Historical Explanation and the Event

Reflections on the Limits of Contextualization

Bibliographic Data

ID4955334
AuthorsMartin Jay (corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume42
Issue4
Pages557-571
Publication date2011-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Literary History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0028-6087 • E-ISSN: 1080-661X
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/nlh.2011.0043
OpenAlexW1993350093
LanguageEN
Citations received33
References cited13

Contextualization has become the reigning shibboleth of historical analysis, especially for intellectual and cultural history. Although acknowledging the achievements of the Cambridge School of historians, led by Quentin Skinner, who have done so much to promote awareness of the need to situate texts in their original illocutionary contexts, this essays explores two critical responses. The first focuses on challenges to contemporary historians to establish the relevant explanatory contexts without bringing to bear current perspectives and knowledge of developments after the original period. The second turns to the events themselves and draws on recent French theory, in particular the phenomenological work of Claude Romano, to question whether all historical phenomena can be understood by situating them in their generative contexts

Contextualization · European Political History Analysis · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence

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