What Could History Have Been?
Imagining new approaches to the humanities
“What could history have been?” The question asks how events might have turned out otherwise, if only X had happened instead of Y. What if JFK hadn’t been assassinated? What if Hitler had? The official term for this kind of what-if thinking is “counterfactual history,” and it covers anything from ...
Voting Rights, Olympics Commentary, and Think Tanks
Past Present Episode 47
Agnes Heller Awarded Second Annual Courage in Public Scholarship Award
Remembering Jerome Bruner
Jerome Bruner, the George Herbert Meade Professor of Psychology at the New School for Social Research from 1981 until 1991, died June 5th at the age of 100. Jerry spent his century engaged in life fully. Not only was he one of the most influential figures in psychology, ...
Democracy Then and Now
Gianni Vattimo Interview
Gianni Vattimo is considered to be among the most important living European philosophers, alongside Charles Taylor, and Jürgen Habermas. Known for his interpretation of Nietzsche's and Heidegger's philosophies, he also developed a postmodern theory he calls "weak thought," meant to question the hard objectivity of claims in religion, politics, and ...