The Paternalistic Liberation of History by Theory
A libertação paternalística da História pela teoria
DOI:
10.46551/issn.2317-0875v27n2p.7-16Keywords:
Practicing historians, Theorists/philosophers of history, Bridging theory and practiceAbstract
This paper will revisit the complicated relations between practicing historians and theorists/philosophers of history. The dualist approach described, for example, in Ethan Kleinberg's book Haunting History (2017) and in the manifesto authored by Kleinberg, Joan Wallach Scott and Gary Wilder titled "Theses on Theory and History" (2018) counterposes these two “tribes” and sustains tensions between them. I identify a position expressed in the above texts that calls for renewing the discipline of history by theorizing it as a "paternalistic liberation of history by theory." When we consider "what is to be done" to bury the hatchet between practitioners and theorists, I propose certain strategies of cooperation that might lead to a (localized) neutralization of the long-lasting tensions between them.
Downloads
References
ANKERSMIT, Frank. Historical Representation. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
CHARMAZ, Kathy. Constructing Grounded Theory. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2014.
DOMAŃSKA, Ewa. “Metodologia praktyczna” (Practical Methodology). In: Historia egzystencjalna. Krytyczne studium narratywizmu i humanistyki zaangażowanej (Existential History. Critical Approach to Narrativism and Emancipatory Humanities). Warszawa: PWN, 2012, p. 170-176 [161-183].
DOMAŃSKA, Ewa. “Problematizing Comparative Historical Studies” [比較史學探索]. Taiwan Journal of East Asian Studies, vol. 7, no. 1 (Issue 13), June 2010, p. 79-81[71-85].
KLEINBERG, Ethan. Haunting History: For a Deconstructive Approach to the Past. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017.
KLEINBERG, Ethan; SCOTT, Joan Wallach; WILDER, Gary. Theses on Theory and History. In.: https://theoryrevolt.com/.
TOPOLSKI, Jerzy. Historia jako nauka po postmodernizmie (History as a Science after Postmodernism). In: Pamięć, etyka i historia. Anglo-amerykańska teoria historiografii lat dziewięćdziesiątych (Memory, Ethics and History. Anglo-American Theory of Historiography from the 1990s). Ewa Domańska (Ed.). Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, Poznań, 2002.
TOPOLSKI, Jerzy. “Historians Look at Historical Truth”, In: Theory and Methodology of Historical Knowledge: An Anthology. Ewa Domańska and Anna Topolska (Eds.). Poznań: Faculty of History Press, Adam Mickiewicz University, 2022, p. 357-368.
WHITE, Hayden. “The Fictions of Factual Representation”. In: Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985, p. 121-144.
