Anthropologising History: a Historiographic and Methodological Case Study of Witold Kula

OPIS

Considering the reconstruction of ‘the vision of the world and the man’ of a particular historian (individual case) as a crucial part of studies on the history of historiography, the author analyses the connections between the concept of history by Witold Kula and his research on the past with anthropology. […] Regardless of the fact that the author aims at presenting the role of Kula in the process of anthropologising history and the transitions that have taken place in historiography (not only our, local, but also global), it is undeniable that the monograph goes beyond these goals. […] The monograph is also an answer to the ongoing debates concerning the future of historical research, including theoretical and methodological approaches. Introducing the new aspect of studies on historians’ works, the book […] becomes the illustration of the current trends in the studies on history, characterised mainly by their interdisciplinarity.

From the review by Prof. Marek Woźniak

SPIS TREŚCI

The Introduction: a Horizontal Overview of Historiography / 7

Chapter I. The Anthropological Dimension of History / 25

1. The cultural individualisation of historical reality / 25
Cultures as particular, contextual and systemic totalities / 26
The complex nature of cultural historical reality / 29
2. The socio-cultural character of historical reality / 31
3. Culture as a humanistic functional structure / 32
A humanistic functional structure / 32
Determining / 36
The natural environment / 37
The openness of the structure / 39
4. Cultural globalisation / 40
5. The duration, change and decline of culture / 43
Cultural adaptation / 43
Evolution without teleologism / 45
Progress and evolution / 53
6. Man as a zoon culturalis / 56
Meeting needs as the goal of human activity / 56
The cultural satisfaction of needs / 59
Freedom of choice / 62
The rational nature of choices / 65

Chapter II. The Anthropological Nature of Historical Cognition / 69

1. History as a study of culture / 69
History and cultural anthropology / 81
2. History as a science and a field of culture / 85
3. Historical cognition as scientific intercultural translation / 94

Chapter III. The Scientistic Anthropologising of Economic History / 103

1. The anthropological perspective in research on the economy / 105
2. Economic history as historical and comparative anthropology / 113
The formalising and dramatising perspectives of research into
the acts of economic choice / 120
The formalising perspective of research / 120
The dramatising perspective of research / 130
Integral interpretation in economic history understood as historical
and comparative anthropology / 144
3. The historical and comparative method / 146

Conclusions / 155
Literature / 165
Name Index / 181

Recenzje

Autorzy

Wojciech Piasek

Profesor w Instytucie Historii i Archiwistyki Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu. W latach 1990–1995 studia w Instytucie Archeologii i Etnologii UMK (indywidualny program studiów w zakresie etnoarcheologii), 1992–1996 – studia w Instytucie Historii i Archiwistyki UMK (historia). Zainteresowania badawcze: etnografia myśli współczesnej w dziedzinie historii i pozaakademickich form historii. Autor, redaktor i współredaktor monografii podejmujących problemy z obszaru współczesnej humanistyki, metodologii historii i historii historiografii.

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Wojciech Piasek is a professor at the Institute of History and Archives of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. From 1990 to 1995, he studied at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of Nicolaus Copernicus University (an individual study programme in the field of ethnoarchaeology). From 1992 to 1996, he studied history at the Institute of History and Archives of Nicolaus Copernicus University. His research interests include the ethnography of contemporary thought in the field of history and non-academic forms of history.

Książki autora:

- Historia jako wiedza lokalna. "Antropologiczne przesunięcie" w badaniach nad historiografią PRL
- Toruńskie konfrontacje archiwalne, t. 4: Nowa archiwistyka - archiwa i archiwistyka w ponowoczesnym kontekście kulturowym
- Jerzy Wojtowicz, historyk gospodarki, społeczeństwa i kultury doby nowożytnej
- Ludwik Kolankowski. Dzieło i życie – indywidualny przypadek historiograficzny
- Anthropologising History: a Historiographic and Methodological Case Study of Witold Kula
- Historia – klimat – przyroda. Perspektywa antropocentryczna
- Notatki z etnografii myśli współczesnej w dziedzinie historii. Informacje etnograficzne, diagnozy i wielkie kwestie
- Niewidzia(l)ne. Kobiety i historia Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu
- Archiwum – archiwistyka – kultura. Antologia
- Interpretacje przyrody w przeszłości
- Scientia magnam laetitiam parat. Studia z historii kultury, społeczeństwa i polityki ofiarowane Profesorowi Kazimierzowi Maliszewskiemu
- The ethnography of historiography developed in the Polish People’s Republic: a historiographic and methodological case study of Karol Górski
- Bariery – możliwości – wyzwania. Środowisko przyrodnicze na przestrzeni dziejów
- Jadwiga Lechicka – kobieta nowa i nowoczesna. Kulturowy porządek i relacja płci w historiografii polskiej
- Contemporary thought in the field of history: ethnographic notes

Anthropologising History: a Historiographic and Methodological Case Study of Witold Kula

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