Alun munslow biography of william
Biography and history: criticism, theory and practice....
Alun Munslow
British historian
Alun Munslow (1947–2019) was a British historian known for his deconstructionist and postmodernist approach to historiography.
He was Professor Emeritus of History and Historical Theory at Staffordshire University.
A few weeks before his passing, Alun wrote to me that he had finished a new book on the aesthetics of history, his first in five years.
He was also Visiting Professor at the University of Chichester. His argument is that prior to engaging with the past historians need to acknowledge that the past and history do not share the same ontic and epistemic space.
He suggests that the past is the time before our perpetual present and 'history' is that range of authored narratives we substitute for it. Munslow suggests that the consequences of this argument are substantial and not the least among them being the situation that we can only engage with the aesthetics of 'historying' because we cannot access the ontic and epistemic nature of the past.
The way to avoid that situation is to fuse – or as he argues - the historian should not (con)fuse the past with history. The past is