Cross-border Histories
-
Ann Rigney
Abstract
That we should speak of “histories” in the plural rather than of “History” in the upper-case singular has become something of a commonplace. One of the central themes of postmodernism in historical theory has been the idea that there are so many different points of view possible on any given event or period of time, that the idea of an objectively existing singular grand narrative of History has outworn its usefulness. The writ is out that it is neither possible nor desirable to reduce the complexity of world history to a single story and that rather than speak of “History” in the singular we can better refer to lower-case histories in the plural. This theoretical position has been matched and reinforced by a historiographical practice dominated by the ongoing invention of new subjects about which histories can be written. The proliferation of new histories makes synthesis both in practice and in theory difficult to contemplate. For recent decades have seen new histories of all sorts of experiences and, my particular concern here, of all sorts of new social groups.
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Portrait of an Interdisciplinary Life. John Neubauer zum 70. Geburtstag
- Introduction
- Thought-Images: A Brief History of Time
- The Return of the Dinosaurs: About Scientific Imagination and its Affects
- Borders and Monuments: Goethe's Reconstruction of the World as Knowledge
- History, Theory and Abraham Gottlob Werner
- Mynheer Peeperkorn's Fever
- Introduction
- History, Empire, Opera
- Music Albums: A Tiny Gesamtkunstwerk?
- Listening to Kurt Schwitters' Ursonate. A Dadaistic-Romantic transposition d'arts?
- Introduction
- Reading Melling's Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople. Topography and Control
- Penumbra
- Bruno Freddi's Vissuto
- From Stony Facts to Paper Flowers
- Picturing It. The Issue of Visuality in the Classical Theory of Metaphor
- Introduction
- The Practical Use of Historiography: from Haffner to Herodotus
- The Gap between Hannah Arendt and Franz Kafka
- Literature and Art in History
- Cultural Memory, Cultural History and Cultural Canons in the Third Millennium
- Cross-border Histories
- Introduction
- The Intolerable
- History, Theory and the Middle Voice
- Sacred Memory or Relics: Should Holocaust Documents Be Altered?
- Blasting the Historical Continuum: Stories of my Grandmother
- Der Erlkönig in Sarajevo: Did the monument forecast the catastrophe?
- Introduction
- Hans Mayer – Ansichten eines komparatistischen Außenseiters
- Mastering Adolescence in the Age of Cultural Studies
- Bamboozled by Literature
- Arguments for a Cross-Cultural Literary History. Theoretical and Practical Implications
- Comparative Literary History, Theory and Practice: John Neubauer's Contribution
- “Rich Seeds We Must Sow … But If Only a Few Will Take”
- John Neubauer's Cultural Geographies
- The Marathon Man
- Embracing the Horizon
- Rezensionen
Articles in the same Issue
- Portrait of an Interdisciplinary Life. John Neubauer zum 70. Geburtstag
- Introduction
- Thought-Images: A Brief History of Time
- The Return of the Dinosaurs: About Scientific Imagination and its Affects
- Borders and Monuments: Goethe's Reconstruction of the World as Knowledge
- History, Theory and Abraham Gottlob Werner
- Mynheer Peeperkorn's Fever
- Introduction
- History, Empire, Opera
- Music Albums: A Tiny Gesamtkunstwerk?
- Listening to Kurt Schwitters' Ursonate. A Dadaistic-Romantic transposition d'arts?
- Introduction
- Reading Melling's Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople. Topography and Control
- Penumbra
- Bruno Freddi's Vissuto
- From Stony Facts to Paper Flowers
- Picturing It. The Issue of Visuality in the Classical Theory of Metaphor
- Introduction
- The Practical Use of Historiography: from Haffner to Herodotus
- The Gap between Hannah Arendt and Franz Kafka
- Literature and Art in History
- Cultural Memory, Cultural History and Cultural Canons in the Third Millennium
- Cross-border Histories
- Introduction
- The Intolerable
- History, Theory and the Middle Voice
- Sacred Memory or Relics: Should Holocaust Documents Be Altered?
- Blasting the Historical Continuum: Stories of my Grandmother
- Der Erlkönig in Sarajevo: Did the monument forecast the catastrophe?
- Introduction
- Hans Mayer – Ansichten eines komparatistischen Außenseiters
- Mastering Adolescence in the Age of Cultural Studies
- Bamboozled by Literature
- Arguments for a Cross-Cultural Literary History. Theoretical and Practical Implications
- Comparative Literary History, Theory and Practice: John Neubauer's Contribution
- “Rich Seeds We Must Sow … But If Only a Few Will Take”
- John Neubauer's Cultural Geographies
- The Marathon Man
- Embracing the Horizon
- Rezensionen
