The Black Cat in the Dark Room
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12424142 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Harry Harootunian (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2005 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 137-155 |
| Publication date | 2005-02-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | positions asia critique (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1067-9847 • E-ISSN: 1527-8271 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/10679847-13-1-137 |
| OpenAlex | W2057344926 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 4 |
In a now famous article published in theAmericanHistorical Review in 1979, the historian Gilbert Allardyce believed he was delivering the final death blow to the category of fascism and its utility in historical and social science scholarship. Allardyce appealed to the metaphor of a black cat in a dark room to convey the proper description of fascism’s actual insubstantiality and invisibility as a reliable historical category, openly declaring the certain conviction that there was nothing to it at all, nothing to find in the dark, empty room. But Allardyce may have stumbled (in the dark) over the cat in question, without actually knowing there was one there. He may have quite inadvertently bumped up against fascism in the dark void and tripped over its role in historical analysis had he not been so prepossessed with cursing the dark rather than feeling his way around.Hemay have found the
Astronomy · Physics · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics
| Citations per year | 0.08 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2014 - 2014 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |