CFP: Melancholic historicity: lost pasts and past losses

Melancholic historicity: lost pasts and past losses

Organizers: Katherina Kinzel and Robert Vinkesteijn

Utrecht University, 29+30 October 2026

Conference theme

Recent reconceptualizations of historicity—most notably in the work of Walter Benjamin and related thinkers—have challenged the modern ideal of progress by foregrounding historical experiences of loss and destruction. These approaches question the assumption that history unfolds as a continuous movement in which past suffering is redeemed by future advancement. Instead of viewing the past as dead or completed, they envision the past as a site of continuous unease and questioning within the present. Forgotten, suppressed, or destroyed pasts unsettle present self-understandings and expose their complicity in the ongoing reproduction of loss.  

This conference explores the question what a “melancholic” conception of historicity that is oriented around experiences of loss, destruction and defeat looks like. What does it mean to think historically from a standpoint that refuses to forget or “accept” historical losses, that interrupts linear temporality and breaks with the perpetuation of historical violence in the present. What is the political valence of different attempts at confronting historical loss? What constitutes a philosophically fruitful attitude to lost pasts (the pasts that have been forgotten or suppressed) and past losses (past experiences of loss, injustice and defeat) that are haunting the present?

Topics of interest

We invite papers (from junior and senior scholars) relating to this theme from a range of different perspectives and disciplines. We are interested in (post-)colonial perspectives on loss; in theoretical reflections on displacement and genocide, in accounts of ecological loss and destruction; in psychoanalytic discussions of (historical) mourning and melancholia, as well as in broader questions pertaining to historicity (including interpretations of Walter Benjamin and critiques of progress), the affective dimension of historicity and remembrance, and its (political) significance in the present.

Abstract submission

Please send an abstract of maximum 500 words to [email protected], the deadline for abstracts is Saturday 28 February 2026. We cover travel within Europe, as well as accomodation in Utrecht for three nights. If you have further questions about the scope and topic of this CFP, do not hesitate to get in touch.