Europe is now in a state of change and in a crisis such as has not been known since Charlemagne . This is not a quote from an EU politician negotiating a treaty, but from Leibniz’s comments on the Nordic War of 1712. Reinhard Koselleck points out in his essay on crisis that it is through Leibniz that the concept has entered the area of philosophy of history, hence opening the category, until then mostly used in medicine and jurisprudence, to different interpretations and definitions. Crisis is, therefore, both a metaphor and a discipline-bound category with a specific meaning.
The medical concept of crisis is that of a tipping point at which the patient either recovers or worsens. This conception of crisis, then, contains both a temporal aspect and a call for discerning, decisive judgement. Is it the case that a sense of crisis calls out for historians to act as doctors, diagnosing the ills of our world? How does this sense of crisis change the way we think about the times we live in, the past that shaped them, and the future to come? What understanding of normal times is it that the crisis interrupts?
Today, surrounded by widespread use of this term in a variety of contexts, when we hear much about the pandemic, about economic, public and health crises, we propose a step back in order to take a look at the possible meanings of the term and its temporalities. How does its contemporary use help or hinder our understanding of historical events? How is our conception of time and history shaped by, and in, exceptional times? Does history have a special role to play when the old order seems to have reached a point of crisis? How does history serve as a tool or a metaphor to investigate pre-crisis pasts and post-crisis futures?
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