History is frequently at the heart of how people view themselves and others in modern culture. The construction of the self in political, social, religious, and other spheres often exhibits an “instrumental” use of history in Nietzsche’s terms (a category also taken up by others, notably Foucault, Trouillot, and, more recently, implicitly in Priya Satia in Time’s Monster). The past is not simply a narrative of meaning connecting causality, leading from former times to the present, but it is also a means of crafting and molding a particular moment. In other words, the present is in the past. Perceptions of history are finding footing in modern causes and are proving to be instrumental for predetermined ends. 

“Untimely Time: On History’s Instrumental Narratives” takes as its starting point recent works on history that demonstrate the value of theorizing the discipline for critical examinations in specific subfields of the past and present. This lens functions as instrumental for identity formation, political and cultural—if not also religious—will, and even serendipity, where discoveries of the past surprise scholars and leaders and force new frameworks around the way an ancient “them” relates to a modern “us.” The result can be a “usable past,” or the sort of claim about history as simply evident and obvious all the while masking the modes and manners of the work of creating history and the political ends to which such claims are put to work.

This issue seeks to produce a cross-cultural, transdisciplinary approach in which the utility and instrumentality of history are put into direct conversation across regions and subfields. This special issue will ask “where does the past lie?” “Lie” in this sense suggests a threefold approach to the subject. First, it interrogates the concept of origins, and where subfields in the areas of history have contributed, rightly or wrongly, to the notion of an inherited past. Second, “lie” refers to the grounds for writing and claiming a historical past: what evidences count? Who decides? What sorts of questions do we pose about history and why? Third, as all “inherited pasts” are matters of contention and construction, “lie” also refers to the misleading nature of historical reconstruction. When modern scholars, politicians, or cultural leaders appeal to a past for current exigencies, what happens when they are wrong, when such claims to the past are built on ideological and subpar evidentiary grounds? The goal is not, in each case, to impugn motives, but rather to trace the larger forces that give shape to what history is and what we think we are doing when we attach ourselves to a past. As such, interrogating how the past has been framed for utilitarian, political ends in subdisciplines can hopefully also provide a map in which to orient ourselves toward critical self-reflection and to label pasts “worthy of condemnation” that are being written in this very moment.  

Essays from all disciples of 20 to 25 manuscript pages are welcome. For inquiries, please emailsamuel.boyd@colorado.edu. Submissions are due October 1, 2024. Essays will undergo peer review, and the formatting should adhere to the Chicago-style endnote citation format. 

Submissions should be uploaded to the ELN website https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/dup-eln.