Introduction: Notes from a Bunker

Abstract

The past is absent. We think about it incessantly, write about it as if our life depended on it, get very excited about it, even obsess about it, but no matter how much we (as academics) would like it (or sometimes need it) to be otherwise, the past is not a foreign country where they do things differently, a place we could potentially visit and explore if only we could hit upon the right methodological approach. It is more like a long-lost city, existing only in stories. We sometimes manipul...