German Studies Colloquium: Tomasz Wisniewski

The Department of German Studies presents a talk by Tomasz Wiśniewski in our Colloquium.

"The Postsecular Regime of Historicity"

In this presentation, Wiśniewski will reflect on an important gap in research, specifically the reception (or lack thereof) of the "postsecular turn" in theoretical reflection on history. This interdisciplinary postsecular discourse is an attempt at an intellectual response from the contemporary humanities and social sciences to the ongoing "return of religion" and/or its "new visibility" in the public sphere. Postsecular discourse has found a home in many fields of the humanities and social sciences, specifically philosophy, sociology, literary studies, anthropology, and archaeology. However, it has yet to really make an impression on the discipline of history. There are only a few historians, mostly historical theorists, who have taken on postsecular issues in their work (Dominick LaCapra, Allan Megill, Dipesh Chakrabarty). Wiśniewski will demonstrate how we can introduce the postsecular into historical theoretical thought. Wiśniewski proposes a category of the postsecular regime of historicity and apply an idea developed by Francois Hartog as a tool for conducting comparative research.

Tomasz Wiśniewski is a doctoral researcher in the Faculty of History, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. He just submitted his dissertation on "Postsecular History." This project is an attempt at introducing a postsecular turn into the theory of history by studying the cryptotheological elements of historical discourse. He is interested in intellectual history, and the philosophy of history. He is the author of "Hayden White: A Postsecular Perspective" (Rethinking History, vol. 24, no. 3-4, 2020: 388-416).

Questions? email Courtney Hodrick: hodrickc [at] stanford.edu (hodrickc[at]stanford[dot]edu)