Histories Beyond History (original) (raw)

Why History? On the Origin of Historical Writing

Ancient Historiography on War and Empire, 2017

What prompted Herodotus and Thucydides to write? History as a genre did not yet exist, but specialist treatises were a growing phenomenon. In asking why their works took the form they did, this paper argues that they were intended to provide substantive counterbalance to the influence of oracle mongers and other interpreters of traditions and signs who had the ear of the public whenever weighty decisions had to be made and the meaning of past experience was under consideration.

A brief history of historicity

O que nos faz pensar [PUC-RJ], 2022

LINK | https://oquenosfazpensar.fil.puc-rio.br/oqnfp/article/view/832/703 I aim to clarify some characteristics of historicity as a technical term of historiography, as well as a philosophical concept. I would therefore like to present a brief account of the concept, focusing on the initial main moments of its conceptualization – specifically in the works of Hegel, Dilthey, Yorck von Wartenburg and Heidegger – while also proposing an analysis on its ontological applicability or metahistorical validity. Following the contributions of Heidegger regarding the understanding of historicity as an ontological structure of existence in general, I argue that this philosophical concept of historicity still has something to teach the historical-philosophical way of thinking. Finally, given this context, I briefly introduce the paradoxical nature of the idea of past as one important logical evidence of what is commonly called the historical or temporal condition of existence, which can be epitomized by the ontological term historicity.

How to Do Things with History

How to Do Things with History, 2018

​How to Do Things with History is a collection of essays that explores current and future approaches to the study of ancient Greek cultural history. Rather than focus directly on methodology, the essays in this volume demonstrate how some of the most productive and significant methodologies for studying ancient Greece can be employed to illuminate a range of different kinds of subject matter. These essays, which bring together the work of some of the most talented scholars in the field, are based upon papers delivered at a conference held at Cambridge University in September of 2014 in honor of Paul Cartledge's retirement from the post of A. G. Leventis Professor of Ancient Greek Culture. For the better part of four decades, Paul Cartledge has spearheaded intellectual developments in the field of Greek culture in both scholarly and public contexts. His work has combined insightful historical accounts of particular places, periods, and thinkers with a willingness to explore comparative approaches and a keen focus on methodology. Cartledge has throughout his career emphasized the analysis of practice - the study not, for instance, of the history of thought but of thinking in action and through action. The assembled essays trace the broad horizons charted by Cartledge's work: from studies of political thinking to accounts of legal and cultural practices to politically astute approaches to historiography. The contributors to this volume all take the parameters and contours of Cartledge's work, which has profoundly influenced an entire generation of scholars, as starting points for their own historical and historiographical explorations. Those parameters and contours provide a common thread that runs through and connects all of the essays while also offering sufficient freedom for individual contributors to demonstrate an array of rich and varied approaches to the study of the past.

Review Nikulin The Concept of History H&T

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