PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

It is believed to be common knowledge that history (in the sense of things done, in the sense of a collective singular) is suspended, that history is doomed to remain motionless. What is more, we all – or at least many of us – tend to believe that this precisely is how it should be: history, if such thing exists at all, has to stand still. It is against this backdrop that I wish to point out that there is a cultural phenomenon we should not leave unnoticed, namely, that a new quasi-substantive philosophy of history – operating with the notions of commemoration, trauma, and the sublime – sets history into motion again. It sets history into motion by reclaiming the monstrosities of the world, that is, by compensating for the rather one-sided attention paid to language in the last decades; and it sets history into motion despite the respect it seriously pays to the primary suspension of history.