Rethinking period boundaries : new approaches to continuity and discontinuity in modern European history and culture / edited by Lucian George and Jade McGlynn.
Publisher:
De Gruyter Oldenbourg,
Copyright Date:
2022
Description:
vi, 258 pages : illustrations (some in colour) ; 24 cm
Epilogue Some problems in historical and literary periodization / Ritchie Robertson. History seems different from the shop floor. a micro-historical challenge to established Caesurae in the history of 20th-century Poland: transwar continuities in Żyrardów / Jan A. Burek -- Rumours of re-enserfment, anti-feudal identities and "folk periodization": the memory of serfdom in early 20th-century Galicia / Lucian George -- L'homme au couteau entre les dents and Les classes dangereuses: A "transwar" perspective on continuities in French anticommunist discourse / Aaron Clift -- Crossing borders and period boundaries in Central European art: the work of Anna Lesznai (ca. 1910-1930) / Julia Secklehner -- "Periodizations" in intellectual history: on the plurality of continuities in the public debates of post-war Poland / Aleksei Lokhmatov -- A "product of a certain social milieu" and a "genius": analogies and continuities between pre- and post-revolutionary debates on Dante in Russia / Alessia Benedetti -- Continuing traditions: National Days in Czechoslovakia and Hungary during the 20th century / Andrea Talabér Epilogue Some problems in historical and literary periodization / Ritchie Robertson.
Summary:
"Periodization is an ever-present feature of the grammar of history-writing. As with all grammatical rules, the order it imposes can structure but also stifle historical interpretations. Though few historians consider their period boundaries as anything more than useful guidelines, heuristic artifice all too easily congeals into immovable structure, blinkering the historical gaze. In this cross-disciplinary volume, an international group of historians and cultural scholars considers different ways in which accepted period boundaries in modern European history and cultural studies can be challenged and rethought. Alongside a theoretical introduction and epilogue, the volume contains seven case studies exploring hitherto under-researched continuities and discontinuities in the social, cultural, intellectual, literary, labour and art history of 19th- and 20th-century Europe, with a particular focus on the continent's East. Topics covered include French anti-communism, peasant memories of serfdom, cosmopolitan art in a nationalist age, the communist takeover of Poland, Russian literary history, and national day traditions in East-Central Europe. To problematize period boundaries, the chapters in this volume adopt the perspective of social groups that standard periodization schemes have ignored; shine a light on 'awkward' actors who have appeared out of step with canonical understandings of their period; consider how historical actors themselves divide up history and how this informs historical practice; and explore the difficulties that the non-synchronicity of different historical processes can pose for periodization. "-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.