This site uses cookies. Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site, while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used. For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
Cookie settings
Arco voltaico
doy fe sin pronunciarme sobre el contenido del documento

Glossary entry

Spanish term or phrase:

historicidad presentista

English translation:

present-minded view of historical truth

Added to glossary by David Ronder
Dec 8, 2009 22:45
14 yrs ago
Spanish term

historicidad presentista

Spanish to English Social Sciences Government / Politics
I can't seem to find a stisfactory rendition for this:

"...vivimos en un régimen de **historicidad presentista** (el presente domina al pasado y al futuro en las relaciones sociales con el tiempo)..."

Thanks in advance!
Proposed translations (English)
3 +2 present-minded view of historical truth
3 +4 present-day dominated historicity
4 +2 fixation on the present
3 the present taints our view of our past and future (history)
3 ever-present system of historicity/historical authenticity
References
Encontré estas cositas, por si te sirven
Change log

Dec 13, 2009 09:12: David Ronder Created KOG entry

Discussion

Christine Walsh (asker) Dec 10, 2009:
Thanks again, David. I feel I've got the idea now.
David Ronder Dec 10, 2009:
Right idea I think 'swayed by the present' is the right idea, as this is all about viewing the past too much through present day spectacles, but for me it's too gentle a phrase, with too much motion in it. You need something crisper, more categorical and typical of historical discourse.
Christine Walsh (asker) Dec 10, 2009:
Thanks, James! Actually I was thinking of 'historicity/historical truth' swayed by the present, but I obviously didn't make myself clear. It's the 'presentista' part that I'm finding difficult. I hope to consult the author tomorrow, but as she is Uruguayan, has a French PhD and works in in a Mexican university I don't really know how much English she knows. At the moment I'm reading some 'official' translations of Pierre Nora's theories into English.
James A. Walsh Dec 9, 2009:
For what it's worth... Hi Christine,
I'm of the opinion that 'historicidad presentista' is a highly technical term, that really is very specifically placed, and that cannot be ignored. I could be wrong, but I don't see why they would have used such terminology if they didn't intend its full impact. I think it is very much delving into psychology, as well as history.
Based on that, I can’t really support your suggestion of: '...swayed by the present', as it doesn’t really implicate the past at all; which I think is important in this context. I really feel ‘historicity’ has a place here...
Christine Walsh (asker) Dec 9, 2009:
Thanks to all for your great input. I'd like to run something past you: any opinions on turning the sentence around and ending it:'...swayed by the present'? Actually, I thought I'd posted this last night, but I was very sleepy and must have forgotten to click 'submit'.
David Ronder Dec 9, 2009:
I meant truth not tuth!
David Ronder Dec 9, 2009:
historicity I beg to differ with the 'specific meaning' for this term given by Patricia in her agree with Muriel. Oxford gives it as 'historical authenticity - e.g. the historicity of bible narrative' and Chambers (close to my heart as an Edinburgh-trained historian) as 'historical tuth or actuality'. Either way, we don't use it much and I think it's worth thinking of an alternative.

Proposed translations

+2
32 mins
Selected

present-minded view of historical truth

i.e. the régime's view of the past and the reality of what happened is unduly influenced by present considerations - it has no time for 'historical truth' as such

So: "we live in a régime with a (very) present-minded view of historical truth..."

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 16 hrs (2009-12-09 14:45:54 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Some references to 'present-minded' history:

The making of modern Irish history: revisionism and the ... - Google Books Resultby David George Boyce, Alan O'Day - 1996 - History - 245 pages
... who argued against those ideas which did not appeal to the 'present minded', ... What appears, or what has been taken, as unique to Irish history turns ...
books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=041509819X...

whig historuIn his short book The Whig Interpretation of History (1931), he complained about historians who wrote 'present-minded' history and, in so doing, ...
www.history-ontheweb.co.uk/concepts/whighistory53.htm - Cached - Similar

Presentism - Concerns Of HistoryThe time of history, previously conceived in light of the adaptation of the ... A present-minded perspective serves the needs of a consumer-oriented mass ...
science.jrank.org/pages/.../Presentism-Concerns-History.html - Cached - Similar

World History Connected | Vol. 4 No. 1 |David M. Fahey: Religion ...As I have already suggested, world history is a present-minded field. Fear of Islam has shaken confidence in the secularization model. ...
www.historycooperative.org/journals/whc/4.1/fahey.html - Similar
by DM Fahey





--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 18 hrs (2009-12-09 17:18:24 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

This is - I hope! - the live version of that link on Irish history:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XE-GM39ifCcC&pg=PA216&lpg...


Note from asker:
Thanks for the great references, David. I'll be reading them very carefully this evening.
Peer comment(s):
agree Evans (X) : I think this works. (I share your fondness for Chambers, I worked as an editor and translator for their Edinburgh office on several Chambers, Harraps and Larousse dictionaries many years ago.)
12 hrs
Thanks very much, Gilla - and lucky you!
agree Charles Davis : This question was before my time, but I have just been wondering how to render "evitar una interpretación presentista" and "present-minded" is just right. Thank you very much! (PS. It hadn't struck me before, but "historicidad" is a false friend.)
2429 days
Thanks, Charles, and glad to be of help. I'd completely forgotten about this one. I think you're right about 'historicidad' being a false friend.
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks again, David. Your references were particularly helpful"
+2
7 mins

fixation on the present

I don't think you can translate this literally.
Note from asker:
Thanks, Phil
Peer comment(s):
agree coolbrowne : Great solution for a horrible original!
11 mins
Thank you!
neutral James A. Walsh : I think the message is trying to highlight the fact that the past haunts the present so much, that it has rendered those living in “the present” incapable of understanding both the past and the future. That’s not what your message conveys.
30 mins
No, quite the opposite. It says "el presente domina el pasado".
agree Emma Ratcliffe
48 mins
Thanks Emma.
Something went wrong...
+4
8 mins

present-day dominated historicity

An idea, to start the ball rolling.
Note from asker:
Thanks, Muriel!
Peer comment(s):
agree Patricia Rosas : I think it's important to keep "historicity" since it has such a specific meaning: condition of being placed in the stream of historical developments; also : a result of such placement. And I also think that it should be present-day-dominated
25 mins
Thanks, Patti!
agree jacana54 (X) : I'm learning from you, Muriel, but I did some research and I think you're right, and so is Patricia.
2 hrs
That's very kind of you, Lucia! Patricia is good, too!!
agree Marcelo González : I agree with Patricia.
3 hrs
Thanks, Marcelo!
agree twiginbeak : I agree with Patricia that it's important to keep "historicity", and I believe that "present-day dominated" captures the meaning precisely.
1 day 3 hrs
Thanks!
Something went wrong...
9 mins

the present taints our view of our past and future (history)

x
Note from asker:
Thanks, Claudia
Something went wrong...
18 mins
Spanish term (edited): régimen de historicidad presentista

ever-present system of historicity/historical authenticity

My understanding of it.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 28 mins (2009-12-08 23:13:56 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

"Omnipresent system of historicity/historical authenticity" might work too...
Note from asker:
Thanks for your help, James
Something went wrong...

Reference comments

2 hrs
Reference:

Encontré estas cositas, por si te sirven

"Pierre Nora points out that until the advent of television, history was located exclusively in the past, and historians only studied the past. Nowadays, the possibility of viewing news "as it happens" has created an un precedentes sense of of the historicity of the present..."
New Novel, New Wave, New Politics: Fiction and the Representation of History. Lynn A. Higgins. En Google books.

"Historicity in philosophy is the underlying concept of history, or the intersection of teleology (the concept and study of progress and purpose) temporality (the concept of time) and historiography (semiotics and history of history). Varying conceptualizations of historicity emphasize linear progress or the repetition or modulation of past events."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_(philosophy)
Something went wrong...
Close search
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search