Allan Megill
Biographic Data
| ID | 449886 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Allan Megill |
| GIVEN NAMES | Allan |
| FAMILY NAME | Megill |
| SIGNATURE | MEGILL A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Virginia |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0159-9273 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 54 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 91 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 54 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1972 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Claiming the People's Past: Populist Politics of History in the Twenty-First Century
This book offers a global and systematic overview of populist politics of history in the twenty-first century. An international group of scholars interrogates how and why populists engage with the past. Twelve case studies focus on uses of history and memory by populist movements across the globe – ranging from Brazil to Bangladesh, from Poland to Tanzania. Five thematic chapters zoom in on key features of populism: its relation to time, national…
Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida
History’s unresolving tensions: Reality and implications
A prominent but often neglected feature of historical representation is the presence within it of ‘tensions’ of a sort that cannot be resolved within the limits of historical representation itself. This unresolvability is most readily seen when historians aim to be cognitively responsible in their work and when they are sufficiently skilled and self-aware to be so. Its wider implications have been largely invisible. This article argues that histo…
Epilogue: On the Current and Future State of Historical Writing
This epilogue argues that historians ought to be able to produce a universal history, one that would ‘cover’ the past of humankind ‘as a whole’. However, aside from the always increasing difficulty of mastering the factual material that such an undertaking requires, there exists another difficulty: the coherence of universal history always presupposes an initial decision not to write about the human past in all its multiplicity, but to focus on o…
Misrepresenting Marx: A Lesson in Historical Method
In this book Jonathan Sperber deploys his extensive knowledge of nineteenth-century European social and political history, and his diligent research into sources that have become readily available only recently, to produce a substantial biography of Karl Marx. We find, however, that Sperber is mistaken in his treatment of Marx's ideas and of the intellectual contexts within which Marx worked. In fact, we suggest that he is systematically mistaken…
Theological presuppositions of the evolutionary epic: From Robert Chambers to E. O. Wilson
"Big History" Old and New: Presuppositions, Limits, Alternatives
In recent years David Christian and others have promoted "Big History" as an innovative approach to the study of the past. The present paper juxtaposes to Big History an old Big History, namely, the tradition of "universal history" that flourished in Europe from the mid-sixteenth century until well into the nineteenth century. The claim to universality of works in that tradition depended on the assumed truth of Christianity, a fact that was fully…
Questions on the history of ideas and its neighbours
The authors discuss the history and current orientation of intellectual history, the history of ideas, and related fields, primarily focusing on the USA. Two past phases are identified: an early phase, ca. 1940 to the 1960s, which emphasised the analysis of past 'articulate ideas', or theories, with varying degrees of contextualisation, and a reorientation in the 1970s–1980s toward a focus on 'culture', 'meaning', and 'discourse', accompanied by …
History, Theoreticism, and the Limits of "The Postsecular"1
In this collection of critical essays, Dominick LaCapra, with characteristic verve, takes on a variety of authors who have addressed issues relating to intellectual history, history generally, violence, trauma, and the relation between the human and the animal. LaCapra offers two types of criticism-of historians for ignoring or misappropriating theory, and of theorists for engaging in "theoreticism," a theorizing that rides roughshod over histori…
Five questions on intellectual history
Responding to questions posed by Mikkel Thorup (University of Aarhus), I recount how I was drawn to intellectual history by its breadth of concern and its relative epistemological modesty. I characterise it is as less a subfield of history than an interdisciplinary field aimed at clarifying problems and calling attention to limits. I reject the view that it ought to follow a single ‘proper’ approach: various approaches can be justified. I suggest…
History, Historians, and Autobiography (review)
Reviewed by: History, Historians, and Autobiography Allan Megill (bio) Jeremy D. Popkin . History, Historians, and Autobiography. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2005. 328 pp. ISBN 0-226-67543-2, $35.00. A book on "historians' autobiography" is a bit unexpected. To be sure, many historians take an interest in the autobiographies of their fellow historians. If the present reviewer is any indication, historians typically give passing attention to the auto…
Globalization and the History of Ideas
The history of ideas is an interdisciplinary field that began as an offshoot of the history of philosophy and was transformed by notions of perspective and cultural context drawn from the tradition of historical studies. The result is the practice of intellectual history, which has been carried out between the poles of inquiry commonly known as internalist and externalist, corresponding to mental phenomena and collective behavior in cultural surr…
The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences
Intellectual History and History
In 'Tropisms of Intellectual History' LaCapra highlights a tension between intellectual history and the historical discipline generally. This tension is in part a result of intellectual history's status as an interdisciplinary field. But it also results from historians' too-quick dismissal of the notion that 'ideas' (ethical, juridical, religious, philosophical, aesthetic) can play any sort of significant role in history. LaCapra's insistence on …
Coherence and Incoherence in Historical Studies: From the Annales School to the New Cultural History
In the mid-twentieth century the prominent Annales school historians Lucien Febvre and Fernand Braudel advocated a unified, "total" history. Their efforts in this direction did not meet with success, and have been superseded by the efforts of some practitioners of "social" and "new cultural" history to impose one or another "paradigm" on historical research and writing. Such efforts are misguided. Typically, if they are not simply cynical grabs f…
The Return of the Tragic in Postmodern Societies
In this translation from his recent book, L'Instant ternel: Le retour du tragique dans les soci t s postmodernes, Michel Maffesol develops a diagnosis of the present that draws on the earlier arguments of The Shadow of Dionysus, The Time of the Tribes, and other works. According to Maffesoli, the project of modernity, defined as a future-oriented faith in individual development and political transformation, is reaching its end. Against those who …
Two Para-Historical Approaches to Atrocity
Books reviewed in this article:Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth CenturyErna Paris, Long Shadows: Truth, Lies, and History
Imagining the History of Ideas
Imagining the History of ideas
History, memory, identity
The present paper examines certain salient features of the his tory-memory-identity relation. The common feature underpinning most contemporary manifestations of the memory craze seems to be an insecurity about identity, an insecurity that generates an excessive pre occupation with 'memory'. In the face of memory's valorization, what should be the attitude of the historian? At the present moment there is a pathetic and sometimes tragic conflict b…
On the edge of the cliff: History, language, and practices
Why Was There a Crisis of Historicism
Book reviewed in this article: Heidegger, Dilthey, and the Crisis of Historicism By Charles R. Bambach
Historicizing Nietzsche? Paradoxes and Lessons of a Hard Case Nietzsche Contra Rousseau: A Study of Nietzsche's Moral and Politicial Thought . Keith Ansell-Pearson The Neitzche Legacy in Germany, 1890…
History as an Art of Memory
Relativism, or the different senses of objectivity
History, memory, identity
The present paper examines certain salient features of the his tory-memory-identity relation. The common feature underpinning most contemporary manifestations of the memory craze seems to be an insecurity about identity, an insecurity that generates an excessive pre occupation with 'memory'. In the face of memory's valorization, what should be the attitude of the historian? At the present moment there is a pathetic and sometimes tragic conflict b…
Recounting the Past: “Description,” Explanation, and Narrative in Historiography
Journal Article Recounting the Past: “Description,” Explanation, and Narrative in Historiography Get access Allan Megill Allan Megill Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 94, Issue 3, June 1989, Pages 627–653, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/94.3.627 Published: 01 June 1989
The Reception of Foucault by Historians
Rhetoric of inquiry: Projects and prospects
This essay reports the historical and philosophical reasoning behind the rhetoric of inquiry, an interdisciplinary enterprise designed to enhance the relations among the arts and sciences and clarify the actual practice of scholarship
Foucault, Structuralism, and the Ends of History
Coherence and Incoherence in Historical Studies: From the Annales School to the New Cultural History
In the mid-twentieth century the prominent Annales school historians Lucien Febvre and Fernand Braudel advocated a unified, "total" history. Their efforts in this direction did not meet with success, and have been superseded by the efforts of some practitioners of "social" and "new cultural" history to impose one or another "paradigm" on historical research and writing. Such efforts are misguided. Typically, if they are not simply cynical grabs f…
"Big History" Old and New: Presuppositions, Limits, Alternatives
In recent years David Christian and others have promoted "Big History" as an innovative approach to the study of the past. The present paper juxtaposes to Big History an old Big History, namely, the tradition of "universal history" that flourished in Europe from the mid-sixteenth century until well into the nineteenth century. The claim to universality of works in that tradition depended on the assumed truth of Christianity, a fact that was fully…
The Return of the Tragic in Postmodern Societies
In this translation from his recent book, L'Instant ternel: Le retour du tragique dans les soci t s postmodernes, Michel Maffesol develops a diagnosis of the present that draws on the earlier arguments of The Shadow of Dionysus, The Time of the Tribes, and other works. According to Maffesoli, the project of modernity, defined as a future-oriented faith in individual development and political transformation, is reaching its end. Against those who …
Jorn Rusen's Theory of Historiography between Modernism and Rhetoric of Inquiry
L'A. etudie dans un premier temps la theorie de Rusen sur l'historiographie avec notamment son concept de «matrice disciplinaire». Apres avoir replace ce projet dans son contexte de l'Allemagne des annees 1960-1970, il propose une revision de celui-ci pour permettre a la theorie de Rusen d'etre plus adaptee au pluralisme culturel contemporain
History’s unresolving tensions: Reality and implications
A prominent but often neglected feature of historical representation is the presence within it of ‘tensions’ of a sort that cannot be resolved within the limits of historical representation itself. This unresolvability is most readily seen when historians aim to be cognitively responsible in their work and when they are sufficiently skilled and self-aware to be so. Its wider implications have been largely invisible. This article argues that histo…
Misrepresenting Marx: A Lesson in Historical Method
In this book Jonathan Sperber deploys his extensive knowledge of nineteenth-century European social and political history, and his diligent research into sources that have become readily available only recently, to produce a substantial biography of Karl Marx. We find, however, that Sperber is mistaken in his treatment of Marx's ideas and of the intellectual contexts within which Marx worked. In fact, we suggest that he is systematically mistaken…
History, Theoreticism, and the Limits of "The Postsecular"1
In this collection of critical essays, Dominick LaCapra, with characteristic verve, takes on a variety of authors who have addressed issues relating to intellectual history, history generally, violence, trauma, and the relation between the human and the animal. LaCapra offers two types of criticism-of historians for ignoring or misappropriating theory, and of theorists for engaging in "theoreticism," a theorizing that rides roughshod over histori…
Five questions on intellectual history
Responding to questions posed by Mikkel Thorup (University of Aarhus), I recount how I was drawn to intellectual history by its breadth of concern and its relative epistemological modesty. I characterise it is as less a subfield of history than an interdisciplinary field aimed at clarifying problems and calling attention to limits. I reject the view that it ought to follow a single ‘proper’ approach: various approaches can be justified. I suggest…
Intellectual History and History
In 'Tropisms of Intellectual History' LaCapra highlights a tension between intellectual history and the historical discipline generally. This tension is in part a result of intellectual history's status as an interdisciplinary field. But it also results from historians' too-quick dismissal of the notion that 'ideas' (ethical, juridical, religious, philosophical, aesthetic) can play any sort of significant role in history. LaCapra's insistence on …
Two Para-Historical Approaches to Atrocity
Books reviewed in this article:Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth CenturyErna Paris, Long Shadows: Truth, Lies, and History
Why Was There a Crisis of Historicism
Book reviewed in this article: Heidegger, Dilthey, and the Crisis of Historicism By Charles R. Bambach
Fragmentation and the Future of Historiography
Journal Article Fragmentation and the Future of Historiography Get access Allan Megill Allan Megill Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 96, Issue 3, June 1991, Pages 693–698, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/96.3.693 Published: 01 June 1991
Foucault, ambiguity, and the rhetoric of historiography
Aesthetic Theory and Historical Consciousness in the Eighteenth Century
The distinction between a mainstream tradition in the historical thought of the eighteenth century, which eighteenth-century usage allows us to designate as philosophical history, and a counterpoint tradition, which recent convention allows us to designate as historism, has become an accepted feature in the interpretation of eighteenth-century historical thought. ' I take this distinction to be a valid one. Admittedly, there are some aspects of e…
Theory and Experience in Adam Smith
J. S. Mill's Religion of Humanity and the Second Justification for the Writing of On Liberty
J. S. Mill's Religion of Humanity and the Second Justification for the Writing of On Liberty
Theory and Experience in Adam Smith
Aesthetic Theory and Historical Consciousness in the Eighteenth Century
The distinction between a mainstream tradition in the historical thought of the eighteenth century, which eighteenth-century usage allows us to designate as philosophical history, and a counterpoint tradition, which recent convention allows us to designate as historism, has become an accepted feature in the interpretation of eighteenth-century historical thought. ' I take this distinction to be a valid one. Admittedly, there are some aspects of e…
Foucault, Structuralism, and the Ends of History
Nietzsche as Aestheticist
Allan Megill NIETZSCHE AS AESTHETICIST IF IN modern art the question of the ontological status of art has become central to art itself, so that in the guise of Duchamp's urinal and Warhol's Brillo boxes art has become philosophical, then surely in certain quarters something of the opposite movement has also been occurring. I am thinking here of such writers as Foucault, Derrida, and (in his "later" phase) Heidegger, with whom philosophy, in a sen…
La semiotique des encyclopedistes: Essai d'epistemologie historique des sciences du langage . Sylvain Auroux Grammaire et philosophie au siecle des lumieres: Controverses sur l'ordre naturel et la cla…
Recent Writing on Michel Foucault
The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture
Theories of the Symbol
The Rhetoric of Economics
Rhetoric of inquiry: Projects and prospects
This essay reports the historical and philosophical reasoning behind the rhetoric of inquiry, an interdisciplinary enterprise designed to enhance the relations among the arts and sciences and clarify the actual practice of scholarship
The Rhetoric of the human sciences: Language and Argument in Scholarship and Public Affairs
Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn: The Autonomy of Meaning and the Irreducibility of Experience
The Identity of American Neo-Pragmatism; or, Why Vico Now
Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida
The Reception of Foucault by Historians
The Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida
Spirit in Ashes: Hegel, Heidegger, and Man-made Mass Death. Edith Wyschogrod
Academic Writing as Social Practice
Reflections on History and Historians
History as a field of learning is in a state of crisis. It has lost much of its influence in institutions of higher learning and its place in public esteem. Historians have, in large part, lost touch with the intelligent lay reader and with the undergraduate college student. History's value to society is being questioned. In this work, a distinguished historian views the profession to which he has been devoted for more than thirty years. Theodore…
Recounting the Past: “Description,” Explanation, and Narrative in Historiography
Journal Article Recounting the Past: “Description,” Explanation, and Narrative in Historiography Get access Allan Megill Allan Megill Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 94, Issue 3, June 1989, Pages 627–653, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/94.3.627 Published: 01 June 1989
Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida
Foucault, ambiguity, and the rhetoric of historiography
Fragmentation and the Future of Historiography
Journal Article Fragmentation and the Future of Historiography Get access Allan Megill Allan Megill Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 96, Issue 3, June 1991, Pages 693–698, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/96.3.693 Published: 01 June 1991
Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France . Judith P. Butler Knowing and History: Appropriations of Hegel in Twentieth-Century France . Michael S. Roth
Philosophy (41 works) · Epistemology (37 works) · History (27 works) · Art (20 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Literature (16 works) · History (15 works) · Law (15 works) · Philosophy (14 works) · Political science (14 works)