Introduction: Textured historicity and the ambivalence of imperial legacies

ABSTRACT

In pursuit of a novel perspective on legacies of empire in the present, this introduction addresses prominent debates related to post-imperialism, collective memory, and the construction of historical knowledge, while also reviewing recent trends in post-Habsburg and post-Ottoman studies. First, I examine the insights and limitations of ‘memory studies,’ ultimately proposing a more capacious model of post-imperial ‘ambivalence.’ I then recapitulate Walter Benjamin’s dialectical approach to historical knowledge in order to anchor the signal conceptual contribution of the volume, ‘textured historicity.’ This discussion is followed by a meditation on the role of metaphors in conceptualizing post-imperial legacies and a roster of the most common metaphors for post-imperial legacies. Finally, the introduction briefly summarizes the volume’s constituent essays and the rubrics that unite them.     

The historicity of Jordan Fantosme's chronicle

A reassessment of the literary and aesthetic value of his Chronicle, undertaken in the course of preparing a new edition of that work, shows Jordan Fantosme to be vastly different from the feeble versifier, unable even to dispense accurately the twelve syllables of an Alexandrine line, he has sometimes been taken for. He is a highly competent and innovating prosodist and a talented story-teller quite capable of inventing or manipulating episodes for stylistic reasons, as is shown by reference to three of the vivid historical vignettes for which the Chronicle is frequently and somewhat misleadingly praised. It is suggested that historians should show caution before accepting as factually true incidents detailed by Jordan Fantosme which are not supported from other sources.     

The historicity of Jordan Fantosme's chronicle

A reassessment of the literary and aesthetic value of his Chronicle, undertaken in the course of preparing a new edition of that work, shows Jordan Fantosme to be vastly different from the feeble versifier, unable even to dispense accurately the twelve syllables of an Alexandrine line, he has sometimes been taken for. He is a highly competent and innovating prosodist and a talented story-teller quite capable of inventing or manipulating episodes for stylistic reasons, as is shown by reference to three of the vivid historical vignettes for which the Chronicle is frequently and somewhat misleadingly praised. It is suggested that historians should show caution before accepting as factually true incidents detailed by Jordan Fantosme which are not supported from other sources.     

Heidegger and Cassirer on Science after the Cassirer and Heidegger of Davos

Summary

The paper exposes the views of Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger on the dynamics of the sciences of their day, as both developed them in the two decades after the encounter of the two philosophers in Davos in 1928. It emphasizes points of common concern, and it compares their positions to those of contemporary philosophers of science Gaston Bachelard and Edgar Wind.     

Girard and Heidegger: Mimesis,Mitsein, Addiction

In his essay “Peter’s Denial,” René Girard draws a parallel between mimesis and Martin Heidegger’s concept of being-with (Mitsein). In this essay I explore this parallel through a third, intermediate term—addiction—on the assumption that living in a world governed by mimesis, according to Girard, and living in the modus of Mitsein, according to Heidegger, can both be characterized as a kind of addiction. The clarification of the parallel between mimesis and Mitsein through this intermediate term may contribute to a better understanding of a central concept of Heidegger’s philosophy and, at the same time, bring into view the philosophical dimension of Girard’s mimetic theory. In my conclusion I propose Levinas’s ethical approach as a possible cure to the addiction to mimesis and being-with.     

Border historicity and ethnographic rupture: Pirates,Korean Kings and borderlanders in transnational Tsushima Island,Japan

Tsushima’s community festival commemorates Tsushima’s admirable borderland diplomacy in the pre-modern East Asian politics. This indigenous historicization in performance, nevertheless, fails to resonate with ethnographic reality: anthropological fieldwork revealed that local culture differs considerably from postcolonial ritual imaginings and historicity, illuminating a discontinuity between the past performed and the present observed. A rupture exists between borderland imagery as a coherent Japanese state boundary and the ethnographic reality of an uneven liminal frontier between Korea and Japan. In order to make sense of the ethnographic ruptures, this article constructs the border-centric ethnohistory through the lens of and experiences of the border, defying a state-centric past. I de-essentialize border-state relationship, accentuating border spontaneity and contingency between and beyond the power of sovereignty – a paradoxical Janus-faced process of contradiction and negotiation. I argue that it is Tsushima’s historical metamorphosis that stands out in history, not its subjugation to the power of either state.     

Arcane geopolitics: Heidegger,Schmitt and the political theology of Gnosticism

In this paper, we discuss what is at stake in appropriating the thought of reactionary figures, such as Heidegger and Schmitt, for critical geography. We will argue that Heidegger and Schmitt were beholden to an arcane geopolitics shaped by supposed gnostic insights into the deeper currents of world history. This (geo-) political theology of Heidegger and Schmitt has not yet been given sufficient attention by geographers engaging their work. However, it is only in approaching their work in a theological key that the gnostic political theology that undergirds their arcane geopolitics can be fully understood. At the core of this arcane geopolitics is the conviction that modernity and all those identified as its agents is a force for ill, setting the world towards catastrophe. In this paper, we excavate this gnostic disposition in the thought of Heidegger and Schmitt in order to raise questions about how their work ought to be mobilized in and for critical, emancipatory, progressive thought so that this appropriation does not bring unwanted residues along with it.     

Between Marx and Heidegger: Politics, Philosophy and Lefebvre's The Production of Space

This article argues that the work of Martin Heidegger is extremely important in understanding Henri Lefebvre's intellectual project. It suggests that Lefebvre's trio of influential thinkers—Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche—are partnered by Heidegger. But this is Heidegger read in a particular way, and subjected to a Marxist critique—turned back on his feet, grounded, made real.
This is pursued in detail through a rereading of Lefebvre's The Production of Space . The two terms in this title need to be examined, and while the importance of space develops a number of insights from Heidegger, the stress on production shows the political and Marxist nature of this research. The Production of Space is therefore situated, and needs to be read, between Marx and Heidegger. The article closes with some comments on the interrelation of history, space and politics, and offers the possibility of a left-Heideggerianism.     

Hermeneutics without Historicism: Heidegger,MacIntyre, and the Function of the University

Martin Heidegger and Alasdair MacIntyre both claim that universities perform important philosophical functions. This essay reconstructs Heidegger’s and MacIntyre’s views of the university and argues that they have a common source, which I call hermeneutics without historicism. Heidegger and MacIntyre are hermeneutical philosophers: philosophers who are sensitive to the ways in which thought is mediated by interpretation and conditioned by history and culture. But both of them reject the relativistic historicism sometimes associated with a hermeneutical approach to philosophy. This desire to have it both ways leads Heidegger and MacIntyre to attach tremendous importance to activities that take place in universities but nowhere else. The essay also asks whether MacIntyre’s defenders should be troubled by the similarities between his account of the function of the university and Heidegger’s. I argue that they should not, because, while Heidegger’s account of the university has obvious moral and political failings, these failings result not from non-historicist hermeneutics as such, but from specific features of Heidegger’s version of it.