E21: Presentivism in the Eighteenth-Century Studies Classroom
E21: Presentivism in the Eighteenth-Century Studies Classroom
In its manifesto, the V21 Collective asserts that “Victorian Studies has fallen prey to positivist historicism: a mode of inquiry that aims to do little more than exhaustively describe, preserve, and display the past” and advocates for “a new openness to presentism: an awareness that our interest in the period is motivated by certain features of our own moment.” At the 2018 ASECS, the same question was asked of eighteenth-century studies: as a discipline, have we “fallen prey to positivist historicism,” and would it benefit us to be open to presentism? Do we need our own V21, or E21?