Conference: Melancholic Historicity – Lost Pasts and Past Losses
On 29, 30 and 31 October, the Melancholic Historicity: Lost Pasts and Past Losses conference will explore a ‘melancholic’ approach to historicity. What does such a conception, that is oriented around experiences of loss, destruction, and defeat, look like?
The past as a site of continuous unease
Recent reconceptualisations of historicity – or the fact that we are historical beings – have challenged the modern ideal of progress. Most notably in the work of Walter Benjamin and related thinkers, historical experiences of loss and destruction have been foregrounded.
These ‘melancholic’ approaches question the assumption that history unfolds as a continuous movement in which past suffering is redeemed by future advancement. Instead of a dead or completed past that is successfully overcome by the present, they envision the past as a site of continuous unease and questioning within the present itself. Forgotten, suppressed, or destroyed pasts unsettle the present and expose its complicity in the ongoing reproduction of loss.
This conference explores questions such as: what does it mean to think historically from a standpoint that refuses to forget or ‘accept’ historical losses? One that interrupts linear temporality and breaks with the perpetuation of historical violence in the present? What constitutes a philosophically fruitful attitude to lost pasts (the pasts that have been forgotten, suppressed) and past losses (past experiences of loss, injustice and defeat haunting the present)? And what is the political valence of different attempts at confronting lost pasts and past losses?
The Melancholic Historicity: Lost Pasts and Past Losses conference is organised by Katherina Kinzel and Robert Vinkesteijn. The Descartes Centre for the History and Philosophy of Sciences and Humanities is co-financing this event.
- Start date and time
- End date and time
- Location
- TBA, Utrecht University
- Registration
Please contact Robert Vinkesteijn: r.w.vinkesteijn@uu.nl