Ewa Domanska

Toward the Archaeontology of the dead body

The postmodern breakthrough revealed the limitations of history understood as the dominant approach to the past, but it does not follow that history should be abandoned. We might wish, rather, to try to seek an alternative to history, or at least a supplement to it. The search for such an alternative could begin on the border between archaeology and history, where the status of material culture and historical sources can be investigated. Contemporary Heideggerian or contemplative archaeology suggests the possibility of abandoning textualism and turning to questions of the pasts materiality. For the historian, the Heideggeran approach encourages the rethinking of the historical source, considered as the trace-being and trace-Being, as well as changing the repertoire of questions. As a case in point, I reflect on the dead body and various aspects of its existence. Analyzing the case of the Argentinian desaparecidos, I discuss the dead body as evidence of crime, as an object of mourning (trace-being), and as the absent remains which refer to the unpresentable ‘absolute past’ (trace-Being). I situate the dead bodys existence in the space of the non-absent past, whose ambivalent and liminal status protects it against the all-encompassing discourses of the living. In the context of those considerations, prompted by Heideggerian archaeology, I try to demonstrate that thinking in terms of the non-absent past and turning to the issue of ‘the ontology of the ashes’ may open up the possibility of a reflection on the past which turns to a- or non-historical approaches and whose reference point is the future-to-come.

A conversation with Hayden White

This conversation deals with basic issues of historical knowledge, such as the nature of historical reality, the distinction between fact and event, the social function of historical knowledge, and the utility of ‘methodology’ in the study of history, as understood by Hayden White. It also addresses the problem of distinguishing between methods and conventions in historical research. White presents his idea of a ‘progressive history’ and advocates ‘practical’ history over a contemplative approach to the past. He also expresses his views on the ideological aspect of historical studies, the importance of treating the present as history, and the pedagogical as against the ‘research’ aspect of historiography.

Frank Ankersmit: From narrative to experience

This paper analyzes key issues in the work of Frank Ankersmit: narrative, representation and sublime historical experience. It argues that his recent turn to experience marks a shift from an interest in narrative and the textual dimension of the past to an examination of the notion of an experience about the past. It suggests that although Ankersmit is usually associated with postmodernist avangardism in historical theory (narrativism, constructivism), as can be seen in his theory of historical representation, his understanding of the concept of historical experience and the sublime can be seen as regression. Thus, although Ankersmit had pushed historical theory beyond the linguistic turn, his most recent work can be understood as a return to a traditional Romantic view of immediate experience combined with an Enlightenment analysis of it.

Hayden White: Beyond Irony

A crisis of our age that is usually identified with the loss of the sacred was one of the causes of the fall into irony in the nineteenth century. In the case of historians, asHayden White has shown in Metahistory, this irony was caused by a“bitterness” stemming from the failure of reality to fulfill their expectations. Anironic apprehension of the world arose in an atmosphere of social breakdown or cultural decline.A current stage of irony manifests itself in a doubt as to the capacity of language to grasp reality. Thus we live in a “prison house of language.” An intellectual parlor-gameproduces “second-hand knowledge” that cannot satisfy the needs of post-postmodern men and women still looking for another metanarrative. Therefore, the main purpose of this essay is to answer the question: how can we go beyond irony? This text is a “post-postmodern post mortem topostmodernism.” I am grateful to postmodernism for many things, especially for giving me an alternative apprehension of the world in terms of difference and continuity rather than binary oppositions, but I am tired of ontological insecurity and epistemological chaos. I need order. I miss metanarrative. In trying to break with some modern/postmodern “principles” andretain within my discourse the premodernist perspective, I follow the current trend in thehumanities. We observe at present the breakdown of methodology and the rise of a more poeticapproach in the human sciences. Evidence of this phenomenon is the more autobiographical formof writing in anthropology (James Clifford, Clifford Geertz) and a more literary style inhistorical writing (Natalie Zemon Davis, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Simon Schama). This trendis associated with a revaluation of the subjective aspects of research. Perhaps, and I wouldwelcome it, it also could be identified with a reappearance of a Collingwoodian idea of history ashuman self-knowledge, knowledge about human nature, knowledge about “what it is to be a man . . . what it is to be the kind of man you are . . . and what it is to be the man you are and nobody else is.”

Hayden White and liberation historiography

This text deals with issues which for the past decade preoccupied Hayden Whites reflection. These are issues such as the practical past, the social role of history, global capitalism, the modern state, anarchism, utopia and the emancipatory role of the humanities. White has repeatedly stressed the ambivalent connections between utopia and history, the reductive and disciplinary character of science, as well as the oppressive nature of the state. This, among other things, constitutes the reason why the cutting edge of his critical thought is aimed at professionalized, academic history which is marked and burdened by those topoi. While calling Whites approach ‘liberation historiography’ does not seem adequate, the author reflects on the liberating role of historiography (one that leads to an ultimate emancipation from the very discipline of history) which is desirable in the contemporary world.

Historians must have virtues: a conversation with the Polish historian and theorist of history

In the interview with Erős Vilmos, the Polish historian and a theorist of history, Ewa Domanska describes her sources of inspiration, evolution of interest from narrativism to new materialism, talks about her teaching experiences in Poland and in the USA, lists her favourite books, and speaks about current projects.