Search

The narrative theory of history that studies historical works from the viewpoint of their narrative, rhetorical devices, and ideological strategies highly emphasized the necessity of renewing historiography. In his early essays, the trend’s founding father, Hayden White, positioned history between art and science or fiction and reality and defined the role of historical theory as a kind of “critical historiography” that is both a criticism of actual historical works and a prescriptive theoretical approach with which the contemporary historical discipline can reform itself. This renewal basically meant a formal reorganization with which the historical works and the historical discipline itself could come closer to literature by using narrative methods and rhetorical devices of recent literary works and films. However, after the 1990s, White and his followers had to face some radical problems that compelled them to rethink the role of recent historiography and their theoretical positions as well. Firstly, the so-called “new” historiography did not actually come into existence, or at least not in a way they suggested. Secondly, new forms of “unofficial” history, from varieties of public history through conspiracy theories to contemporary historical fictions, forced to reconceptualize the task of historical theory and its approach to the social and ideological functions of “official” history. Analysing some recently published works of this trend (above all, Hayden White’s concept of “modernist event” and his distinction between two forms of the past, theoretical and practical), my essay tries to define the situation of historical theory among the forms of contemporary historical experience.

Copyright of Porównania / Comparisons. A Journal on Comparative Literature & Interdisciplinary Studies is the property of Adam Mickiewicz University Poznao, Press of "Poznanskie Studia Polonistyczne" and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The essay studies the questions and problems of the obedient citizen in the US in the 1960s. It points out those cultural fields where the topic of obedience appeared besides the most famous and often analysed examples (e.g., the Eichmann Trial, the book of Hannah Arendt, and the social-psychological experiments of Stanley Milgram). Studying the cultural and historical background of the Milgram experiments, this essay aims to analyse the influence of the memory of Nazism and the Holocaust, the Cold War political background, the civil rights movements, and the Vietnam War on popular understandings and interpretations of the obedient mentality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]