Virtual History
Perspectives on an Expanded Concept of History
Edited by Maja-Lisa Müller,
Edited by Lars Deile
We call “virtual history” a history that goes beyond factual processes to include possible, yet unrealized, courses of events. Some are eventually perceived as illusions, while others are revived when the conditions of their former emergence are recognized again in the present. To expand its representation of past realities, virtual historiography taps into new sources and disciplines. It interprets historical dates and time intervals as bridges between events and documents the time figures in which events align to form historical processes.
Chapters
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1 Virtual History - Perspectives on an Expanded Concept of History
At first glance, the term ‘virtual history’ may evoke images of computer-animated fictions of the past – an artificial rendition of a reality that never existed. However, the matter is more complicated: In the present context the term ‘virtual’ is… - Comments
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2 Some Perspectives on Pictures Showing Possible Past Future
When we look back on a particular point in the past, can we make out possibilities, feasible or imaginable scenarios, that did not come about or came about in a manner that differed from the way they were originally envisioned? Which options for… -
3 Slaves of Time? Reflections on Lucian Hölscher’s Concept of ‘Virtual History’
What is the major problem of writing history and what could be its solution? These are the two questions that Lucian Hölscher has raised in his intriguing plea for ‘Virtual History. Perspectives on an Expanded Concept of History’ and that I address… -
4 Virtual History and Temporal Imagination
Lucian Hölscher’s virtual historiography aims to extend the concept of history by complementing the historically actual with the historically possible. In this reading, the historically possible, long neglected by historians, consists of two temporal… -
5 Response to the Comments
My proposal to expand the concept of history, traditionally limited to authenticated facts, to the idea of virtual history has met with a variety of reactions in the contributions collected here. I would like to thank my colleagues Rūta Kazlauskaitė,…