Emancipation of Historical Narratives

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

Calls for decolonization and liberation of history-writing leave open the question of alternatives: what should come instead? Would replacing one national narrative with another have a universal emancipatory effect? Or perhaps history as a narrative should be replaced by exploration of causalities and producing explanations, thereby shifting from understanding history as part of the humanities to revival of history’s identity as part of social sciences? These questions become especially pertinent if one views the result of decolonization and liberation as promoting pluralism rather than cementing a certain hegemonic, theological, and ontological perspective on historical agents and agencies.

In the field of Eurasian imperial and Soviet history the recent call for decolonization and liberation of the narrative is not new. This call comes after nearly three decades of de-centering the narrative of “Russian” history and emancipating the diverse voices from the hegemony of the Russian-centered perspective. One lesson from these decades of research and reflection is that simple pluralization of voices and identities does not fill the void for explanation and narrative, and the substitution of the narrative of the “colonizer” with the narrative of the “colonized” does not produce liberation if the latter narrative advances a nation-centered optics, exclusionary by definition.

The panel brings together scholars who have been tackling the issues outlined above to share their experience and discuss “positive” foundations for multi-vector and critical ̶ explanatory ̶ historical narratives.

Sub Unit

• History: Since 1990

Chair

• Alexander M. Semyonov, Amherst College

Roundtable Members

• Ilya V. Gerasimov, Ab Imperio

• Andrea Graziosi, U of Naples Federico II (Italy)

• Anke Hilbrenner, U of Düsseldorf (Germany)