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1. TOWARD A HISTORY ON EQUAL TERMS: A DISCUSSION OF PROVINCIALIZING EUROPE
Author(s) -
DIETZE CAROLA
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
history and theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.169
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1468-2303
pISSN - 0018-2656
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2303.2008.00437.x
Subject(s) - modernity , historicism , deconstruction (building) , historiography , enlightenment , narrative , epistemology , situated , world history , philosophy , sociology , aesthetics , history , archaeology , artificial intelligence , computer science , biology , linguistics , ecology , ancient history
ABSTRACT This essay is a critical discussion of Dipesh Chakrabarty's book Provincializing Europe as well as a first sketch of a History on Equal Terms. After giving a short summary of Provincializing Europe , I first argue, against chakrabarty, that there is no necessary connection between the discipline of history and the metanarratives of modernity. To the contrary: the founding idea of the discipline of history was a turn against such grand narratives. With his attempt to deconstruct the narratives of the European Enlightenment and of modernity, Chakrabarty therefore has to be regarded as a thinker of radical historicism rather than as a critic of the discipline of history. Second, I criticize the use of the term “modernity” in Provincializing Europe and the concept of modernity in general. Instead of a deconstruction of the discipline of history, I propose a deconstruction of the concept of modernity. This could open up the way for a History on Equal Terms situated within the discipline of history, that is, a historiography that would—just as Chakrabarty rightly demands—in principle pay the same attention to and expect relevant results from any region in the world, depending only on the focus of research.