The Angel of prehistory: anachronism, discontinuity and trace in the unconscious facies of history

Authors

  • Francisco Naishtat

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14393/artc-v23-n43-2021-64085

Keywords:

archeology, repression, after life

Abstract

According to the first generation of the École des Annales, anachronism is "the most unforgivable of all sins". Benjamin, however, emphasized not only a certain inevitability of anachronism, but even its potentiality. His notion of the trace (Spur) emphasizes that which persists through different epochs, understood from an idea of survival (Nachleben), which gives rise to the archaeological figure of a past that interrupts the relation of the present to itself. Didi-Huberman's work, by giving channel to the intuitions pointed out by Benjamin, makes the power of anachronism the starting point for the conceptualization of a methodology in the field of history. The inactuality of the past is unfulfilled, prehistoric, archaeological, discontinuous and unconscious, whose distance is no less porteur of a demand for translatability (Ubersetzbarkeit).

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Author Biography

Francisco Naishtat

Doutor em Filosofia pela Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). Professor da Facultad de Ciencias Sociales da UBA. Pesquisador do Conicet. Autor, entre outros livros, de L’action et le langage. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2010. 

References

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Published

2021-12-24

How to Cite

Naishtat, F. . (2021). The Angel of prehistory: anachronism, discontinuity and trace in the unconscious facies of history. ArtCultura, 23(43), 95–105. https://doi.org/10.14393/artc-v23-n43-2021-64085

Issue

Section

Dossier: History & anachronism – Part I – International