The Journal for the History of Knowledge has a new special issue: “Entangled temporalities”. In the introduction, the editors Hansun Hsiung, Laetitia Lenel and Anna-Maria Meister discuss knowledge production as the negotiation of entangled temporalities embedded in the materials, methods, and institutions of a variety of incongruous practitioners. They write:

“We begin by exploring the reasons for the rise of temporal multiplicity as a thematic focal point in recent scholarship. From here, we proceed to show what studying entangled temporalities can offer histories of knowledge. First, it enables historians to trace affective and material connections in ways that break with accepted geographies, periodizations, and disciplinary borders. From medieval South Asia to modern-day Siberia, temporal negotiation seems prompted by anxieties over the loss of knowledge and the search for permanence; by the maintenance or foreclosure of bonds of empathy; and by the divergent and occasionally conflicting affordances of artifacts that configure and manipulate time. Second, a focus on temporal entanglements also challenges established conventions and practices of historiography, opening a pathway of reflexivity for historians to write in alternative ways.”

The issue is available open access: https://journalhistoryknowledge.org/article/view/17017