Debating New Approaches to History

Description

With its innovative format, Debating New Approaches to History addresses issues currently at the top of the discipline’s theoretical and methodological agenda. In its chapters, leading historians of both older and younger generations from across the Western world and beyond discuss and debate the main problems and challenges that historians are facing today. Each chapter is followed by a critical commentary from another key scholar in the field and the author’s response. The volume looks at topics such as the importance and consequences of the ‘digital turn’ in history (what will history writing be like in a digital age?), the challenge of posthumanist theory for history writing (how do we write the history of non-humans?) and the possibilities of moving beyond traditional sources in history and establishing a dialogue with genetics and neurosciences (what are the perspectives and limits of the so-called ‘neurohistory’?). It also revisits older debates in history which remain crucial, such as what the gender approach can offer to historical research or how to write history on a global scale. Debating New Approaches to History does not just provide a useful overview of the new approaches to history it covers, but also offers insights into current historical debates and the process of historical method in the making. It demonstrates how the discipline of history has responded to challenges in society – such as digitalization, globalization and environmental concerns – as well as in humanities and social sciences, such as the ‘material turn’, ‘visual turn’ or ‘affective turn’. This is a key volume for all students of historiography wanting to keep their finger on the pulse of contemporary thinking in historical research. Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Figures List of Contributors Introduction: A Framework for Debating New Approaches to History Alternative spatialities Alternative temporalities Anthropocene and more-than-human history History in the digital age Beyond words Debating history today: The rationale of the volume Note References Chapter 1: Global History Success and its perils Paths towards global history Varieties of large-scale history Non-debates Debates: Explanation, comparison, and circulation analysis Comment Response Notes References Chapter 2: Postcolonial History Beginnings Conceptual foundations Postcolonial historiographies Postcolonial history now Coda: Looking ahead Comment Response Note References Chapter 3: Environmental History Writing the history of non-humans: Between theory and observation Historians under pressure: The challenge of climate and global environmental change The patterns of environmental history Comment Response Notes References Chapter 4: Gender History Gender history: A very short introduction So what does a gender approach offer to historical research and writing, you may ask? Identity/subjectivity after the linguistic and cultural turns From identity to subjectivity Comment Response Notes References Chapter 5: History of Memory Introducing history’s memory turn Themes, issues, and strands in memory scholarship Conclusion Comment Changing memory and the dynamics of (un)forgetting Historicizing trauma The productive tension between memory and history Response Notes References Chapter 6: History of Knowledge A new development Knowledge? Knowledge cultures The broad bandwidth of knowledge Epistemic virtues and epistemic vices Securing knowledge and the loss of knowledge On the way to a global history of knowledge Comment Response Notes References Chapter 7: History of Emotions Emotions, a history Sciences and history of emotions Present debates: Epistemology and methodology Working with emotion language: Reading emotions Tools for historians: Interpreting emotions Comment Response Notes References Chapter 8: History of Things History of things or history through things? Some scholarship concerning history and things Things changing hands: Some distinctions One thing that changed hands: A flag Comment Response Notes References Chapter 9: History of Visual Culture From art to the image From the image to visual culture Cultures of the visual: Of the eye, the gaze, the imago, and the visible The longue durée and revisiting Historicity in question Surveillance: A metahistory Visual culture as visuality Three histories: Extension of the visible, objectivity, and visibility The era of the ‘visual turn’ Comment Response Note References Chapter 10: Digital History A brief history of digital history The diversity of digital history Breaking new ground? Conclusion Comment Response Notes References Chapter 11: Neurohistory Mutable pain and the dynamics of emotion Words, emotions, experience Genetics Smail’s model Neurohistorical practice Conclusion Comment Response Notes References Chapter 12: Posthumanist History What is posthumanism? Historians and posthumanism Humanist posthumanism Animal history as non-anthropocentric history Conclusion Comment Response Notes References Conclusion A succession of new histories Explaining innovations Alternative chapters History among the social sciences Notes References Index