Embodiment, empathy, rituals. What to do with the past after the end of history

Abstract

Starting out from the assumptions that, in the first place, the academic discipline of “History” used to be grounded on the “historical world view”, as it had established itself around 1830 and that, secondly, it no longer prevails in the everyday of our present, this essay raises the question of what consequences the historians’ practice should possibly draw. With a focus on “embodiment” as a new mode of mediation between past and present, it discusses attitudes of empathy and work on rituals, trying to enter uncharted intellectual territory.

Keywords

• history
• embodiment
• empathy
• rituals