As an outgrowth of his current research on changing concepts of history from the Renaissance to the present, Prof. Nicholas Halmi, Margaret Candfield Fellow in English, invited four distinguished scholars from various disciplines, the philosopher Jeffrey Andrew Barash, the historians François Hartog and Stefanos Geroulanos, and the sociologist Hartmut Rosa, to participate in an online seminar series on ‘Historical Anxiety’. The premise of the series was that we live in a time of acute historical anxiety, manifested in ambivalence about the past, a disorientating sense of ever-accelerating change, and the fear of an unpredictable and uncontrollable future. One point emphasised by the speakers was the need to recognise multiple ways of understanding and experiencing time and history, for without this recognition we cannot create viable alternatives to an ecologically and psychically destructive temporal regime, the dominant one in the ‘developed’ world, based on endless technological and social acceleration.

Sponsored by Univ and hosted by The Philosopher, a public philosophy journal, ‘Historical Anxiety’ was livestreamed on Zoom between 20 January and 10 February 2025.

All four sessions are now available on YouTube below.

Published: 13 February 2025

Explore Univ on social media