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Tagged: history writing

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#English / KOMPOSITA / Theory of History Wide Open

Stones and Jinns. Time between Layers of Sedimentation and Hauntology

Koselleck 100

Margrit Pernau – Koselleck’s metaphor of the layers of sedimentation (Zeitschichten) was and continues to be one of his most productive ideas. Instead of assuming a neat division between the past and the present, this metaphor allows to explore ways in which the past retains its presence in the present. Like in the process of sedimentation – Koselleck here draws on geological knowledge – older layers of history never disappear, but get overlaid by newer deposits. Koselleck’s metaphor has repeatedly translated into visuals.

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#English / KOMPOSITA / Theory of History (Re)read

Reinhart Koselleck’s metaphorical language: an application of historical semantics to one of its founding figures

Koselleck 100

Willibald Steinmetz – Anyone who reads Koselleck’s texts in the original German will be aware of two striking features in the ways he uses language: first, a frequent recourse to certain metaphorical expressions, and second, an extensive use of a limited number of rather peculiar words, or, contrariwise, of familiar words in an idiosyncratic way. Not a few of those idiosyncratic expressions, especially the verbs, are used by Koselleck in ways that lay bare the hidden metaphorical resonances they contain.

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#English / KOMPOSITA

KOMPOSITA: Contributions to Reinhart Koselleck’s “Space of Resonance”

Koselleck 100

Bettina Brandt, Jonathon Catlin, Jana Kristin Hoffmann & Lisa Regazzoni – The historian Reinhart Koselleck would have turned one hundred on April 23, 2023. The work of Koselleck, who died in 2006, is now in vogue in the humanities and historical social sciences, both in Germany and internationally. The fact that Koselleck addressed a basic question of historical scholarship with his contributions to a theory of historical time is a likely factor in this successful reception, as is the diversity of his oeuvre, in which new facets can continually be discovered, and which invites surprising readings.

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#English / Theory of History Polyphonic

Towards a Broad and Inclusive Theory and Philosophy of History

João Ohara – Histories written from feminist, post- or decolonial, and racial-critical perspectives are powerful examples of the kind of polyphonic historical understanding about which Ethan Kleinberg invites us to think. However, these histories and the theories that make them possible are still considered “special cases” apart from mainstream historiography and theory of history proper. A broad and inclusive definition of theory and philosophy of history can help us overcome this problem.