사상사-역사이론] “슈뢰딩거의 클레오파트라?” 디지털과 아날로그 사이 경계에 선 한국서양사학 - 2019~2020년 역사이론과 사상사 분야 회고와 전망 -

Abstract

This article purports to be an interpretative survey to articulate the issues and trends dominating the historiography of history of ideas and historical theories between 2019 and 2020, in the fields of European and American history in Korea. I argue that during the last two years the Korean scholarship paradoxically faces a promising present and an uncertain future at the same time. On the one hand, it achieves remarkable success featuring incessant innovativeness in terms of theory and methodology. The research output that it has produced in the Korean context reaches to the level comparable to that of the disciplinary peers in the international scholarship, even though most of its contributions still lack visibility and global contextualization in the international community of historians. On the other hand, I also argue that the scholarship faces challenges of “Schrödingers Kleopatra ” as well, in that the ongoing “digital turn” in the relevant fields makes its traditional theory and methodology based on causality and chronology increasingly outdated. Finally, I conclude that while the recent move to “Simulation History” certainly seems to promise a rosy future with new methodological innovations, its expected outcome, “Schrödingers Kleopatra” still remains controversial, in that it might completely shake up the established rule of causality in the historians’ craft.