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This new book offers a clear and accessible exposition of Hayden White's thought. In an engaging and wide-ranging analysis, Herman Paul discusses White's core ideas and traces the development of these ideas from the mid-1950s to the present. Starting with White's medievalist research and youthful fascination for French existentialism, Paul shows how White became increasingly convinced that historical writing is a moral activity. He goes on to argue that the critical concepts that have secured White's fame – trope, plot, discourse, figural realism – all stem from his desire to explicate the moral claims and perceptions underlying historical writing. White emerges as a passionate thinker, a restless rebel against scientism, and a defender of existentialist humanist values. This innovative introduction will appeal to students and scholars across the humanities, and help develop a critical understanding of an increasingly important thinker.
In White's view, beyond the surface level of the historical text, there is a deep structural, or latent, content that is generally poetic and specifically linguistic in nature. This deeper content - the metahistorical element - indicates what an appropriate historical explanation should be.
The secret of the process by which consciousness invests history with meaning resides in "the content of the form, in the way our narrative capacities transform the present into a fulfillment of a past from which we would wish to have descended.
Produced in honor of White's eightieth birthday, Re-Figuring Hayden White testifies to the lasting importance of White's innovative work, which firmly reintegrates historical studies with literature and the humanities. The book is a major reconsideration of the historian's contributions and influence by an international group of leading scholars from a variety of disciplines. Individual essays address the key concepts of White's intellectual career, including tropes, narrative, figuralism, and the historical sublime while exploring the place of White's work in the philosophy of history, postmodernism, and ethics. They also discuss his role as historian and teacher and apply his ideas to specific historical events.
Hayden White borrows the title for The Practical Past from philosopher Michael Oakeshott, who used the term to describe the accessible material and literary-artistic artifacts that individuals and institutions draw on for guidance in quotidian affairs. The Practical Past, then, forms both a summa of White’s work to be drawn upon and a new direction in his thinking about the writing of history. White’s monumental Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (1973) challenged many of the commonplaces of professional historical writing and wider assumptions about the ontology of history itself. It formed the basis of his argument that we can never recover “what actually happened”in the past and cannot really access even material culture in context. Forty years on, White sees “professional history" as falling prey to narrow specialization, and he calls upon historians to take seriously the practical past of explicitly “artistic” works, such as novels and dramas, and literary theorists likewise to engage historians.
For students and scholars of historiography, the theory of history, and literary studies, Robert Doran (French and comparative literature, U. of Rochester) gathers together 23 previously uncollected essays written by theorist and historian Hayden White (comparative literature, Stanford U.) from 1957 to 2007, on his theories of historical writing and narrative. Essays are organized chronologically and reveal the evolution of White's thought and its relationship to theories of the time, as well as the impact on the way scholars think about historical representation, the discipline of history, and how historiography intersects with other areas, especially literary studies. They specifically address theory of tropes, theory of narrative, and figuralism.
This anthology of new essays by an international group of preeminent scholars explores the ground-breaking work of Hayden White, whose thought, beginning with his seminal Metahistory (1973), has revolutionized the way we think about the philosophy of history, historiography, narrative, and the relation between history and literature. Representing a variety of disciplines and approaches, the contributions to this volume testify to the far-reaching effects and significance of White's philosophy of history. Individual essays relate White's ideas to contemporary art, cognitive studies, Heideggerian hermeneutics, experimental history, Kant's transcendental philosophy, analytic philosophy of histo...
This anthology of new essays by an international group of preeminent scholars explores the ground-breaking work of Hayden White, whose thought, beginning with his seminal Metahistory (1973), has revolutionized the way we think about the philosophy of history, historiography, narrative, and the relation between history and literature. Representing a variety of disciplines and approaches, the contributions to this volume testify to the far-reaching effects and significance of White's philosophy of history. Individual essays relate White's ideas to contemporary art, cognitive studies, Heideggerian hermeneutics, experimental history, Kant's transcendental philosophy, analytic philosophy of histo...
This penetrating analysis of eight classic nineteenth-century thinkers explains how historians use literary techniques to write sophisticated historical works. Since its initial publication in 1973, Hayden White's Metahistory has remained an essential book for understanding the nature of historical writing. In this classic work, White argues that a deep structural content lies beyond the surface level of historical texts. This latent poetic and linguistic content—which White dubs the "metahistorical element"—essentially serves as a paradigm for what an "appropriate" historical explanation should be. To support his thesis, White analyzes the complex writing styles of historians like Miche...
In the last decades, there has been an intense debate on the relationship between literature and historiography, often linked to the debate between “empiricists” and “postmodernists”. The aim of this collective work is to address this debate, and to search for new ways of thinking and encountering the past. The key note for the book comes from Hayden White, one of the leading academic figures, whose role in launching the contemporary history/literature debate has been crucial. It is followed by three critical readings of his work, all suggesting new ways to apply or challenge his views. In other chapters of the book, history / literature question is then addressed from three points of view: narrativity, history as literature, and literature as history. Tropes for the Past is an ideal introduction to the literature/historiography debate and Hayden White’s role in it. It will be of use for all students and scholars in the philosophy of history and in historically oriented literary, cultural, and social studies.