Cultural Theory and History: The Change and Everyday Life

In: Cryptohistories. Eds Alicja Bemben, Rafał Borysławski, Justyna Jajszczok, Jakub Gajda, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2015, pp. 3-14, 2015

'Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will correct these defects.' - Herodotus, The History of Herodotus.

Verónica Tozzi Thompson In The Concept of History, Dmitri Nikulin rehearses an alternative philosophy of history, thus accompanying a certain revival of interest in this discipline since the end of the twentieth century. Conceptualizing an alternative philosophy of history is of fundamental relevance in the context of the global problems that deepen every day in our contemporary world. Undoubtedly, philosophy must be attentive to the present demands and interests of representing the past, whether by the sectors of power or by various dissident collectives, for failing to re exively address questions of substantive philosophy of history surely leaves room for the (unacknowledged) validity of the teleological-universalist narrative. The historical trajectory delineated by the modern conception of history is centered on the uniqueness and unity of history and establishes a divide between historical and nonhistorical (or prehistoric) peoples. Nikulin, by contrast, seeks to produce a pluralistic conception of multiple histories, for which he elaborates a notion of "the historical" present in every time period and human culture (oral and written). A central distinction to be established from the beginning, according to Nikulin, is between "the historical" and "history." The historical is nothing other than lists of names, things, actions, and facts to be preserved, and we can nd these lists in any culture in any time and place. Such lists are governed by some organizing principle that determines what not to forget. Chapters 3 ("The Epic of History"), 4 ("The Homer Galaxy"), and 5 ("The Logos of History") are, in my view, the most novel and stimulating parts of the book. There, "the historical" (those detailed and organized lists) comes with a narrative (fabula). The historical/fable dyad constitutes the structure of history, which is instantiated in multiple histories but which, in itself (as a structure), is not historical but invariant in each and every history. The seven chapters that make up The Concept of History run through various examples of re ections on and problems related to the 2/4/22, 00:59

Rev.Centro Sur, 2023

This scholarly article investigates the evolution of the concept of history and its influence on the discipline of history. It begins with the medieval view of history as a source of moral lessons and progresses to Renaissance historicism, which emphasizes the contextual understanding of the past. It then explores the historical positivism of modernity, which seeks universal patterns and laws in history, followed by Marxist historical dialectics, which interprets the past as a class struggle. Subsequently, contemporary perspectives, such as cultural history, gender approaches, and global history, which broaden the understanding of history through new lenses, are addressed. In addition, the impact of digital technologies on the historical discipline is examined. A critical review of the various historical perspectives is undertaken, highlighting their contributions and limitations. This article underscores the importance of ongoing critical revision in the historical discipline to maintain its relevance and to consider ethical and political issues in historical narrative.

History and Theory, 1984

... history" itself that was the problem.24 In a famous polemic, directed against Sartre's Critique ... Indeed, his monu-mental Mythologiques was intended to demonstrate the centrality of narra-tivity to the ... in all its forms.28 What he objected to was the expropriation of narrativity as the ...

Routledge Approaches to History, 2023

This book explains some of the psychological processes that go into narrative construction and why it is that we have so much variability of historical accounts about a single historical event. A central focus of this book is how historians go from having unconnected units of data to having a coherent, structured, and organized flow of experiences. The author argues that the way these connections are established responds to certain Gestalt psychological principles that allow us to understand not only how histories are constructed but also how this construction can be rather different depending on how these principles are applied. To illustrate how these principles are present in history, the author analyzes classic historical writers such as Burckhardt, Huizinga, Vico, and Marx. As well as an explanation of why historical multiplicity happens, the book also offers a way to evaluate different historical narratives about the same historical event. To illustrate how the evaluative framework is at play, the author analyzes two views about the so-called discovery of America. The first one explains what happens in 1492 by using the term "discovery." The second one uses the notion of "invention" to talk about the same set of circumstances. The book provides an important epistemic tool to evaluate these different accounts-one that can be applied not only to this case but also others. This book appeals to scholars, graduate students, and upper-level undergraduate students of history and philosophy. In addition, the book may also attract intellectuals, generally considered, who are interested in how philosophy can inform and question historical practice.

The thesis of this article is that historical critical scholarship gives unwarranted credence to the idea that the measure of all truth, historical and other, is necessarily rational. The stance taken in this article is that the preponderant evidence of history does not support this position. The first line of argument against the rationalist interpretation of history is directed against the methodology of historical scholarship, and concludes by establishing the parameters inherent to all possible historical knowledge. The second line of argument is more theoretical in nature, and appeals to a phenomenology of truth in order to illustrate the difference between phenomenal truth and constructural or historical truth.

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 2019

The narrative theory of history that studies historical works from the viewpoint of their narrative, rhetorical devices, and ideological strategies highly emphasized the necessity of renewing historiography. In his early essays, the trend’s founding father, Hayden White, positioned history between art and science or fiction and reality and defined the role of historical theory as a kind of “critical historiography” that is both a criticism of actual historical works and a prescriptive theoretical approach with which the contemporary historical discipline can reform itself. This renewal basically meant a formal reorganization with which the historical works and the historical discipline itself could come closer to literature by using narrative methods and rhetorical devices of recent literary works and films. However, after the 1990s, White and his followers had to face some radical problems that compelled them to rethink the role of recent historiography and their theoretical positi...