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Fictionality has long been viewed in history writing as near-synonymous with abandoning truth and any supposedly consequent, ethical commitments. Understandably, this attitude has impeded the acceptance of theoretical approaches that aim, instead, to reveal the fundamental connectedness of history’s fictional aspects with ethical concerns. This line of thought is nowhere more evident than in the reception of Hayden White. While instrumental in arguing for the similarities between history writing and literary fiction, White has also consistently defended the vital importance of rethinking history’s fictionality. His approach considers that historians might work in more consciously emancipatory and ethically informed ways. This article seeks to improve understanding of White’s complicated position in two distinct ways: firstly, by rehearsing his critical arguments in the context of their general and far-too-often hostile reception; here, the main goal is to address worries relating, in turn, to the claimed extreme textualism, the assumed denial of reality and the supposedly excessive formalism of his positions. Given the generational demand for reiterating these basics, some of this discussion may prove familiar to readers for whom White’s place is already evident. Secondly, the article hopes to contribute to the continuation of White’s legacy by indicating a way to by-pass these controversies through a reconceptualization of White’s ethical objectives and the responsibility he attributes to historians. This view includes examining an unwarranted tension between interpretations of White’s existentialist and poststructuralist commitments in previous readings. The article also identifies the point at which the overlap of these aspects constitutes his expressly ethically motivated relativism.

This theme section tackles the question “What makes history personal?” The four articles included in the issue present some possible strategies to begin to answer the question, often by reminding us of the need to overcome key dichotomies, such as the separation between mind and body, between scientific knowledge and emotions, between language and experience, between the work and the reader, between concepts and literary form, and between professional obligation and engagement with current political circumstances. The attitudes and formulations proposed in the four articles are intimately linked to these dichotomies, arising from thoughtful rereading and rethinking of the core challenges. Phenomenology and the concept of empathy especially stand out in these investigations, although both are approached from different perspectives and empirical bases.

In this article, I investigate the role of a particular kind of ‘materiality’ at work in the writing and reading of history. This involves examining the challenges posed to constructivist approaches to history by various post-linguistic-turn claims about presence and experience as well as by so-called post-narrativism. The core focus will be on outlining an argument for updating ‘narrativist’ or constructivist theory of history to deal with these recent concerns. This requires directing more attention to the relations between author, text, and reader, particularly concerning the key issues of reality, embodiment, and immersion. To demonstrate the value of approaching these relations in terms of ‘materiality,’ I consider three questions aimed at illuminating the balancing act between referentiality and invention performed in history writing as a genre: How can language ‘embody’ reality? How do referential texts encode reality? And, how could we read referential texts specifically with respect to reality?

This article investigates the nature of historical consciousness – conceptualizations and constructions of the past outside academic history – and the way in which this has changed in parallel with developments in historical theory in recent decades. With the increased constructivist questioning of historical narratives as somehow objectively true, academic history is seen to have lost some of its authority regarding the past. It is argued that, in becoming more aware of its nature as interpretation as well as more sensitive to its motives and consequences, history now has the potential to become more pragmatic and presentist. At the same time, some theoretical discussions have turned to the less strictly historical questions of memory and presence, thus evading the call to responsibility. By examining historical consciousness in relation to these debates, the article suggests that, in line with the liberation of the past from the constraints of academic history, historical consciousness no longer needs to be as focused on the interpretations and knowledge provided by the institution of history but can be increasingly determined by popular understandings and the needs of consumers.