Ewa Domanska. Encounters: Philosophy of History After Postmodernism. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1998. xii + 293 pp. $65.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8139-1766-5.

Reviewed by Daniel Wickberg

Published on H-Ideas (July, 1999)

Ewa Domanska's Encounters is a collection of spell the turning point in historical thought for interviews with prominent fgures in that broad Domanska. study generally referred to as historical theory or The text consists of the transcription of ten in‐ theory of history. The subtitle is somewhat mis‐ terviews, plus Domanska's concluding "self-inter‐ leading since philosophy of history, understood in view," conducted in 1993 and 1994, and arranged either its Anglo-American analytical sense or its chronologically. Domanska is Assistant Professor Continental sense, is the concern of neither Do‐ of Theory of History and History of Historiogra‐ manska nor most of her interviewees. While some phy at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, of the issues addressed by this volume are broad‐ where some of these interviews took place, al‐ ly philosophical (e.g. the status of truth in histori‐ though a number were conducted in the Nether‐ cal accounts, the epistemology of historical knowl‐ lands or elsewhere in Europe. The interlocutors, edge, the relation of historical fact to meaning), with a couple of exceptions, will be well known to many are more historiographical, literary, and anyone who follows modern European cultural cultural (e.g. the poetics of written history, history historiography and historical theory or is familiar as a cultural practice, the turn to anthropology in with the journal History & Theory. They can be di‐ historiography). vided into four categories (my division, not Do‐ And given the multiple notions of "post‐ manska's): 1) historical theorists proper, that is, modernity" at work in this volume along with the those who have applied a kind of literary or lin‐ uncertainty of what it might mean to be "after guistic set of concerns to written history, a group postmodernism," perhaps a more accurate subti‐ that includes the initial three interviewees--Hay‐ tle might have been "The Theoretical Conditions den White, Hans Kellner, and Frank Ankersmit, of History After Metahistory." In fact, it is Hayden and perhaps Jorn Rusen; 2) cultural and intellec‐ White's 1973 volume, Metahistory, that seems to tual historiographers, a group represented by George Iggers and Peter Burke that tends to be H-Net Reviews much more grounded in the concrete practices of tinctive set of issues through conversations with contemporary historians and less concerned with the "masters," picking up ideas along the way, be‐ the literary and theoretical questions that ani‐ coming enamored of certain notions, exposing mate the frst group; 3) literary humanists, whose her own preoccupations by returning to the same concerns seem to be with the broader cultural sta‐ themes with diferent interlocutors, and fnally tus of history as both a form of literature and a revealing herself in the confessional self-inter‐ mode of consciousness, represented here by Li‐ view; the text is Domanska's intellectual autobiog‐ onel Gossman and Stephen Bann; and, 4) erst‐ raphy in the form of a series of interviews. while analytical philosophers of history, that is, Because Encounters is not designed as a se‐ those who developed an approach to history dom‐ ries of formal contributions or arguments, it dif‐ inated by notions of explanation, causation and fers greatly from what readers might expect in a the conventions of nineteenth-century historical work of philosophy or historical theory. The con‐ realism. Both Arthur Danto and Domanska's men‐ versational quality of the text--touching on nu‐ tor at Adam Mickiewicz University, Jerzy Topolski, merous topics, but not connecting them in any se‐ were at one time (in the 1960s and 70s) concerned rious or rigorous way--is both the central problem with analytical philosophy; since that time, the re‐ with Encounters and its chief virtue. In fact, be‐ cently deceased Topolski had been infuenced by cause the text touches on so many issues in an ex‐ the writings of White and Ankersmit, while Danto ploratory way that is largely non-technical, it has moved away from the philosophy of history might very well be a good book to introduce stu‐ and toward the criticism and philosophy of art. dents to some of the issues at stake in contempo‐ English-speaking readers who do not follow His‐ rary historical theory. Domanska's voice, the style tory & Theory closely may be unfamiliar with and content of her questioning, strikes me as very Rusen and Topolski, whose primary work has much the student's voice--exploratory and en‐ been in German and Polish respectively, but the gaged, alternatively sophisticated and then sur‐ others will be known to anyone who has a passing prisingly naive. But her naivete, the lack of any familiarity with historical theory and European consistent defnition of terms ("postmodernism," historiography. "crisis in history," "narrative turn," "experience" In what appears to be an attempt by the pub‐ are some of the more prominent recurring ex‐ lisher to bring this volume to a larger theoretical‐ pressions), and the idiosyncrasy of Domanska's ly-inclined audience of cultural and intellectual own frame of reference (she is a member of the historians, the interviews are bracketed by an in‐ generation of Polish intellectuals who came of age troduction by Allan Megill and a postscript by in the 1980s as many ideas from the West were Lynn Hunt. Megill's introduction stresses the rela‐ frst fnding root in Poland) makes Encounters tionship between aesthetics and history found in less than ideal as a serious exploration of post‐ these interviews; Hunt's postscript considers the modernism in historical theory. I would recom‐ form of the interviews as evidence of a personal‐ mend it for curious undergraduates and for histo‐ ized postmodernism on Domanska's part. Despite rians who have an interest in learning more Hunt's claim that Domanska's text (or is it her about theoretical issues, but have little back‐ text?) is untraditional by virtue of its fragmenta‐ ground in the feld. tion and its philosophy in the form of everyday di‐ Encounters had its origins in an interview alogue, Encounters does not read like a series of that Domanska conducted with Hayden White; fragments. There is a unity to the text as a whole, that frst interview sets the tone for the entire and, in fact, it is a narrative unity. The text takes text, particularly in its confusion over what con‐ the form of a quest, as Domanska pursues a dis‐

2 H-Net Reviews stitutes postmodernism. Metahistory, according to its claim to represent the actual past. Metahistory White, and to Hans Kellner as well, is not post‐ as a work of literary and linguistic-based analysis modernist at all; White's approach, he claims, is is highly modernist; as a contribution to historiog‐ formalist and structuralist in nature, concerned raphy and historical theory, it represents the post‐ with fnding the deep poetic structure of histori‐ modernist turn. It is the blurring of boundaries ans' texts rather than showing how the texts between spheres of knowledge, rather than a destabilize those structures and categories of change in orientation within those spheres, that analysis (pp. 26, 51-55). But it is equally clear that seems to be indicative of the shift from mod‐ Domanska envisions Metahistory as the moment ernism to postmodernism. But this is nowhere ac‐ of history's postmodern turn, because it is the mo‐ knowledged in Encounters; instead a kind of con‐ ment of her own intellectual liberation from what fusion about postmodernism runs through these she calls "scientism"--in particular the Marxist pages. Domanska means one thing by it (a turn and realist conceptions of historical truth. When away from "scientifc history" and a turn toward she read Metahistory for the frst time in 1989 she aesthetics and narrative in the analysis of histori‐ found "precisely what I was looking for; a depic‐ cal writing); her interlocutors often something tion of the literary and artistic face of history and else entirely. ... the legitimation of the historian's subjectivity as This is most evident, almost comically so, in she strives to create her vision of the past" (p. Domanska's interview with Arthur Danto. Post‐ 259). In her personal narrative, her encounter modernism, for Danto, is a general cultural condi‐ with White takes on the signifcance of the post‐ tion that is manifest as an art world phenomenon modern moment: "Living in the state of postmod‐ (pp. 171-76). And Danto is simply not in touch ern suspension, of intellectual weightlessness, I with historical theory or historiography, but in‐ was looking for a master, for a heretic; I was stead of acknowledging that he and Domanska ob‐ hunting for a postmodernist. In February 1993, viously have diferent frames of reference, he an‐ Hayden White arrived at Groningen ..." (p. 261). swers her questions as if they were operating in Besides indicating something of Domanska's pen‐ the same conceptual universe (pp. 181-85). His is a chant for self dramatization, this passage fxes world of analytical philosophy circa 1965 and art White as a kind of heretic from modernist ortho‐ criticism of the past forty years. When Domanska doxy. How do we reconcile this vision of White as asks him about microhistory, his answer indicates postmodernist rebel with White's own claim that that he doesn't know anything about it; when she the approach exemplifed by Metahistory is mod‐ refers to a crisis in history she obviously means a ernist at its core? crisis in the discipline, whereas Danto takes her to Domanska doesn't face this issue head on, al‐ mean a crisis in the object "history." Given the though one answer seems to be that the later cross purposes of this dialogue, from an editorial White of The Content of the Form (1987) is post‐ point of view it would probably have been best to modernist while the White of Metahistory re‐ exclude the Danto interview from the fnal vol‐ mains determinedly modernist. My own view is ume. Of all the interviews here, it is the one that that modernism and postmodernism mean difer‐ doesn't "ft." Of course, the reader would then ent things in the spheres of literature and lan‐ miss the opportunity to hear Danto proclaim that guage, on the one hand, and in history, on the oth‐ "Foucault is one of the scariest human beings I er. Because the modernist conception of history is know, and one of the most dangerous" (p. 182). based on realist, empiricist and positivist conven‐ In fact, one of the (guilty) pleasures of En‐ tions, any attempt to treat a work of history in counters lies in such snippets. The chatty nature terms of poetics or formal structure destabilizes

3 H-Net Reviews of the text means that scholars one is accustomed ing the author as source is premised on a mistak‐ to reading only in formal contexts allow them‐ en or naive understanding of thought and lan‐ selves to say things that they would never normal‐ guage (pp. 34-35). Domanska is undeterred; like ly publish. Hence we have Hayden White stating those admirers of Foucault who express their ad‐ that Carlo Ginzburg "hates Metahistory. He thinks miration through biography, she often seems to I am a fascist" (p. 16). Or Lionel Gossman confess‐ have missed the point of the very thing she fnds ing "that I only occasionally read history books attractive. out of curiosity about the way history is written" While there is much of value in the questions (p. 203). Gossman is too modest by half, as the lev‐ raised, and the general tenor of the discussions is el of erudition about history he demonstrates in quite high, the text is also disconcertingly naive in his interview indicates. Other interviewees don't a number of respects. Domanska repeatedly ques‐ sufer from Gossman's modesty. Stephen Bann, for tions her interlocutors about microhistory and instance, is like a talkshow guest--he can't seem to "anthropological history," particularly the works answer a question without using it as a pretext to of Carlo Ginzburg and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie "plug" an earlier work or a work in progress of his as if they represent the newest "postmodern" his‐ own. Like Peter Novick's That Noble Dream, the toriography. This work, now some twenty years appeal of Encounters lies partly in its backstage old, is of enormous importance in the ongoing his‐ revelations. In an academic culture that has pro‐ toriographical revolution of the past half century, duced Lingua Franca, the People magazine of the but it is also, as Lynn Hunt points out, committed university set, it is not surprising to fnd "inside to realist and empiricist canons of truth (p. 273). dopesterism" at work, even in a sphere as abstract The more recent work of historians concerned and apparently esoteric as historical theory. with language and representation is not even on There is a confict in Encounters between its Domanska's map. There is no "new cultural histo‐ apparent engagement with postmodernism and ry," no "new historicism," no cultural studies, post‐ its actual method. If we take postmodernism to in‐ colonial history, queer theory or gender history, clude the linguistic turn in historiography, the no social constructionism. Some of these topics commitment to discourse and representation as are introduced by her interviewees, but they re‐ systems of meaning rather than transparent re‐ main marginal to the central discussions of En‐ fections of a given reality, and a decentering of counters. While the attempt to connect historiog‐ the traditional subject matter of historical study, raphy and historical theory is admirable and Domanska's approach to intellectual history much needed, it also requires a deeper under‐ seems decidedly modernist. Her questions indi‐ standing of historiography than is evident here. cate that she believes authors to be the best Similarly, Domanska becomes enthralled with a guides to understanding their own works; that suggestion of Frank Ankersmit's that historical thought is to be explained or accounted for in study and theory turn away from the linguistic terms of social experience and intellectual "infu‐ and the narrative, and address the notion of his‐ ence" of other thinkers; that there is a canonical torical experience; she returns to this idea in vir‐ Western intellectual tradition which she and tually all of the following interviews. But the idea those she interviews share; and that that tradition itself is never clarifed, and she doesn't seem to represents the limit of the intellectual universe. recognize that so much of the social history of the Hayden White warns Domanska in the frst inter‐ past thirty years embraced a naive notion of the view that interviews will not get her a defnite recuperation of experience as its central mission. statement or a fxed truth, that he doesn't believe Joan Scott's well known essay "The Evidence of in interviews, that the whole notion of interrogat‐ Experience" provides a thorough critiques of the

4 H-Net Reviews fxation on experience and shows the way that it has been challenged by the linguistic turn and the new cultural history, but Domanska appears to know nothing of Scott's work.[1] Perhaps there is something to Ankersmit's proposal, but Domanska gives us only her enthusiasm for the idea, and no attempt to analyze it critically. The dialogues in Encounters are engaging and accessible. The thinking is not particularly deep and there are no real arguments made or de‐ veloped. Certainly those familiar with the feld will fnd nothing particularly new here. What the text does do is to bring together a number of dif‐ ferent approaches to historical theory and thought and subject them to the continuity of Do‐ manska's concerns. It is a readable introduction to some of the major fgures in the feld--although the absence of important thinkers such as Do‐ minick LaCapra, Robert Berkhofer and Martin Jay might lead one to question its comprehensiveness. Still, Domanska makes this an entertaining intro‐ duction to historical theory, even if her personal quest seems at times to speak more of nineteenth- century romanticism than twentieth-century post‐ modernism. Note [1]. Joan Scott, "The Evidence of Experience," Critical Inquiry, 17 (1991): 773-97. Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net, all rights re‐ served. This work may be copied for non-proft educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐ thor and the list. For other permission, please con‐ tact [email protected].

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Citation: Daniel Wickberg. Review of Domanska, Ewa. Encounters: Philosophy of History After Postmodernism. H-Ideas, H-Net Reviews. July, 1999.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3227

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