Abstract

KLEINBERG, Ethan. «The ghosts of history: a deconstructive approximation to the past». Hist.mem. [online]. 2020, n.spe, pp.51-80.  Epub July 31, 2020. ISSN 2027-5137.  https://doi.org/10.19053/20275137.nespecial.2020.11581.

The focus of this chapter draws from my book Haunting History to articulate a deconstructive approach to the past as something that haunts the present, like a ghost. In so doing, I address the current state of the theory of history and the persistence of ontological realism as the dominant mode of thought for conventional historians. I instead advocate a hauntological approach to history that follows the work of Jacques Derrida and embraces a past that is at once present and absent, available and restricted, polysemic and multiple, rather than a fixed and static snapshot of a moment in time.

Keywords : Theory of history; philosophy of history; deconstruction; postmodernism; Derrida; intellectual history.

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