Description
Book SynopsisIn the last decades, there has been an intense debate on the relationship between literature and historiography, often linked to the debate between “empiricists” and “postmodernists”. The aim of this collective work is to address this debate, and to search for new ways of thinking and encountering the past. The key note for the book comes from Hayden White, one of the leading academic figures, whose role in launching the contemporary history/literature debate has been crucial. It is followed by three critical readings of his work, all suggesting new ways to apply or challenge his views. In other chapters of the book, history / literature question is then addressed from three points of view: narrativity, history as literature, and literature as history. Tropes for the Past is an ideal introduction to the literature/historiography debate and Hayden White’s role in it. It will be of use for all students and scholars in the philosophy of history and in historically oriented literary, cultural, and social studies.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Kuisma KORHONEN: General Introduction: The History/Literature Debate I Hayden White and Textuality of History Introduction to Part I Hayden WHITE: Historical Discourse and Literary Writing Herman PAUL: An Ironic Battle against Irony: Epistemological and Ideological Irony in Hayden White’s Philosophy of History,1955-1973 Stanley CORKIN and Phyllis FRUS: History and Textuality: Film and the Modernist Event Kalle PIHLAINEN: The Confines of the Form: Historical Writing and the Desire that It Be what It Is Not II Narrativity Introduction to Part II Karl-Heinz STIERLE: Narrativization of the World Matti HYVÄRINEN: Life as Sequence and Narrative: Hayden White Meets Paul Auster III History as Literature Introduction to Part III Andrew BURRELL: Narratives of the Fake: The Collected Object, Personal Histories and Constructed Memory Fiona MCINTOSH-VARJABÉDIAN: Probability and Persuasion in 18th-Century and 19th-Century Historical Writing Claire NORTON : Fiction or Non-fiction? Ottoman Accounts of the Siege of Nagykanizsa IV Literature as History Introduction to Part IV Markku LEHTIMÄKI: History as a Crazy House: Norman Mailer, Hayden White, and the Representation of the Modernist Event Olabode IBIRONKE: Monumental Time in Caribbean Literature Lara OKIHIRO: Divergence and Confluence: Mapping the Streams of Hiroshima Notes on Contributors
