ABSTRACT

The concept of experiential history challenges us to examine assumptions involved in historical work generally, and particularly underlying the notion of experience. Historians and psychoanalysts both seek understanding of experience, while philosophers ask what the process of understanding involves. Already involved in a multidisciplinary task, we find ourselves faced with historical burdens, etymological hints, and psychoanalytic enigmas interrogating any assumptions we bring to our search for more adequate concepts. This study takes up the idea of experiential history, one that crosses disciplinary boundaries, to ask what it may contribute both to understanding the “dark times,” as well as to social justice now and ethical response in the future.