What are historians for? Notes on the possibilities and limits of disciplinary history

Abstract

The image of history that emerged during the age of modernity has become a problem both in intellectual culture and in the everyday life of the 21st century. Our turbulent world and numerous texts convince us that history is no longer what it used to be. Nevertheless, historians work primarily within the settings of normative history, which foundations were shaped in the 19th century. Researchers have long discussed the changes taking place. However, along with a critique of the established protocols of historical research in line with the reflexive turn in knowledge (“epistemological and historiographical at a time” as François Hartog argues), another historical optic and a new ethos of history are now being sought and formed in the transdisciplinary space. In this theoretical discourse, the understanding of disciplinary history and its future relates to the state of knowledge in a broad sense. The article discusses several aspects of this vast topic based on the texts of historians, philosophers, sociologists, and anthropologists: the status of history in the contemporary world and its relationship with the past; temporal issues of historical culture; and the new ethos of history and the historian's identity. Among the numerous challenges faced by humanity at the dawn of the third millennium, the following two stand out: transdisciplinarity and the Anthropocene.

Keywords

• history
• transdisciplinarity
• anthropocene
• historical time
• ethos of history
• historian's identity