Critique of history, emancipatory policy and postmodern moralities: the work of Keith Jenkins

Abstract

Keith Jenkins is one of the most famous postmodern thinkers in the field of Western historiographical reflection. Without doubt, along with Hayden White and Frank R. Ankersmit, constitute the most influential trio of current postmodern historiography.We will present in this paper the evolution of Jenkins’ work from what we may call a radical critique of academic historiography to what we consider a real dislike to the form of thinking about the past, as it is conceived, practiced and used nowadays. We divided this article in two sections to accommodate our insight to these two key moments in the development of his theory and his work: the moment of the diffusion of postmodern critique to historiography and the time of the expulsion of the historiography of any emancipated political project.