The Politics of Historicization (Ghent Center for Meta and Public History Inaugural Lecture Series, 2026)

 

The lecture series is organised by the Ghent Center for Meta- and Public History, which is located at the Department of History at Ghent University. We are an interdisciplinary group of researchers committed to the critical study of how societies engage with the past. We investigate the ways in which individuals, communities, organizations and institutions construct, interpret and mobilize history in diverse societies – both in the present and across time. Our new webpage will be online soon!

Extended abstract

Historicization—the treatment of an object, idea or phenomenon as historical—is often regarded as the fundamental act of historiography and, more broadly, of historical thinking (Most 2001; Baumstark and Forkel 2016). Ever since the professionalization of the discipline in the nineteenth century, historians historicize: they posit a ‘distance’ between past and present, place ideas within their proper historical ‘context’, and give order to the past through narrative. This way of relating to the world has become deeply ingrained—not only in academic historiography and other historically oriented disciplines such as archaeology, art history, linguistics, sociology, law, science and technology studies, and religious studies, but also as a broader ‘cultural pattern’ (Fulda 2010) permeating contemporary societies. 

Historicization—and its cognate, historicism, the worldview that understands reality as a historical process while rejecting extra-temporal truths or eternal values—has long been celebrated. Karl Mannheim (1952), for instance, called historicism the most significant intellectual revolution of the past centuries, and the possession of a reflexive ‘historical consciousness’ has frequently been taken to mark the threshold between the modern and the premodern. 

In a more tempered register, contemporary thinkers have continued to associate historicization with a range of social and political goods. It has, for example, been credited with facilitating democratic dialogue, as in Arie Wilschut’s (2024) claim that a historicized notion of time —one that foregrounds change, contingency, and open-endedness—is essential to democratic life. Similarly, historicization has been credited with safeguarding against authoritarianism and enabling social, cultural, and political critique. Henry Rousso (1998), for example, equates historicization with ‘liberation’ because it politically emancipates the present by putting the past ‘at a distance’ and rejecting the idea that people are determined by their pasts.  

Yet, alongside this ongoing praise, there has always been skepticism—and, at times, outright rejection—of the idea that historicization is inherently benevolent or beneficial. Ever since Nietzsche’s warning that too much, or the wrong type, of history can be “disadvantageous for life,” critiques have persisted. These critiques arise from diverse and sometimes contradictory positions: at times accusing historicization of fostering cultural relativism, at others of imposing an imperialist universalism; sometimes viewing it as corrosive of tradition, at other times as conservative and stifling of political imagination. 

One of the oldest and most enduring concerns is that historicization leads to moral or cultural relativism —that it undermines religious or ethical foundations, as articulated in early twentieth-century 20th debates on the “crisis of historicism,” or that it erodes the communal identities sustained unifying historical myths, as lamented by (ultra-) nationalists since the interwar period.  

Since the 1960s, critiques have also turned to the narrative and stylistic dimensions of history writing. Hayden White (1966) argued that dominant ‘realist’ modes of historical narration often have conservative and anti-utopian effects, domesticating or ‘desublimating’ history and thereby constraining political imagination. In the late 1980s, the Historikerstreit placed the ethico-political implications of historicization (‘Historisierung’) at the center of public debate, as Saul Friedländer (1988) warned that a ‘distanced’ approach to the Holocaust risked moral normalization or ‘Verharmlosung’. 

More recent critiques have expanded these concerns. In search of moral orientation and new senses of belonging, policy makers, activists and academics alike have increasingly turned to memorialization, memory education and canonization rather than historicization. Post-secular thinkers have claimed that historicist worldviews are underpinned by a secular bias (Gregory 2006). Postcolonial scholars contend that the very practice of historicization is a Western construct that enabled colonial domination (Chakrabarty 2000; Satia 2020) and according to more radical voices remains culturally alien to non-Western cultures. 

Within disciplines typically committed to historicist approaches, we find growing impatience with the ethical, political and epistemic limits of historicization. Literary critics for example, have spoken of the “poverty of historicism” (Heffernan 2016); while queer theorists have called for “unhistorical” relations to the past (Traub 2013; Menon 2008).  

Even among historians debates around presentism and the value of historical analogies (Armitage 2023; Steinmetz-Jenkins, 2023), the limits of historical contextualization (Gordon 2014) plea’s for a critical revaluation of anachronism (Tomba 2025) or of “the judgment of history” (Scott) all signal an increasing unease with the discipline’s foundational assumptions. 

Together, these discussions raise pressing questions: 

  • What does it mean to historicize an idea, or phenomenon? And is it typically modern?  
  • What political, ethical, or cultural values does historicization promote and which does it obscure or suppress? 
  • When does historicization serve as a tool of critique, emancipation, or democracy – and when does it constrain political imagination or moral judgment? 

This lecture series seeks to explore these questions by reflecting on the politics of historization: its promises, affordances and critiques. Taking inspiration from Nietzsche’s On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, we ask when historicization merely serves to “whitewash a selfish life and cowardly, bad acts,” or to indulge in “idling in the garden of knowledge” (Nietzsche 1980 [1874], 7), and when it instead furthers justice, fosters belonging, inspires hope, or nurtures new political imaginations? 

Alongside the lectures, a monthly reading group at Ghent University (with the option to participate online) will create a space for sustained collective reflection on these themes. 

Planned Lectures

Spring Semester 2026

  1. What is Historicization? (12 February 2026, 12:30-14:00, Library Lab Loveling)
    Kenan Van de Mieroop (Universiteit Leiden)
    Exploring the conceptual foundations and genealogies of historicization as a mode of thought. 
  2. History as Destruction (26 February 2026, 15:00-17:00, Library Lab Loveling) with the Sarton Centre for the History of Sciences and Humanities
    Katherina Kinzel (Universiteit Utrecht)
    Exploring the critiques of historicization as destructive set of operations.     
  3. Historicization, Testimony and Epistemic Justice (20 March 2026, 12:30-14:00, Malpertuis UFO)
    Jonas Ahlskog (Åbo Akademi University)
    On the ethical and epistemological dimensions of historicizing experience and witnessing.     
  4. Koselleck and the Historicization of Historicism (24 April 2026, 12:30-14:00, Library Lab Loveling)
    Fernando Esposito (Universität Kostanz).
  5. Historicizing Gender (13 May 2026, 12:30-14:00, Library Lab Loveling)
    María Inés La Greca (National University of Tres de Febrero; Universidad de Buenos Aires)
    On historicization and embodiment in feminist and queer historical theory.     
  6. Historicization and the Legitimacy of Democracy (26 June 2026, 12:30-14:00, Library Lab Loveling)
    Irène Herrman (Université de Génève)
    How historicization has been mobilized to promote, defend, or question democratic ideals/practices/institutions.     

 

Almost all lectures take place at Libary Lab Loveling, inside the Library of the the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Rozier 44, 9000 Ghent. A map of the library can be found here. The third lecture takes place in the Malpertuis room on the third floor of the UFO, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 35, 9000 Ghent.  

The Teams link to the meetings is: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3a8f4debb79a534f258578a699bf455bde%40thread.tacv2/1706616293579?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22d7811cde-ecef-496c-8f91-a1786241b99c%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%221358e6b3-a7d4-440e-af99-ace80903fa52%22%7d. 

Planned Reading Groups

Spring Semester 2026

  1. The historiographical operation (6 February 2026, 15:30-16:30, Malpertuis UFO)
    De Certeau, Michel. ‘The Historiographical Operation’ in The Writing of History. Translated by Tom Conlet. Columbia University Press, 1992. Text here. French version here.
  2. Periodization and sovereignty (13 March 2026, 15:30-16:30, Malpertuis UFO)
    Davis, Kathleen. Periodization and Sovereignty: How Ideas of Feudalism and Secularization Govern the Politics of Time. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Text here.
  3. Unhistoricism in queer studies (8 May 2026, 15:30-16:30, Malpertuis UFO)
    Friedlander, Ari. ‘Desiring History and Historicizing Desire’. Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 16, nr. 2 (2016): 1-20. Text here.
  4. Contextualism (5 June 2026, 15:30-16:30, Malpertuis UFO)
    Gordon, Peter E. “Contextualism and Criticism in the History of Ideas.” In Rethinking Modern European Intellectual History, edited by Darrin M. McMahon and Samuel Moyn. OUP USA, 2014.  Text here.

The Teams link to the meetings is: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3a8f4debb79a534f258578a699bf455bde%40thread.tacv2/1706616293579?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22d7811cde-ecef-496c-8f91-a1786241b99c%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%221358e6b3-a7d4-440e-af99-ace80903fa52%22%7d.

Organisers 

The lecture series is organised by the Ghent Center for Meta- and Public History, which is located at the Department of History at Ghent University. We are an interdisciplinary group of researchers committed to the critical study of how societies engage with the past. We investigate the ways in which individuals, communities, organizations and institutions construct, interpret and mobilize history in diverse societies – both in the present and across time. Our new webpage will be online soon!

The coordination of the lecture series is done by Berber Bevernage (Professor in Theory of History, berber.bevernage@ugent.be) and Marie-Gabrielle Verbergt (FWO—Research Foundation Flanders Postdoctoral Researcher, mariegabrielle.verbergt@ugent.be). Please contact us if you have any questions. 

Extended bibliography 

  • Armitage, David. ‘In Defense of Presentism’. In History and Human Flourishing, edited by Darrin McMahon. Oxford U.P., 2023. 
  • Baumstark, Moritz, and Robert Forkel. “Was Ist Historisierung? Einführende Überlegungen Zum Begriff.” In Historisierung: Begriff – Geschichte – Praxisfelder, edited by Moritz Baumstark and Robert Forkel. J.B. Metzler, 2016. 
  • Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference – New Edition. Princeton University Press, 2000. 
  • Gregory, Brad S. ‘The other confessional history: on secular bias in the study of religion’. History and Theory 45, nr. 4 (2006): 132-49. 
  • Friedlander, Ari. ‘Desiring History and Historicizing Desire’. Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 16, nr. 2 (2016): 1-20. 
  • Fulda, Daniel. “Historicism as a Cultural Pattern: Practising a Mode of Thought.” Journal of the Philosophy of History 4, no. 2 (2010): 138–53. 
  • Gordon, Peter E. “Contextualism and Criticism in the History of Ideas.” In Rethinking Modern European Intellectual History, edited by Darrin M. McMahon and Samuel Moyn. OUP USA, 2014.  
  • Heffernan, Julián Jiménez. “‘Beyond This Ignorant Present’: The Poverty of Historicism in Macbeth.” Palgrave Communications 2, no. 1 (2016).  
  • Mannheim, Karl. ‘Historicism’. In Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge. Oxford University Press, 1952. 
  • Menon, M. Unhistorical Shakespeare: Queer Theory in Shakespearean Literature and Film. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 
  • Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life [Von Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben, 1874]. Translated by Peter Preuss. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1980. 
  • Rousso, Henry. La hantisse du passé: entretien avec Philippe Petit (Paris: Les éditions Textuel, 1998). 
  • Satia, Priya. Time’s Monster: History, Conscience and Britain’s Empire. Penguin UK, 2020.  
  • Scott, Joan Wallach. On the Judgment of History. Columbia University Press, 2020. 
  • Seth, Sanjay. “Reason or Reasoning? Clio or Siva?” Social Text 22, no. 1 (2004): 85–101. 
  • Steinmetz-Jenkins, Daniel. ‘Introduction: Whose Present? Which History?’ Modern Intellectual History 20, no. 2 (June 2023): 559–70. 
  • Tomba, Massimiliano. Revolution and Restoration: The Politics of Anachronism. Fordham University Press, 2025. 
  • Traub, Valerie. ‘The New Unhistoricism in Queer Studies’. PMLA 128, nr. 1 (2013): 21–39.  
  • White, Hayden. ‘The Burden of History’. History and Theory 5, nr. 2 (1966): 111-34.  
  • Wilschut, Arie. ‘Historical Consciousness and Democracy’. In Research Handbook on Curriculum and Education, ed. Elizabeth Rata. ElgarOnline, 2024.