that Dewey’s recently recovered manuscript reflects this in its conception of the purpose and mode of historical reconstruction. Second, the essay presents a synoptic overview of the historically emergent thought-conditions structuring, according to Dewey’s narrative, the possibilities of the philosophical discourse of modernity. In conclusion, I argue that cultural naturalism allows us to move beyond these problems by a radical revision of the terms in which we construe the idea of “persons.” Specifically, instead of thinking about persons in terms of embodied minds, we should start thinking about them as participants in histories, carving their individual paths through the world of events, with their existence being essentially both temporal and social. I also suggest that this view of persons allows us to outline a promising account of the notion of human freedom, couched in terms of historical social agency.
Elías José Palti, “The ‘Theoretical Revolution’ in Intellectual History: From the History of Ideas to the History of Political Languages,” History and Theory 53, no. 3 (2014), 387-405.
This article intends to clarify what distinguishes the so-called new “politico-intellectual history” from the old “history of political ideas.” What differentiates the two has not been fully perceived even by some of the authors who initiated this transformation. One fundamental reason for this is that the transformation has not been a consistent process deriving from one single source, but is rather the result of converging developments emanating from three different sources (the Cambridge School, the German school of conceptual history or Begriffsgeschichte, and French politico-conceptual history). This article proposes that the development of a new theoretical horizon that effectively leads us beyond the frameworks of the old history of political ideas demands that we overcome the insularity of these traditions and combine their respective contributions. The result of this combination is an approach to politico-intellectual history that is not completely coincident with any of the three schools. What I will call a history of political languages entails a specific perspective on the temporality of discourses; this involves a view of why the meaning of concepts changes over time, and is the source of the contingency that stains political languages.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Alexandra Garbarini on Foundational Pasts: The Holocaust as Historical Understanding by Alon Confino, History and Theory 53, no. 3 (2014), 406-418.
Todd May on Genealogy as Critique: Foucault and the Problems of Modernity by Colin Koopman, History and Theory 53, no. 3 (2014), 419-427.
Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen on Writing History in the Age of Biomedicine by Roger Cooter and Claudia Stein, History and Theory 53, no. 3 (2014), 428-434.
Bjørn Thomassen on Secular Religion: A Polemic against the Misinterpretation of Modern Social Philosophy, Science and Politics as "New Religions" by Hans Kelsen, History and Theory 53, no. 3 (2014), 435-450.
Gavriel D. Rosenfeld on Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History (The Menahem Stern Jerusalem Lectures) by Richard Evans, History and Theory 53, no. 3 (2014), 451-467.
ARTICLES
Alexandra Lianeri, "A Regime of Untranslatables: Temporalities of Translation and Conceptual History,” History and Theory 53, no. 4 (2014), 227-247.
This essay focuses on untranslatability to discuss the diachronic temporality of the history of concepts. Defining untranslatables as the paradoxical origin and product of translating, it explores their role in mediating the long-term history of concepts by disrupting the historical boundaries of a period and challenging the contexts through which past meaning is confined to the moyenne durée. Addressing first the critical appraisal of the history of ideas by Quentin Skinner and J. G. A. Pocock, it discusses their alternative suggestion of a history of discourses, rather than concepts or ideas, to move to Pocock’s formulation of the category of “diachronic translation” as a shift from the moyenne to the longue durée. It then turns to Begriffsgeschichte to explore the interrelation of untranslatables, Koselleck’s consideration of translation, and his theory of historical times. It suggests that Koselleck not only states that translation mediates the history of concepts, but also envisions a distinct temporality associated with the aporetic condition of translating what is untranslatable. The aporia of translations underlies both the historical depth of concepts as a conceptual reserve and an act of silencing past meaning. The ensuing conjunction of surplus and erasure qualifies Koselleck’s category of multiple times by designating the time of translation as “obscure time.” It is a time that displaces us from the apparent meaning of concepts in a certain period by receding toward the otherness of the past and suspending meaning that is already in the future. These two characteristics of obscure time, its receding and suspending nature, not only stand against the continuity of periodizing; they also make visible a politics of translation as an act of disruption of the present wherein the past becomes a reserve of meanings resisting appropriative interpretation.
FORUM:MULTIPLE TEMPORALITIES
Helge Jordheim, "Introduction: Multiple Times and the Work of Synchronization,” History and Theory 53, no. 4 (2014), 498-518.
In this essay, which introduces the History and Theory forum on Multiple Temporalities, I want to discuss how the existence of a plurality or a multiplicity of times has been conceptualized in the historiographical tradition, partly by entering into a dialogue with recent writers, historians, philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, and literary scholars, partly by returning to the eighteenth century, to the origin of “the modern regime of historicity” (Hartog). In these theoretical and historical investigations I aim to do two things: on the one hand, to explore and discuss different ways of conceptualizing multiple times, in terms of nonsynchronicities, layers of time, or natural and historical times; on the other hand, to trace how these multiple times have been compared, unified, and adapted by means of elaborate conceptual and material practices that I here call “practices of synchronization.” From the eighteenth century onward, these synchronizing practices, inspired by, but by no means reducible to, chronology have given rise to homogeneous, linear, and teleological time, often identified as modern time per se, or simply referred to as “progress.” In focusing on the practices of synchronization, however, I want to show how this regime of temporality during its entire existence, but especially at the moment of its emergence in the eighteenth century and at the present moment of its possible collapse, has been challenged by other times, other temporalities, slower, faster, with other rhythms, other successions of events, other narratives, and so on.
Shahzad Bashir, "On Islamic Time: Rethinking Chronology in the Historiography of Muslim Societies,” History and Theory 53, no. 4 (2014), 519-544.
This article argues that the academic representation of Islamic history as a single timeline, which was established in the nineteenth century and continues to predominate to the present, is a primary issue restricting fruitful readings of Islamic historical materials. Utilizing insights in thinking about history that favor multiple temporalities, I suggest that scholars in Islamic studies can expand the possibilities of their work by paying attention to the diversity of ways in which time is conceptualized within original materials. As illustrations for the rethinking I advocate, I provide readings of the structures and literary affects of three Persian works in different genres, produced circa 1490–1540 ce. I suggest that a foundational reorientation in the field of Islamic historiography has the potential to help us break out of binds identified in the critique of orientalism provided by Edward Said and others and would lead to better ways to approach developments in Muslim societies.
Stefan Helgesson, "Radicalizing Temporal Difference: Anthropology, Postcolonial Theory, and Literary Time,” History and Theory 53, no. 4 (2014), 545-562.
This article is an attempt to address on a theoretical level an antinomy in postcolonial approaches to the question of temporal difference. Current scholarship tends both to denounce the way in which the others of the Western self are placed notionally in another time than the West and not only analytically affirm but indeed valorize multiple temporalities. I elaborate on the two problematic temporal frameworks—linear developmentalism and cultural relativism—that belong to a colonial legacy and generate the antinomy in question, and then proceed to discuss possible alternatives provided by a Koselleck-inspired approach to historical time as inherently plural. I thereby make two central claims: (1) postcolonial conceptions of multiple temporalities typically, if tacitly, associate time with culture, and hence risk reproducing the aporias of cultural relativism; (2) postcolonial metahistorical critique is commonly premised on a simplified and even monolithic understanding of Western modernity as an ideology of “linear progress.” Ultimately, I suggest that the solution lies in radicalizing, not discarding, the notion of multiple temporalities. Drawing on the Brazilian classic Os sertões as my key example, I also maintain that literary writing exhibits a unique “heterochronic” (in analogy with “heteroglossic”) potential, enabling a more refined understanding of temporal difference.
Geoffrey C. Bowker, "All Together Now: Synchronization, Speed, and the Failure of Narrativity,” History and Theory 53, no. 4 (2014), 563-576.
This paper looks at interconnections between social, scientific, and technical time over the period since the Enlightenment. The underlying argument is that each of these can be woven into a single narrative of our experience and description of time over that period. In particular, I maintain that the synchronization of social and natural time into ever smaller, interchangeable units has culminated today in the evacuation of the narrative of progress in favor of an ideology of the eternal present. Contra technologically determinist characterizations that claim a fundamental historical disjuncture occurring with the development of computers, I claim that this timeless present has historical roots going back to the origin of industrial societies through the age of Victorian certainty to our current epoch. The multiple times described here are argued to be telling a single story. I demonstrate this through developing a historiographical principle of infrastructural inversion, which foregrounds a common set of “techniques dispositifs” operating in the apparently separate worlds of science and industry. The assertion here is that our experiences and perceptions of time are deeply imbricated in our information infrastructures. I further argue that these ideological charged times are not hegemonic; they merely describe a motivating managerial vision of a proximate future.
Lucian Hölscher, "Time Gardens: Historical Concepts in Modern Historiography,” History and Theory 53, no. 4 (2014), 577-591.
This article argues for the analysis of temporal concepts such as “age,” “century,” and “epoch,” “past,” “present,” and “future,” formed during the Enlightenment, as an approach to the study of the history of modern historiography. Starting from the basic distinction of “empty” and “embodied” time in Leibniz’s and Newton’s dispute of 1715 about the philosophical nature of time, it traces the episteme of the eighteenth century using the metaphor of a “time garden” for describing some basic features of enlightened historiography. Finally, the paper discusses the consequences of the increasing employment of concepts of embodied time for the future development of the historical sciences.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Carolyn J. Dean on Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the Past by Amir Eshel, History and Theory 53, no. 4 (2014), 592-602.
Alexandra Lianeri on Breaking Up Time: Negotiating the Borders between Present, Past and Future by Chris Lorenz and Berber Bevernage, History and Theory 53, no. 4 (2014), 603-615.
Michał Choptiany on Henricus Glareanus's (1488–1563) Chronologia of the Ancient World: A Facsimile Edition of a Heavily Annotated Copy Held in Princeton University Library by Anthony T. Grafton and Urs B. Leu, History and Theory 53, no. 4 (2014), 616-624.
Cover image: “Blurred Lights,” by Dayne Topkin (12 July 2017)
