The economist Jens Beckert recently stated that "the future matters". With this sentence, Beckert emphasized the assumption that fictional expectations of the future are decisive for explaining certain patterns of action in all areas of the economy; not only the past is relevant for explaining social action, but also the ideas of the future. In historical studies, Reinhart Kosselleck had already made the future a subject early on, which Lucien Hölscher in particular has recently followed up on. Together, we would like to discuss and explore the extent to which the "imagined futures" approach, like Anderson's "imagined communities", can perhaps be fruitful for the historical sciences.
The workshop "Imagined Futures in the Early 20th Century" is dedicated to the role of visions of the future and scientific prognoses in various social or political utopias at the turn of the 20th century. The aim is to explore the cognitive potential of a historicization of past futures and to deal with the associated methodological challenges.
The workshop would like to approach this complex along two analytical axes. On the one hand, it will ask how the future was negotiated in utopias from different social and political contexts - such as socialism, fascism, Zionism, eugenics, but also colonial and postcolonial approaches. In , the extent to which certain expectations of the future became guiding principles for the actions of specific actors will be discussed. Theoretical and methodological reflections on the future and temporality are also welcome.
We invite scientists to submit their work on the following topics:
1. Past futures and their interpretation: analyses of past futures in areas such as politics, science and architecture and their significance for the understanding of the past present. What interpretation of the present shaped the ideas of the future? What understanding of time were they based on? To what extent did future concepts influence scientific, social and political actions?
2. Forecasts and their effect on social and political actions: How did predictions of the future influence concrete plans for the future or social practice and political actions in the past, and what impact did these have on future developments?
3. Future and Temporality: Theoretical and Methodological Reflections on the Conceptualization of Time and Future in Historical Studies.
The workshop will take place as an online event and is aimed at young researchers in history and related disciplines who are concerned with questions of the future, time and historical perspectives on the future. We encourage interdisciplinary contributions and creative approaches to the topic.
Submission of abstracts:
Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words and a short CV to Florian Gregor (florian.gregor@fernuni-hagen.de ) and Lisa Weber (lisa.weber@fernuni-hagen.de) by March 15, 2025.