‘I place form before content’ – an interview in 2009 with Alun Munslow

ABSTRACT

The following interview with the former editor-in-chief of Rethinking History, the recently deceased Professor Alun Munslow was published in Hungarian in the Hungarian historical journal Aetas in 2009. In the interview Professor Munslow discusses his family background, his career, scholarly and educational/teaching experiences, the birth and concept of the journal Rethinking History, his ‘scientific’ credo, futures plans, and so on. As far as the author of these present lines (and the interviewer) knows, Professor Alun Munslow never gave an interview in English (2011), and the original text of this discussion will help get to know him and his ideas a little bit better. The text likewise serves to commemorate him as one of the ‘founding fathers’ of Rethinking History. It is also relevant given the fact that Professor Munslow regarded the interview as a highly significant genre, a kind of ‘ego-history’, in which historians can even better position themselves and their approach to history.

KEYWORDS:

• Alun Munslow
• rethinking history
• postmodernism
• form before content
• ethical choice
• biography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Munslow (2009, 190–198).

2. In this sense Professor Munslow instigated the author of the present lines to also conduct and publish an interview with Ewa Domanska, whose theory about history was close to Munslow’s ideas and with whom he collaborated in several undertakings. See Erős (2011, 419–430).

3. Jenkins (2008, 433–436).

4. As mentioned earlier the interview was conducted in 2009, so the data and answer given by Professor Munslow reflects his intentions then.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vilmos Erős

Vilmos Erős is an Associate Professor at the University of Debrecen (Historical Institute), where he teaches Hungarian and European historiography, Theory of History and History of Political Ideas. Recently he wrote a general historiographical synthesis (2015, in Hungarian) and now he is working on a summary about Hungarian historical writing (in English).