Abstract
History has always been more than just the past. It involves a relationship between past and present, perceived, on the one hand, as a temporal chain of events and, on the other, symbolically as an interpretation that gives meaning to these events through varying cultural orientations, charging it with norms and values, hopes and fears. And it is memory that links the present to the past and therefore has to be seen as the most fundamental procedure of the human mind that constitutes history: memory and historical thinking are the door of the human mind to experience. At the same time, it transforms the past into a meaningful and sense bearing part of the present and beyond. It is these complex interrelationships that are the focus of the contributors to this volume, among them such distinguished scholars as Paul Ricoeur, Johan Galtung, Eberhard Lämmert, and James E. Young. Full of profound insights into human society past and present it is a book that not only historians but also philosophers and social scientists should engage with.
Table of Contents
Memory, forgetting, history / Paul Ricoeur --
How meaning came into the world and what became of it / Günter Dux --
Sense of history : what does it mean? : with an outlook onto reason and senselessness / Jörn Rüsen --
"The meaning of history" : a modern construction and notion? / Jörn Stückrath --
The meanings of history : enacting the sociocultural code / Johan Galtung --
The three levels of "sinnbildung" in historical writing / Frank R. Ankersmit --
The reality of history / David Carr --
Language and historical experience / Frank R. Ankersmit --
Flights from history : reinventing tradition between the 18th and 20th centuries / Aleida Assmann --
Memory and identity : how memory is reconstructed after catastrophic events / Alessandro Cavalli --
The material presence of the past : reflections on the visibility of history / Detlef Hoffmann --
Ruins : a visual expression of historical meaning / Moshe Barasch --
Three versions of Wallenstein : differences of meaning production between historiography, biography, and novel / Eberhard Lämmert --
The arts of Jewish memory in a postmodern age / James E. Young .
Table of Contents
Memory, forgetting, history / Paul Ricoeur --
How meaning came into the world and what became of it / Günter Dux --
Sense of history : what does it mean? : with an outlook onto reason and senselessness / Jörn Rüsen --
"The meaning of history" : a modern construction and notion? / Jörn Stückrath --
The meanings of history : enacting the sociocultural code / Johan Galtung --
The three levels of "sinnbildung" in historical writing / Frank R. Ankersmit --
The reality of history / David Carr --
Language and historical experience / Frank R. Ankersmit --
Flights from history : reinventing tradition between the 18th and 20th centuries / Aleida Assmann --
Memory and identity : how memory is reconstructed after catastrophic events / Alessandro Cavalli --
The material presence of the past : reflections on the visibility of history / Detlef Hoffmann --
Ruins : a visual expression of historical meaning / Moshe Barasch --
Three versions of Wallenstein : differences of meaning production between historiography, biography, and novel / Eberhard Lämmert --
The arts of Jewish memory in a postmodern age / James E. Young .