Reconceiving the Practice of History: From Representation to Translation

Seth, Sanjay. 2023. Reconceiving the Practice of History: From Representation to Translation. History & Theory, 62(1), pp. 106-128. ISSN 0018-2656 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

Arguing that history is not the application of a rigorous method to sources bequeathed to us from the past but rather a practice of coding that constructs “the past” in particular ways, this article seeks to delineate the key elements of this coding. Modern history treats past objects and texts as the objectified remains of humans who endowed their world with meaning and purpose while constrained by the social circumstances characterizing their times. This time of theirs is dead, and it can only be represented, not resurrected; the past is only ever the human past, and it does not include ghosts, gods, spirits, or nature. If, as argued here, “the past” does not exist independently of the means by which it is known and represented, then the many different modes of historicity that human beings developed and deployed before the modern form of history became dominant cannot be measured against “the” past in an effort to compare their accuracy or adequacy in representing it. The concluding section of this article asks what we are doing when we write the history of those who did not share the presumptions of the modern discipline but who had their own mode(s) of historicity. What, it asks, is the character and status of the knowledge produced when we write histories of premodern and non-Western pasts?

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1111/hith.12292

Keywords:

historiography, humanism, philosophical anthropology, music history, art history, history of science, Annales school

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Politics
Politics > Centre for Postcolonial Studies

Dates:

DateEvent
26 October 2022Accepted
15 February 2023Published Online
March 2023Published

Item ID:

33182

Date Deposited:

22 Feb 2023 16:35

Last Modified:

17 Apr 2023 10:08

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/33182

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