Abstract
This article outlines some new temporal perspectives in historical studies. The first part deals with the dominant view of the relation between past and present within traditional historiography, in which the past is made absent, distant, or detached from the present. Gabrielle Spiegel's allusion to the historian as autopsist is seen as a manifestation of this view, echoing Michel de Certeau's claim that history articulates the conceptual border between the living and the dead. The second part is a discussion of the Austrian-born and Auschwitz survivor Jean Améry's refusal to let go of the past. It is argued that Améry reveals the 'chrononormativity' (Freeman) of historical time. He uncovers how prevailing conceptions of time structure our historical thinking: What can we not account for within an established regime of historicity? The haunting memories of victims have initiated a questioning of linear time as the natural medium for historians. The third part of the article discusses this questioning as part of a more general refiguration of the relation between past and present occurring in historical thinking today, exemplified by Berber Bevernage and others, who try to rework the conceptual space of temporality in historiography in favor of a plurality of non-synchronous and conflicting temporal modes, albeit one that does not fall back upon metaphysical notions of historical reality.