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Current Issues in Historical Perspective
Instelling
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)
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Current issues in historical perspective
Martin Kohlrausch, Bento van Waarden
INTRODUCTION: METHODS AND QUESTIONS (22/02/2023)
Contemporary history
Expectations
• Specific sessions, recordings only last a week (details on Toledo)
• No textbook but read texts and fulfil tasks -> prepare classes!
• It is recommended to read up on Europe's postwar history and follow the news
• The book KERSHAW, I., Roller-Coaster. Europe 1950-2017, London: Allen Lane, 2018.
• Not a survey course. Different perspectives/angles – but interconnected
• Learning how to approach historical problems, how to formulate an issue as
problem (deconstruction and narration)
• Learning how to detect historical dynamics and movements
• Learning how to formulate research questions, how to deal with our own
position. Challenge less extreme, but also present in, e.g., ancient history or
medieval history
• Place of course in curriculum: Position vis-à-vis other courses (History of
European Colonization, Geschiedenis van de Nieuwste Tijd)
• Tripartite structure of each session: current issue, historical background,
discussion/questions (academic character, argument)
Looking at history from today’s perspective: What is contemporary history & how to study it?
Tensions of approaching the past from the present (our own position)
• Stefan Zweig: “It remains an irrefragable law of history that contemporaries are
denied a recognition of the early beginnings of the great movements which
determine their times.” (Die Welt von Gestern, 1942)
• C.V. Wedgwood “History is lived forwards, but it is written in retrospect. We know
the end before we consider the beginning, and we can never wholly recapture what
it was to know the beginning only.”
• Eric Hobsbawm: “Retrospectiveness is the secret weapon of the historian.”
o Instruments historians have to use
• Benedetto Croce: „all history is contemporary history“ (Theory and History of
Historiography, 1917)
o We are people of our time, consciously or unconsciously we ask questions
from the perspective of our time
• Pierre Bourdieu: “You do not become a good historian if you obliterate the present
time from you brain – rather the contrary” (Manet, Une révolution symbolique)
o You cannot get rid of your present reflection anyway, so u have to analyze it
• William Faulkner: The past is never dead. It’s not even past’.
o The past is not concluded
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Contemporary history
The most recent history – but how to define ‘recent’?
• The history of the present generation (“Epoche der Mitlebenden” – Hans Rothfels,
1953):
o WWII was such a cesura that affected everyone’s life that historians have to
address it
o he defined the contemporary history as history of the present generation
• The impact of deep ruptures (revolutions, wars (for Rothfels 1917 starting point)) ->
1917 USA joined the WWI which changed the course of the war, opposition of
superpowers and ideologies USA vs Soviet Union defining European history
o There are certain ruptures, cesura that affect ppl so strongly that they have
to have an effect on the way we see history
• Specific method of contemporary history: not only accept one’s own position but
render it fruitful
Evolution of contemporary history:
Both a big effect on the way we define contemporary history:
• ‘Short 20th Century’ (Eric Hobsbawm). WWI - 1989/91 (‘Age of Extremes’)
o Opposition capitalism vs socialism, fascism => age of extremes
• Tony Judt’s Postwar-concept. “Cultures of memory” explain European situation of
today
o The idea that the WWII still very much defines our society
Caesurae in contemporary history
Temporalities
• Broader concepts of historical change: Anthropocene (Paul J. Crutzen), Great
Acceleration, second modernity (Ulrich Beck), network society (Manuel Castells),
knowledge society: ab knowledge not factories, third modernity (liquid modernity,
retropia: we no longer have a vision of our own future (Zygmunt Bauman))
• But also, different temporalities of politics, social change, cultural change,
technological change etc.
• Different temporalities/spatialities of ‚Erfahrungsraum‘ and ‚Erwartungshorizont‘
(Reinhart Koselleck) (‚Space of Experience’ and ‘Horizon of Expectation’). West- and
East Europe
o One of us has space of experience and this shapes our horizon of expectation:
individual or societal level
• Changing concepts and modes to narrate a new reality: graphic novels, Netflix-
shows, (pop) music etc.
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Challenges of and for contemporary history
• Studied problems and developments often not yet concluded (lack of distance)
• Problem of sources:
o Lack of sources (or access to sources): classified sources
§ Sources are still classified, history is much broader than that today
o Abundance (and ephemeral character) of sources (social media, internet,
media, visual and audio-material, digital history)
§ Hard to grasp sources, digital history, hard to access and to use the
data, very complex
o N.B. tension between what happened and how remembered
§ Can never fully separate the two, tension between the two
Structure of the course
-> See planning in Toledo
Cases and the greater theme
• Cases interconnected. Example: Politics of memory/Hitler-Stalin pact: populism,
security, energy (environment)
• Asking questions as a historian means making choices
• Applying the historical method in highly dynamic and uncertain fields
Geographic focus: Europe
• Contemporary history must be transnational. Important tendencies to be found in all
or most European countries. European focus offers chance to bring these to the fore
• But also, important differences: West-, South and East-central Europe (in how far
‘real’, in how far ‘mental’). See session on transformation Eastern Europe
• Beyond a teleological history of the EU
• Including dark periods of European history
• Provincializing Europe: keeping dependency of European history always in mind
Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine as an example
• The Return of History? -> Referring to the end of history
• Wars often associated with history
Full-scale invasion of Ukraine as historical caesura
-> In how far is full-scale invasion of Ukraine different from other conflicts?
• Constituting a caesura?
• Impact: biggest flight movement in Europe since 1945, economic impact
• Character of Russian conduct of war
• Historical shifts (political position Germany, questioning of neutral position of
Switzerland, Finland and Sweden)
• ‘Hardening’ of global alliances
• End of postwar. But what is our new epoch?
• ‘Zeitenwende’ - return of military violence – but 2014?
• The revision of European peace order of 1989/91 (or even of 1945)?
• Renewed question of when the second WW did end?
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Practicalities
Toledo
• One folder per session, which contains:
• Text(s) to be read before each session
• Sources (songs, films, short texts) to be read/listened to/watched before each
session
• The slides for each session (uploaded after each session)
• The recording of each session can be accessed via Toledo / Tools / My Media. The
recording will only be accessible for one week after the respective session! There is
no guarantee that sessions will be recorded
Tasks/sources/songs
• Importance of preparing tasks
• Difference sources and literature
• Role of songs: meant as brain teaser, but more: popular music with immense cultural
impact since 1960s (e.g. role in peace movement and formation of youth cultures,
role for political opposition in Communist dictatorships etc.)
• Development of music, new forms of expression (music video, music streaming)
Exam
You need to know
• All texts and sources provided in Toledo. Read texts – (there will be questions
addressing comprehension of texts)
• Content of sessions (notes taken during sessions, slides)
• See also information on exam on Toledo, example questions during course plus trial
exam in April
Example question multiple choice (0,5 points, - 1/3 or 0,5 for wrong answer)
• The war in Ukraine arguably forms a historical caesura because:
a) It is the first armed conflict on European territory since 1945
b) It triggered article 5 of the NATO for the first time
c) It led to a deep political crisis of the EU
d) It is the biggest armed conflict on European territory since 1945 with
economic and humanitarian implications not seen since 1945
• (Basis for exam what has been treated in class)
Example question ‘open question’ (5 points)
• In how far does contemporary history differ from other historical periods (i.e. the
middle ages) and which challenges for historians does this imply?
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