The Essence of History
Research Seminar Series 2022

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This seminar series brings together some of the most significant historical thinkers in the world from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds for the purpose of re-posing the question of the essence of history and asks, what is history? What, in the ‘progress’ of historical thought from antiquity to modernity, did we lose along the way? And what does it mean, if it means anything at all, to have history, to be historical?

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Programme

Tuesday April 26th – Jeffrey A. Barash (University of Amiens) – “Historical Reflection and the Passive Presence of the Historical Past”

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Tuesday May 3rd – Laurence Hemming (University of Lancaster) – “The Essence of History as the History of Essence: the Ground of History as a Difficulty”

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Tuesday May 10th – David Carr (Emory University) – “The Varieties of Historical Experience”

Tuesday May 17th – Hans Ruin (Södertörn University) – “Soliciting and Speaking for the Dead - History as Necromancy”

Tuesday May 24th – Ewa Domańska (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań/Stanford University) - "Dehistoricizing the Past"

Tuesday May 31st – Susan A. Crane (University of Arizona) - "Time's Travelers" 

Tuesday June 7th – Frank Ankersmit (University of Groningen) – "Peter Munz’s Evolutionist Philosophy of History and the Anthropocene"

Tuesday June 14th – Emily Baragwanath (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) - "Perception as Essence in Ancient Greek Historiography"

Tuesday June 21st – Robert C. Scharff (University of New Hampshire) - "If History Had An Essence, It Wouldn't Be History"

Tuesday June 28th – Rosie Harman (UCL) – "Form and Meaning in Ancient Greek Historiography"