Removal of History

In regarding history as a concept, the foundation of both the critical and the cultural historian relies on the metaphor selected to order the world. The acquisition of knowledge by inquiry, as in the Greek “historia”, is related to the Latin “videre” ( to see), and develops an historical sense which includes the perception of the past, the present, and the future simultaneously. These relationships of time usually move either horizontally as a chronological time line with clear regulations and overlaps; or vertically with the direct impact of a cut or incision that both divides and links at the same time. A ruin is a state of time where, for a moment, all three tenses collide as the past and the future crash into the present. In a ruin both the productions and the destructions of history reveal themselves as an opportunity to recognize the significance and signatures of events and the boundaries enclosing them.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.Intl.1995.27

Volume Editors
John K. Edwards