Histories

This paper considers and analyses the idea propounded by Iain McGilchrist that the foundation of Western rationalism is the dominance of the left side of the brain and that this occurred first in ancient Greece. It argues that the transformation that occurred in Greece, as part of a more widespread transformation that is sometimes termed the Axial Age, was, at least in part, connected to the emergence of literacy which transformed the workings of the human brain. This transformation was not uniform and took different forms in different civilisations, including China and India. The emergence of what Donald terms a “theoretic” culture or what can also be called “rationalism” is best understood in terms of transformations in language, including the transition from poetry to prose and the separation of word and thing. Hence, the development of theoretic culture in Greece is best understood in terms of the particularity of Greek cultural development. This transition both created aporias, as exemplified by the opposition between the ontologies of “being” and “becoming”, and led to the eventual victory of theoretic culture that established the hegemony of the left side of the brain. Full article

“Time” and “temporality” are difficult and central notions for historical scholarship. They exist in many varieties, which renders generalizations challenging. An interesting attempt has been made by US-scholar William H. Sewell in his Logics of History. Social Theory and Social Transformation (2005). He qualifies historical temporality as fateful, contingent, complex, eventful, and heterogeneous. It is rare for a historian to be so explicit. Sewell was inspired by discussions with sociologists and anthropologists during his transition from social to cultural history in the 1980 and 1990s. This article examines the question whether and how the change of the intellectual environment impacted the theoretical outcome. Are Sewell’s attributes to historical temporality plausible for historical scholarship in general, or do they reflect the boundary work of a particular group? Full article

The launch, at the time of a global pandemic that has dramatically altered the way academics teach and do research, of a new peer-reviewed, open-access history journal is twice welcome—for it manifests the continuing ability of the discipline of history to make sense of the time and world in which we live as well as its endurance in increasingly science-oriented academia [...] Full article

What is “normal” does not leave major traces. The historiography on colonial Andes is mostly based on trials and petitions, the most detailed sources that historians have to reconstruct the lives of indigenous people, since they include at least part of their voices. However, they show the perspective of native authorities, of exceptional people who wrote or initiated trials, or of people during special conjunctures, such as the rebellions. With this case, I propose sources that show the traces of the normal, especially the traces left in those places where native authorities were not important, where trials were just a few or limited to some specific events, or where the “moral economy” was not altered. Full article