Alun Munslow (1947–2019) was a British

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

known for his

deconstructionist The term deconstruction refers to approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. It was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who defined it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of "true" forms and essences w ...

and

postmodernist Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...

approach to

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...

. He was Professor Emeritus of History and Historical Theory at

Staffordshire University , mottoeng = Dare to know , type = Public , endowment = £70 million (2015) , administrative_staff = 1,375 , chancellor = Francis Fitzherbert, 15th Baron Stafford , vice_chancellor = Professor Martin Jones , ...

. He was also Visiting Professor at the University of Chichester. His argument is that prior to engaging with the past historians need to acknowledge that the past and history do not share the same ontic and epistemic space. He suggests that the past is the time before our perpetual present and 'history' is that range of authored narratives we substitute for it. Munslow suggests that the consequences of this argument are substantial and not the least among them being the situation that we can only engage with the aesthetics of 'historying' because we cannot access the ontic and epistemic nature of the past. The way to avoid that situation is to fuse – or as he argues - the historian should not (con)fuse the past with history. The past is the 'before now' and the past cannot anticipate the future. He accepts that this may seem ironic – and happily it is – the reason being that history is a singularly unprivileged authorial act undertaken in the perpetual present about the ineffable past. He is the author of a number of texts on the philosophy of history including 'Discourse and Culture: The Creation of America, 1870-1920' (1992), 'Deconstructing History' (1997), 'The New History' (2003), 'Narrative and History' (2007, Second Edition 2018), 'The Future of History' (2010), 'A History of History' (2012) and 'Authoring the Past' (2013). He was the UK Founding Co-Editor of the journal 'Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice' relinquishing its UK Editorship in 2017.

References

Historiographers Philosophers of history Postmodernists Living people British historians 20th-century British philosophers Academics of Staffordshire University 1947 births {{postmodernism-stub