Vita magistra historiae? Life experience and meanings of the past


Published: Jul 17, 2016
Keywords:
Historical Experience Autobiography Meaning Teleology German History
Rolf Petri
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8745-910X
Abstract

The article tackles the question of how the historian’s personal experience interacts with professional choices. To assess in an experimental manner the methodological reach of autobiographical narration, the author considers his own case. In a first step he narrates how he was politicised in the 1970s and what history had to do with it. In a second step he reflects on his early professional activities and ponders how the turning point of 1989 interfered with his changing interests in the past. The final part is devoted to more general considerations regarding the influence of life experience on doing history. While the author’s experience confirms that biography influences professional choices, his theoretical and methodological argumentation rejects the idea that autobiographical writing should account for a new subjectivity paradigm in historiography.

Article Details
  • Section
  • ARTICLES
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Author Biography
Rolf Petri, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies
Rolf Petri is full professor of contemporary history (19th and 20th centuries) at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Born in 1957, in 1982 he obtained the university diploma from Philipps-University of Marburg and in 1988 the doctoral degree of the European University Institute in Florence. He was a researcher and assistant professor at Deutsche Historische Institut (Rome), and the universities of Bielefeld and Halle-Wittenberg. From 2006 to 2009 he coordinated the Marie-Curie Training Network European Doctorate in the Social History of Europe and the Mediterranea "Building on the Past", from 2011 to 2014 he directed Ca' Foscari School of International Relations. He was guest scholar at Global and European Studies Institute of Leipzig University, and the School of Historical and Contemporary Studies of Södertörn University Stockholm.
References
“Rettet Angela vor dem Justizmord!” Der Spiegel. 8 Nov 1971, 128–146.
Amadori-Virgilj, Giovanni. Il sentimento imperialista. Studio psico-sociologico. Milan: Sandron, 1906.
Ankersmit, Frank. Sublime historical experience. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005.
Aurell, Jaume. “Making history by contextualizing oneself: autobiography as historiographical intervention.”History and Theory 54/2 (2015): 244–268.
Barrowman, Nick. “Correlation, causation, and confusion.” The New Atlantis (Summer/Fall 2014): 23–44.
Bourdieu, Pierre. “L’illusion biographique.” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 62–63 (1986): 69–72.
Chomsky, Noam. The imperial mentality and 9/11, 6 Sept 2011, http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175436/tomgram%3A_noam_chomsky%2C_the_imperial_mentality_and_9_11/. Accessed 6 Aug 2015.
David, Paul A. Path-dependence: putting the past into the future of economics. Stanford: Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences (Technical Report 533), 1988.
Everts, Carmen. “Die Konzeption der streitbaren Demokratie.” In Gegner und Grenzen der Freiheit: Herausforderungen für den demokratischen Verfassungsstaat, edited by Carmen Everts, 49–73. Wiesbaden: Hessische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2011.
Farrow, Jesse Oris [Chester William Powers]. “What about me.”Lyrics Mode. http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/q/quicksilver_messenger_service/what_about_me.html. Accessed 3 Aug 2015.
Felice, Emanuele, and Giovanni Vecchi, Italy’s growth and decline, 1861–2011. Rome: CEIS (Research Paper Series 293/13), 2013.
Franklin, Cynthia G. Academic lives: memoir, cultural theory, and the university today. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009.
Freud, Sigmund. “Geleitwort.” In John Gregory Bourke. Der Unrat in Sitte, Brauch, Glauben und Gewohnheitsrecht der Völker. Leipzig: Ethnologischer Verlag, 1913.
Freud, Sigmund. Das Ich und das Es (1923). Leipzig: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1925.
Frisch, Peter. “Extremistenbeschluss: Zur Frage der Beschäftigung von Extremisten im öffentlichen Dienst. Leverkusen: Heggen, 1976.
Fukuyama, Francis. “The end of history?” The National Interest (Summer 1989): 3–18.
García Márquez, Gabriel. Cien años de soledad. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1970.
Herder, Johann Gottfried. Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784). Berlin: Deutsche Bibliothek, 1914.
Histor, Manfred. Willy Brandts vergessene Opfer: Geschichte und Statistik der politisch motivierten Berufsverbote in Westdeutschland 1971–1988. Freiburg im Breisgau: Ahriman-Verlag, 1992.
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan or the matter, forme, & power of a common-wealth ecclesiasticall and civill. London: Andrew Crooke, 1651
Jedlowski, Paolo. “Memoria, nostalgia, utopia. Il potere politico dei sentimenti,” edited by Elisabetta Tonizzi. Italia Contemporanea 263 (2011): 255–270.
Jesenska, Milena. Jugend, in Alles ist Leben: Feuilletons und Reportagen 1919–1939. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Neue Kritik, 1984.
Jureit, Ulrike, and Christian Schneider, Gefühlte Opfer: Illusionen der Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2010.
Kansteiner, Wulf. In pursuit of German memory: history, television, and politics after Auschwitz. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of the power of judgment (1790), edited by Paul Guyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Koselleck, Reinhart. Futures past: on the semantics of historical time. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Kula, Witold. Riflessioni sulla storia (1958). Venice: Marsilio, 1990.
Kutscha, Martin. Verfassung und “streitbare Demokratie”: Historische und rechtliche Aspekte der Berufsverbote im öffentlichen Dienst. Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1979.
Löwith, Karl. Meaning in history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949.
Manieri, Flavio. “Psicoanalisi e antropologia nella genesi dello studio freudiano sulla cultura.” In Sigmund Freud, Totem e tabù e altri saggi di antropologia. Rome: Newton & Compton, 1997.
Mayne, Tracy J., and James Ramsey. “The structure of emotion: a nonlinear dynamic systems approach.” In Emotions: current issues and future directions, edited by Tracy J. Mayne, 1–37 (New York: Guilford Press, 2001.
McAdams, Dan. “Personal narratives and the life story.” In Handbook of personality: theory and research, edited by Lawrence A. Pervin and Oliver John, 478–500. New York: Guilford Press, 1999.
McCloskey, Deirdre N. How to be human. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.
McCloskey, Donald N. The rhetoric of econometrics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
Mead, George H. Mind, self, and society (1934). Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1974
Mead, George H. The philosophy of the present (1932). New York: Prometheus, 2002.
Palombo, Daniela, and Luciano Stegagno. “Emozioni e memoria: riscontri neuro e psicofisiologici.” In Memoria e saperi. Percorsi transdisciplinari, edited by Elena Agazzi and Vita Fortunati, , 229–242. Rome: Meltemi, 2007.
Petri, Rolf. “Pamphlet per il tempo storico.” In Miti di fondazione e percezione del tempo nella cultura e nella politica del mondo contemporaneo, edited by Sergio Bertelli, 37–68. Rome: Carocci, 1999.
Piketty, Thomas. Le capital au 21e siècle. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 2013.
Prigogine, Ilya. From being to becoming: time and complexity in the physical sciences. San Francisco: Freeman, 1980.
Rigoll, Dominik. Staatsschutz in Westdeutschland. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2013.
Schneider, Hans. “Die Unerfüllte Zukunft: Apokalyptische Erwartungen im radikalen Pietismus um 1700.” In Jahrhunderwenden: Endzeit und Zukunftsvorstellungen vom 15. Bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, edited by Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen et al., 187–212. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999.
Schultz, Tanjev. “Rubelscheine im Lehrerzimmer.” Süddeutsche Zeitung. 28 Jan 2012. http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/jahre-nach-beschluss-des-radikalenerlasses-rubelscheine-im-lehrerzimmer-1.1269503. Accessed 6 Aug 2015.
Siedler, Joachim. “Holocaust”: Die Fernsehserie in der deutschen Presse. Münster: LIT, 1984.
Stiglegger, Marcus. Auschwitz-TV: Reflexionen des Holocaust in Fernsehserien. Wiesbaden: Springer, 2015.
Tarpino, Antonella. Sentimenti del passato. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1997.
Turner, Stephen. “Cause, Teleology, and Method.” In The Cambridge History of Science, vol. 7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Verhandlungen des Reichstags. XIII. Legislaturperiode. II. Session, vol. 306. Berlin, Stenographische Berichte, 1916.
Wan Kampen, Wilhelm. Holocaust: Materialien zu dem amerikanischen Fernsehfilm über die Judenverfolgung im “Dritten Reich”. Wiesbaden: Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1982.
White, Hayden. “On the research and the writing phase of the historian’s work.” Historein 14/1 (2014): 71–74.
Zweig, Arnold. Erziehung vor Verdun (1935). Leipzig: Reclam 1977.
Most read articles by the same author(s)